of. Put in other terms, awareness cannot – in principle – be
seen as the property or product of anything we are aware of
(including the human body and brain). Just as space cannot
- in principle – be seen as something bounded by or
‘produced’ by any body in it, nor can awareness be seen as
something bounded by or produced by bodies in space.
Space itself is nothing ‘objective’ but the field or horizon of
subjective awareness itself – unbounded by any phenomena
we are aware of within it.
This principle, in a nutshell, is what I call ‘The
Awareness Principle’. The reason its radical and
fundamental truth continues to be ignored is that
‘subjectivity’, ‘consciousness’ or ‘awareness’ has always
been seen in Western culture and philosophy as the private
property of separate, point-like human ‘subjects’ or ‘egos’,
themselves bounded by the body or even mysteriously
localised in the brain. Modern science is precisely a
materialism of the sort that reduces even the human body
and brain to mere perceptual objects, and then finds itself in
the impossible situation of having to explain how such
objects can miraculously give rise to subjective awareness.
In this science of the human body there is no place for the
human being, who is reduced to a phantom of the brain, a
homunculus looking out at the world through the
peepholes of the senses.