Is Consciousness Reality?
Do we experience reality or do we create reality? Even if we have not asked the question like this before, at some point in our day-to-day life, we have thought of it and asked this question. There’s a quote in the Bible that says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”
In the 17th century, French philosopher René Descartes proposed an idea of consciousness that can help us understand the concept. He said, “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes believed that doubting your own existence proves you are thinking, hence a conscious mind must exist.
This idea created what is known in philosophy as the mind-body problem, a dualistic philosophy that centers on understanding how immaterial thoughts and feelings can interact with the material world, or whether they are ultimately physical phenomena.
I think it is from this lens that some philosophers have argued that consciousness is more fundamental than matter, and that reality is essentially mental.
If this is true, our experience of reality is owing to our stream of consciousness. And indeed, we are not far from what we think. Or our reality is what our consciousness makes of it.
This is a part of a series exploring The Concept of Consciousness.
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