IS IT AND... Consciousness
The 'Hard Problem of Consciousness' is not as hard as it seems once you understand its true meaning relative to Awareness and the ISIT Construct.
IS IT AND… Consciousness
Awareness, Consciousness, and the ISIT Construct
The so‑called Hard Problem of Consciousness has become a kind of intellectual tar pit. Some of the brightest scientists, philosophers, and technologists alive today circle it endlessly, fully aware that something is missing, yet unable to name what that missing piece actually is. The problem feels intractable not because consciousness is uniquely mysterious, but because it is being framed incorrectly from the start.
I believe the confusion dissolves once a single, critical distinction is made—one that is almost universally overlooked. The distinction between awareness and consciousness. Until those two concepts are cleanly separated, even our most sophisticated thinking will continue to chase its own tail, mistaking symptoms for causes and derivatives for fundamentals.
At the heart of this discussion is a distinction that I believe is both critical and largely missing from contemporary discourse: the distinction between awareness and consciousness. In most philosophical, spiritual, and scientific conversations, these two words are used interchangeably. I believe that single semantic collapse is responsible for a tremendous amount of unnecessary confusion.
Awareness vs. Consciousness
Within the ISIT framework, this distinction maps cleanly and precisely onto the prime duality of IS and IT.
The definitions I am proposing are straightforward, but their implications are profound.
Awareness refers to the free‑floating experience of being. It is not tied to any particular form, identity, or boundary. It is somewhat reminiscent of concepts like umwelt, but even that framing is still derivative. Ultimately, awareness cannot be defined in terms of anything else—it can only be defined in terms of itself.
When we attempt to define awareness, we quickly run into a dead end—not because it is vague, but because it is irreducible. Awareness does not consist of properties, layers, or mechanisms. It does not become something else when examined.
Any attempt to describe it ultimately folds back on itself: awareness of awareness of awareness, endlessly. This infinite recursion is not a flaw in the description; it is the description. Awareness refers only to itself.
Consciousness, by contrast, is instantiated awareness. Consciousness arises when awareness is localized, bounded, and embedded within a form. With consciousness comes differentiation: awareness of a body, awareness of circumstances, awareness of being a discrete unit amid countless other discrete units.
In short:
Awareness is undifferentiated.
Consciousness is differentiated.
By definition, they are not the same thing.
A Useful Clue from Etymology
Even the history of language points us in this direction. The word conscious traces back to the Proto‑Indo‑European root skei‑, meaning to cut, split, or separate. From this came the Latin scīre, meaning to know—because to know is to distinguish one thing from another.
Much later, during the Scientific Revolution, conscious was repurposed to describe self‑awareness: awareness of oneself or one’s actions. Embedded right there in the word is the idea of separation, distinction, and differentiation.
Awareness, on the other hand, carries no such implication.
Resolving a Long‑Standing Paradox
Failing to distinguish between awareness and consciousness leads directly to one of philosophy’s most persistent confusions:
“Consciousness is the primordial substrate of reality.”
“Consciousness is emergent and arises from physical systems.”
These statements appear contradictory only because the same word is being used to describe two fundamentally different things.
Once the distinction is made, the paradox evaporates.
Awareness is the primordial substrate of reality.
Consciousness is an emergent construct that arises when awareness is encapsulated within physical systems.
Accordingly:
Awareness is an absolute concept.
Consciousness is a relative concept.
Consciousness exists on a spectrum, and its degree is a function of the complexity of the system through which awareness is expressed.
Consciousness as a Spectrum
Viewed this way, the hierarchy becomes intuitive rather than mystical.
An insect has more consciousness than a plant. A rodent has more consciousness than an insect. A dog has more consciousness than a rodent. A human has more consciousness than a dog.
And by extension, it is entirely reasonable to imagine that systems more complex than individual humans—such as our global civilization, composed of billions of humans, machines, and institutions operating in coordination—could possess an even higher degree of consciousness.
Taken seriously, this framework leads to an uncomfortable but unavoidable implication: your liver has its own form of consciousness. So do individual cells, and even the molecules that compose them.
Is this the same kind of consciousness you experience as a human being? Of course not. But the closer two systems are in structure and complexity, the easier it becomes for them to relate to one another’s conscious experience.
An Analogy: Awareness as Fuel
Think of awareness as fuel—like gasoline.
A few drops in a toy truck allow it to roll in small circles. A few gallons in a car enable road trips, errands, and adventures. Massive quantities powering an industrial system allow entire economies to function and evolve.
The nature of the fuel is the same in every case. What changes is the complexity of the machine it animates.
Awareness is the fuel. Consciousness is what that fuel produces when it animates a particular physical substrate.
Consciousness Is Not Fundamental
This distinction also clarifies famous philosophical claims, such as Max Planck’s assertion:
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness.”
While Planck is correct in arguing that matter is derivative from consciousness, I would argue that this statement locks in the very conflation we are trying to undo. We can get behind consciousness—by going one layer deeper. Consciousness is derivative of awareness.
Consciousness is not fundamental. Awareness is.
And as many who have had profound psychedelic or mystical experiences discover firsthand, the only way to approach pure awareness is to drop every attachment to individual consciousness.
The Hard Problem Isn’t a Problem
This distinction reframes the so‑called “hard problem of consciousness” entirely.
If consciousness is derivative and awareness is absolute and ineffable, then it follows that no amount of conceptual reasoning can ever fully comprehend it. Finite consciousness cannot wrap itself around the Infinite.
You cannot square the circle. You cannot put God in a box.
The belief that we should be able to do so is not insight—it is delusion.
Much of our frustration with philosophy arises from the unconscious demand that it deliver the ultimate answer to everything. But philosophy’s true value lies elsewhere: in helping us accept that some things are fundamentally beyond comprehension.
The Infinite Game
Does this mean creation is pointless? Or that the Creator is careless or cruel?
I think the opposite is true.
What looks like a cruel trick from one perspective looks like sheer brilliance from another. Reality is an infinite game—one with no final solution, no ultimate winner, and endless ways to play.
There are infinite ways to score points. Infinite ways to level up. Infinite ways to explore, create, love, and share experience.
Our frustration comes from treating an infinite game as though it were a finite one.
Two Orientations Toward Reality
This is where reactions tend to split.
Some people are deeply attached to definitive answers that line up neatly in columns and rows—cross‑referenced, complete, and final. Others are more inclined simply to be, to accept mystery not as a failure of understanding but as an essential feature of existence.
Those in the latter camp often intuit something quietly radical: that they are not merely participants in reality, but expressions of the very thing they are trying to understand.
And that, eventually, once the attachments of limited consciousness fall away, they will experience that truth directly.
What Comes Next
This essay only scratches the surface. My broader project is to develop a coherent model of reality that helps people grasp these ideas, find peace with them, and coordinate around them—without promising an ultimate answer that cannot exist.
Beyond philosophy, this model extends into socioeconomics, coordination, and post‑labor systems designed to support a more humane and sustainable civilization.
If that sounds ambitious, it is. But clarity begins with distinction—and few distinctions matter more than the one between awareness and consciousness.
Once that line is drawn, much of the fog lifts.