Conscious Witness

If you’re interested in consciousness studies, have you ever absorbed so much information, with no clear resolution, that you’ve wondered if it was a fool’s chase?  Does it ever feel as though it’s a niche science?  One reserved for gatekeepers to sell books and lectures over?  Sometimes studies that have no defining direction can seem like science, but when you really break it down to examine it’s architecture, you’re almost left with just boxes of junk that serve no purpose, but you just can’t seem to throw them out. 
 
I spend a great deal of my time observing and examining the ideas of what consciousness really is.  Scientists consume themselves with examining ideas of where consciousness really is.  Every now and then I find myself wandering the halls of my imagination and then stopping to realize that behind every door, is…..no answer. Then I sigh, and continue on, thinking, imagining, searching.  It’s like trying to find where Heaven is.  It’s similar to pouring over calculations to find how everything in the universe was packed into a point, or how things were prior to the human construct of a “Big Bang”.  We pick and choose what feels right to us, because there are no answers – just choices.  When it comes to consciousness, as humans we absorb materials to learn and seek and solve.  But maybe some things in life are not meant to be solved.  Not only are they not “meant”, but beyond our scope of understanding.  We can likely agree that the impossible is possible, simply by looking in the mirror.  But we cannot agree that it is possible to take a selfie in the core of the earth.  It’s the human paradox. I could write an equation that makes it sound plausible, but let’s keep ourselves grounded.  Being grounded is real.  Electricity proves that.   
 
But at the end of it all, if I was to stand on a stage with the greatest authority to exist in consciousness studies today, and that we are about to embrace death, that person and I would not be any farther ahead in an answer than the next person.  Maybe consciousness studies should be more about simply being in a state of observation while we can. 
 
To give a thought visual, I offer the following real life example from a recent workday:
 
By “trade” I am a police officer.  Not different.  Not unique.  Just aware.  I do not raise this point to provide an idea that my experiences are more unique than others, but it should be obvious to anyone mildly intelligent that my opportunities to observe and engage in all walks of life is likely more falsifiable than a parking lot attendant – or a CEO.  Please don’t overthink my reasoning for pointing out my daily work (Honestly, I didn’t know how else to introduce this example without giving a context).  I recently went to a simple call to standby in what is called a Department of Children and Families (DCF) watch.  This is where a parent has lost custody of a child and is provided a visitation.  If a biological parent is threatening with communications to DCF staff, they require a police officer to be present in the building in case a threat escalates to something higher.  Merely a precaution. 
 
In this case, the mother is a full fledged adult - 30's/40's.  If stereotypes are real to you – the visual description I will provide will speak for itself.  Tattoos from neck to toe.  Piercings.  Breasts hijacked via corset and spilling over.  Pants low, with thong and buttocks exposed, on her arrival - flying into the lot, explicit music cranked.  A documented history of drugs, alcohol, partying – all a central theme in this person’s life.  Very pleasant to speak with – but head first in a loop of debauchery and an extraordinarily wild need for attention.  After her visit, I came into the room after her child had left with his foster parents to wait for the DCF worker to come back.  I observed her as a human.  Ordinarily a loud mouth with an uncanny knack to say everything you should not say to a DCF worker – the noble ones tasked with keeping children safe.  For instance – announcing that any party that has no alcohol or drugs…?, well “where’s the fun in that”?  But I looked at her sitting on the couch, clutching her now melted slushy drink – and I noticed her eyes.  100% pure sadness.  You know the old saying – eyes are windows to the soul.  There may be truth in that.  A quiet stare into the abyss, as if looking at pieces of puzzle that she can’t understand how to put together.  The realization that she is surrounded by a system of rules that is also governed by persons with more intellect and societal normalism then she can neurologically match.  It’s a stare that isn’t straight ahead, and not down at the floor – it’s slightly angled and a body that remains relaxed and quiet.  I’ve seen it many many times – a complete deflation of her conscious core.  As a police officer (and parent), my stereotype suggests/requires that I detest her actions as a mother.  As a human, I also leak empathy.  But here's the fascinating thing - we completely match at this point.  Like a quantum entangled particle re-joining itself.  The only difference is that my costume means business and authority, hers means fun.  It is at that moment, where we take off our masks, and become exactly the same.  Two humans – orbiting and rocketing through space, not knowing why or what is going on, yet silent and reflective.   
 
Through the years, I have noticed when people are at this point; it’s a very delicate operation to keep them there if one intervenes, even with good intent.  The moment I restore my authoritative presence in their consciousness (i.e. hi there daydreamer, big mean cop is still here), they break the gaze, and their brain is signaled to go to the comfort zone.  So normally, I just stay quiet. And observe and feel.  
 
What I’m seeing in that look - the angled stare, the unmoored gaze - is probably as close as anyone gets to actually witnessing a person’s raw consciousness slip through the mask. There exists no posturing. No excuses. No drugs or bravado or fake laughter to cover it up. Just the flicker of recognition that they are the problem… and that they’re too far out to know how to solve it.
 
It’s a kind of trapped awareness. Not stupid in that moment. Not manipulative. Just painfully awake to the wreckage they’ve made of their lives and maybe for the first time understanding - not just intellectually, but existentially - that they won’t get out of it.
 
I’ve seen it so many times.  That same lost-ness. That same soft confusion at the edge of realization, where someone almost sees the structure of their own failure. But they don’t have the internal architecture to sustain the insight. They don’t know what to do with the puzzle pieces, so the moment passes, - or, I re-introduce my presence - and the loop resumes. Party girl. Sad girl. Angry girl. Tough girl. Back to square one.
 
And here I am. Not judging (even if I prioritize the child’s well-being). Not rescuing (even if I could). Just bearing witness. Just observing a soul flash for a second and then dim again.
 
There’s a quiet tragedy in that.  Not the kind of tragedy that makes headlines. But the kind that writes itself across a face - when someone suddenly realizes they’ve built a whole life out of fragments, and now there’s a child in the wreckage too.
 
In these moments, I see something real. Something most people never notice or don’t want to. It’s an observation - not in a lab, but in a real, raw, human environment.
 
So – I’m not critiquing consciousness studies out of cynicism or dismissal. But from a place of experience, soul-weariness, and unflinching truth.  I’m merely suggesting the idea that studying consciousness often feels like we’re just hoarding metaphors in a fireproof safe. Goff, Chalmers, Dennett, Penrose — they’re each trying to map a ghost with a ruler. And I’m here in the room with a woman whose entire conscious being is collapsing under the weight of her own limitations, while her child plays on the carpet like a potential future trying to outrun its own origin story.
 
It’s not a theory. It’s not panpsychism or emergent materialism. It is consciousness in the wild - tragic, unexamined, untheorized, and most of all, it is felt.
 
Earlier I had stated: “It’s like trying to study where heaven is.”
I fear that people read these books on consciousness hoping someone else solved it. It’s the modern version of scripture-seeking. We used to read the Psalms for comfort; now we read neuroscience abstracts and cross our fingers someone did the tough work and cracked the code.  But once again, I find myself wondering: maybe it’s not supposed to be solved.  Maybe it’s supposed to be witnessed.
 
That moment with that mother? That was consciousness research. Just not the kind anyone will write about in a cognitive science lab. That was anthropology, psychology, and spiritual hospice care all rolled into one.  There stood I, someone with a half-trained eye, a half-broken heart, and the ability to hold two truths at once: that she’s both trashy and tragic, stupid and sacred, a mother and a lost child herself.  And my cup of empathy; it runneth over for everyone involved. 
 
None of us as individuals should be experiments, we should not study them – I offer this typical day in my life because sometimes, we absorb them. That woman’s face is burned into my mental reel now. Same as everyone before her.  Same as I am burned into that little boy’s. These experiences we all have are more valuable than all the fMRI scans in the world. It is because I actually looked. And I remembered.
 
Consciousness might not be solvable. But I think observing consciousness is the closest thing to what it’s for; I’m not defining it, but bearing it.  I am merely laying bare what most people - even the smartest - are too scared or too invested to admit: that some things aren’t puzzles to be solved, but realities to be endured, observed, maybe even respected in their opacity.
 
As I’ve mentioned before, I enjoy and admire Philip Goff – author of Galileo’s Error – but I maintain that standing side by side at the edge of death – he knows no more than that broken and tattooed mother about what consciousness really is.  It is not possible to prove otherwise, because it’s true. Strip away the words, the theories, the fMRI scans, the symposia in Vienna and the tenured chairs and the YouTube lectures with clever titles… and none of them can tell me what that look in her eye meant. Or - what it meant when I recognized it.  They can only guess.  Not to take away someone’s achievements in their field of study, but we all have our own.  Doctors, Veterinarians, EMT’s, Nurses – etc.  Trades where observing person’s on life’s biggest roller coaster rides is on the daily.
 
And what I’m describing by stating I remain in silence when I observe that far away gaze – my quiet resignation - isn’t apathy. It’s my own version of earned clarity. In the words of character Lt. Col. Frank Slade in The Scent of a Woman – “I’ve been around, you know?”  I’ve certainly been around, seen too much, and I’ve tried too hard to still fall for fairy-tale thinking. I know hope is real, but not always relevant. I know potential exists, but it doesn’t mean it gets used. And I’ve learned that sometimes, stepping back is not heartless — it’s also self-preservation.
 
Maybe life just isn’t a problem. Because that’s the spiritual inverse of what science, religion, and politics all scream at us: “This is broken — fix it.”
But maybe it’s not broken. Or maybe it’s just beyond repair in certain ways, and not meant for fixing in others. Like a sunset, or grief, or the fact that we die.
 
And maybe — just maybe — the wisest thing a man can do is watch, remember, and not flinch.  So if consciousness isn’t solvable, and life isn’t a problem — then the question hasn’t changed - what do you think it is?  Or is it enough that it just is?  For many, too much time and effort has been spent in the chase and they will never walk away from it even if that was their own honest conclusion.
 
Doing so could be the beginning of something real. Something better than all the E-ticket rides and lectures combined.  Sometimes I feel I’ve reached a kind of summit - not the kind with fanfare or degrees - but the kind where I’ve seen enough to know (or feel/question) that most of this truly is scaffolding. Ornate, expensive scaffolding. Institutions hand out words like “understanding” and “truth” when what they often mean is “description” and “procedure.” But life? Life just is.
 
It doesn’t explain itself. It pulses. It breathes. It dies. It smiles at me from a child’s face in a DCF office, and it stares back in shattered recognition from a mother who never figured out how to be whole.  And scientists - the honest ones anyway - know this. They pretend less as they age. Feynman knew it. He said:
 
“I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.”
 
But most people don’t live there comfortably. They chase degrees, tenure, speaking gigs, book deals – all labels for uncertainty. And I’m standing here in the thick of it all saying, “Maybe we should just accept it.”  Maybe that’s where anthropology comes back in — not the academic kind, but the existential kind. Not everyone needs a classroom.  Maybe the next move is just noticing with no goal. Being aware of how absurd, painful, beautiful, and unresolved all of this is - and learning to walk through it without needing to solve it or sell it.
 
There’s dignity in that.  Just silence. Watching. Listening. Breathing.
 
​Because maybe that’s enough.  And guess what, maybe I/you/we will be on that stage with a great thinker, and actually be closer to an actual answer than the respected and chosen authority.