5. What is consciousness?

5.1  Consciousness appears to be an "irreducible phenomenon." What I mean is that consciousness is a "bare fact": because we experience it, we all know what "it is like" to be a conscious human being.

5.2  One way of looking at the question: Consciousness is a "sensation." Don't get too hung up on the word "sensation" -- I'm not being technical here. What I mean is simply this. Consciousness is the sensation, feeling, or act of being aware. Consciousness is the existence and experience of a perceiver. Consciousness is the representation of the universe as it appears to a localized perceiver (you or me). Consciousness is the "sense" that your brain is making of the world, the map it is continuously making of the world, your way of negotiating the world.

5.3  Consciousness is a mirror that reflects the universe back to itself, for the survival benefit of the perceiver.

5.4  Sometimes we are more conscious than other times. When we are "running on automatic," we are still survival machines, but we are not conscious in the special human sense. (See G.I. Gurdjieff, Life is Real Only Then, When I Am.)

5.5  "I" is the perceiver. But that's a riddle that bears some thinking about.