When we look at the world at the scale of QM, we’re looking at pre-cognitive reality without the benefit of the formatting by reality’s boundary administrator, our consciousness. — ucarr

Why should this be the case? On the one hand, you seem to be presenting a metaphysics of consciousness as a natural feature of reality. But then you seem to fall back on a more anthropomorphic interpretation.

Perhaps consciousness does exemplify an "executive" function (oversees boundary negotiations). But another way to phrase it would be that it is a "function of" those operations.

Why should this be the case? On the one hand, you seem to be presenting a metaphysics of consciousness as a natural feature of reality. — Pantagruel

We're getting into the metaphysics of consciousness when we start examining Schrödinger's Equation and begin understanding some particulars of the propagation/collapse of the wave function.

Observation-as-measurement, i.e., consciousness, as made explicit by the differential equation, effects a transformation from superposition to decided position. So, yes, this transformation, which can be characterized as the physics of "will," is a sine qua non function of consciousness_reality.

But then you seem to fall back on a more anthropomorphic interpretation. — Pantagruel

Of course we're in the anthropomorphic zone when we examine theoretical/experimental experiences "observing" the wave function mathematically at our human scale of experience.

The central focus of this conversation is providing a definition of consciousness as a transitive agent in addition to its well-known role as a perceiver.

The purpose of the definition of consciousness as a transitive agent is to bridge the suppositional gap between QM and Newton.

Premise - Consciousness is the bridge linking QM with Newton.

If this premise is correct, then we now have a way forward in our examination of consciousness as a physical phenomenon amenable to scientific investigation.

I completely agree consciousness crosses the quantum-classical bridge; I just don't know whether it therefore builds that bridge. Certainly quantum phenomena are not a discrete and isolated realm, because they not only do manifest directly at the classical level, but are increasingly being exploited (by consciousness) in advanced technologies.

Certainly quantum phenomena are not a discrete and isolate realm, because they not only do manifest directly at the classical level... — Pantagruel

I understand you to be referring to such macro-QM effects as the tenants living atop a skyscraper aging faster than those living on the ground floor due to the time dilation of the stronger gravitational field at the skyscraper's base.

...but are increasingly being exploited (by consciousness) in advanced technologies. — Pantagruel

I'm wild-guessing the qubits of quantum computing will be manipulatable in various ways towards enhancing the power of organic consciousness: the optical systems of humans acting in concert with qubits might enable direct perception of hyper-cubic space.

By my argument above, I'm defending the notion consciousness acts as a boundary administrator in the construction process of a picture of reality composed of sub-sets ambiguously parts_gestalt.

Actually quantum phenomena are being practically harnessed at rapid rate, beginning with transistors and cascading throughout modern electronics. But also of course being increasingly recognized as operating in nature, including organic nature. Most recently, the realization that microtubules in the brain can sustain quantum states supporting Penrose's hypothesis. So I would hazard that more than just the construction of a picture of reality is going on. Constructing reality itself perhaps. However, undoubtedly constructing the picture is a significant part of that project.

...I would hazard that more than just the construction of a picture of reality is going on. Constructing reality itself perhaps. However, undoubtedly constructing the picture is a significant part of that project. — Pantagruel

You do a good job clarifying the richness of the palette of QM applications. In order to keep the scope of my focus manageable, for now I'd like to stick to consciousness as a boundary administrator in the construction process of a picture of reality composed of sub-sets ambiguously parts_gestalt.

Perhaps some justification for this particular focus gets expressed in your conjecture:

I would hazard that more than just the construction of a picture of reality is going on. Constructing reality itself perhaps. — Pantagruel

If consciousness, working in tandem with QM, constructs reality itself, that function is the role of boundary administrator writ large.

If you are suggesting that consciousness functions as an organizational principle of reality I'd agree that is evident.

If you are suggesting that consciousness functions as an organizational principle of reality I'd agree that is evident. — Pantagruel

So far, I'm suggesting that consciousness functions as an organizational principle of the representation of reality.

In turn, this representation is a construction deriving from the cognitive complex linking the senses, the brain and the mind.

I think it probable the role of consciousness regarding the organizational principles of QM_Newton is a very deep question.

The handshake between consciousness (in its formatting role as boundary administrator) and (the building blocks of) QM_Newton is presently perplexed by the boundary negotiations of consciousness regarding the hard boundaries of the particle form vis-á-vis the soft boundaries of the waveform.

I think the way consciousness variably navigates these two modes of physics lies at the heart of the HPoC. At present, we have two complex schools of thought: materialism/immaterialism. Also, of late, we have a middle zone featuring emergence_supervenience.

It might be the case that a cogent analysis of this variable navigation will shine light on what it means to "see" QM mathematically at the Newtonian scale of experience.

In turn, such cogent analysis might help answer questions pertaining to the existential status of mathematics. Is it strictly mental, or does it also inhabit the empirical realm of practical physics?

Is it strictly mental, or does it also inhabit the empirical realm of practical physics? — ucarr

To me this seems like asking the question, Is the "representation" real? It seems incontrovertibly to be so, the question being posed (by the representing faculty). Our increasing mastery of quantum phenomena being solid evidence.

Is it strictly mental, or does it also inhabit the empirical realm of practical physics? — ucarr

To me this seems like asking the question, Is the "representation" real? — Pantagruel

I'm asking if math representations have referents within the practical world of empirical physics. Since math supposedly allows us to create valid forms we cannot experience empirically, it presents as formidable evidence there is a real and immaterial realm.

It seems incontrovertibly to be so... Our increasing mastery of quantum phenomena being solid evidence. — Pantagruel

From the above I gather that you, like me, believe math inhabits the empirical realm.

Math...among other things. But are we talking about the conscious experience qua representation, or are we talking about some kind of construct - presumably a material-symbolic artefact - that instantiates or incorporates this conscious experience?

...are we talking about the conscious experience qua representation, or are we talking about some kind of construct - presumably a material-symbolic artefact - that instantiates or incorporates this conscious experience? — Pantagruel

This is a deep question. Presently, I am focusing on consciousness as a builder by way of being a boundary administrator. The boundary negotiations work towards construction of a representation of reality. Using this simple structure for my method of attack helps me keep my focus manageable.

One of the deep questions is whether reality can be experienced directly, or only indirectly through constructed representations. I suppose Kant's noumena presents an argument against the possibility of direct cognitive access to reality (things-in-themselves). I also suppose Kant harks back to Plato, who claimed our perceptions can only copy eternal forms imperfectly.

In the same vein, there is the deep question whether consciousness via the neuronal circuits of the brain is an endlessly hierarchical spiral upwards through evolving levels of cognition.

Also, there's the question whether the sweeping dynamism of an upwardly evolving spiral of memory, if it is at all physical, can be ever be examined in stasis; is the memory spiral like photons which are physical, but have no rest mass?

Presently, I am focusing on consciousness as a builder by way of being a boundary administrator. The boundary negotiations work towards construction of a representation of reality. — ucarr

Conceptually, this is cogent. But it still begs the question of the exact nature of the representation construct. I view it in light of what I'd call "constructive realism".

Conceptually, this is cogent. — Pantagruel

Thank-you.

But it still begs the question of the exact nature of the representation construct. — Pantagruel

This is a work in progress. I present my theories incomplete because my method of working requires interaction with other thinkers who check/advance my own thinking. Considering my work method being embedded within the hot kitchen of debate, of course the conjectured method of construction by boundary negotiations is presently vague. This is not to suggest I'm not working from an already elaborated database of systematic reasoning and scholarship.

I view it in light of what I'd call "constructive realism". — Pantagruel

That's a useful label. Thank-you

What about the possibility of consciousness acting in the role of a transitive agent impacting and changing the objects under its influence? — ucarr

But are we talking about the conscious experience qua representation, or are we talking about some kind of construct - presumably a material-symbolic artefact - that instantiates or incorporates this conscious experience? — Pantagruel

Interesting conversation.

I was thinking Kant right out of the gate so I appreciated when his name came up.

Is there a possibility that where this is headed is going to end up restating in QM terms what Kant clarified in the subject (consciousness) that is isolated from the thing in itself (wave, QM theories), due to the phenomenal veil (consciousness’s constructions)?

I think I’m wrong and not getting the nuances here yet.

How does this fit into your thoughts: there are two parts to consciousness. One is as the seat of perception, like a dog is conscious, a function of the brain, out there in the world, like any other thing in itself. The second part, for human beings, is consciousness of this consciousness. This is why we are so cut off from things in themselves. We see representational constructs of things in themselves in our consciousness - consciousness of the things we are conscious of, none of which are simply the thing.

This may just restate the problem really, but does your theory have any application on these terms, namely consciousness and self-consciousness (which is what I mean by consciousness of my consciousness)? Where does the transitive bridge fit in?

If I’m making any sense to you.

Is there a sense in which consciousness overflows its symbolic representations? Empirical knowledge is precisely reflected in exhausted by what is symbolically represented. However consciousness can know some things in a way that seems to transcend empirical encapsulation of this kind. The fact that it can "know" that something can be brought about by conducting itself counterfactually, for example, acting "against" the way things are in order to bring about something different. So does intuitive knowledge transcend empirical encapsulation? Or is it in fact such an encapsulation itself?

Great -- and deep -- questions.

Is there a possibility that where this is headed is going to end up restating in QM terms what Kant clarified in the subject (consciousness) that is isolated from the thing in itself (wave, QM theories), due to the phenomenal veil (consciousness’s constructions)? — Fire Ologist

I think your forward vision of where this is going is good. Little doubt rejiggering Kant with (hopefully) substantial additions and nuancing of transcendental idealism will occur.

For me, the gist of QM is discovery of the boundary of a quantum, as there is a boundary of a photon or, recently, the discovery there is a quantum of space. Well, if space itself is a construction from space-atoms at the Planck scale, then even what appears to our perception at the Newtonian scale as a neutral background is a construction with atomic boundaries negotiated in aggregate into a larger thing.

Who would've thought the boundary negotiations of the hard boundary particle form and the soft boundary of the waveform would be so rich with complex physics?

...there are two parts to consciousness. One is as the seat of perception, like a dog is conscious, a function of the brain, out there in the world, like any other thing in itself. The second part, for human beings, is consciousness of this consciousness. — Fire Ologist

Yes, the first level is the baseline of the cognitive construction; consciousness constructs a representation of the thing-in-itself. Now, even here at the baseline of consciousness, we have to be careful: since we're dealing with a representation of the thing-in-itself, we're already dealing with an "echo" of the prior thing-in-itself. Echoes are resident within circularity, so the physics of even the baseline of consciousness is complex.

The second level is the tentpole feature of what's known about consciousness to date: subjectivity, or internally consistent selfhood. Structurally, this is a higher-order ring of the upwardly evolving spiral of mnemonics-based cognition.

At this level, the boundary negotiations are perplexed by the entelechy and the telos of subjectivity. Now, the physics of consciousness must address the structures attendant upon non-local physics: thermo-dynamics, morpho-dynamics, teleo-dynamics.

Where does the transitive bridge fit in?

If I’m making any sense to you. — Fire Ologist

Have no doubt you're making good sense when you ask a million dollar question. If we take recourse to Schrödinger's equation, we can conjecture that our assembled consciousness formats superposition into position, which is to say it resolves the conflated boundaries of paradox down to the hard boundaries of the particle form.

This conjectured transitive function of consciousness is the wall of empirical experience QM had to break through en route to discovering the hard boundaries of apparently continuous material objects are made up of discrete quanta.

Is there a sense in which consciousness overflows its symbolic representations? — Pantagruel

Please note that in our conversation, consciousness is representation. As such, consciousness itself is a construction from the aggregated quanta of (presumably) Planck scale cognitive atoms.

Things get really interesting when we conjecture that consciousness, the boundary administrator, acts upon itself in that role in its own constructions of representations of objective things. Circularity.

Empirical knowledge is precisely reflected in exhausted by what is symbolically represented. — Pantagruel

Folks keep telling me: "The map is not the territory."

However consciousness can know some things in a way that seems to transcend empirical encapsulation of this kind. That fact that it can "know" that something can be brought about by conducting itself counterfactually, for example, acting "against" the way things are in order to bring about something different. So does intuitive knowledge transcend empirical encapsulation? Or does it in fact such an encapsulation itself? — Pantagruel

Premise -

Empirical knowledge is precisely reflected in exhausted by what is symbolically represented. — Pantagruel

Argument -

However consciousness can know some things in a way that seems to transcend empirical encapsulation of this kind. The fact that it can "know" that something can be brought about by conducting itself counterfactually, for example, acting "against" the way things are in order to bring about something different. — Pantagruel

Questions -

So does intuitive knowledge transcend empirical encapsulation? Or is it in fact such an encapsulation itself? — Pantagruel

Your premise is addressed by Kant's distinction between experience through the senses and understanding by abstract reasoning. Abstract reasoning sometimes liberates the understanding from the report of the senses by arriving at a valid, non-empirical conclusion to an abstract premise. When this happens, we say, "Our abstract reasoning has discovered a counter-intuitive truth about the world."

Your argument examples abstract reasoning liberating the understanding from the encapsulation of the appearance of things via the senses.

Your questions: Intuitive knowledge viewed in our context here in this conversation presents as the low resolution feedback looping mnemonics of abstract reasoning about the world. All of the spirals of feedback looping cognitive circularity involving subjectivity are higher-order loops. A low resolution loop, as in the case of intuition, can be enriched by the addition of information, thus rendering it as a high resolution loop.

At low resolution, or at high resolution, abstract reasoning has the capacity to liberate itself from the limitations and distortions of experience rendered through the senses. As the resolution increases, the more thoroughgoing the liberation.

Kant on God

Looking at your questions within the context of the big picture:

These questions hark back to the free will or fate puzzle. Can humans really create something? If they can, then certain individuals, from time to time, will arrive at new thinking not a statistical probability hard-wired into a bounded existence. On the other side, if existence is a bounded infinity, what happens is still pre-ordained by probability, even if it will take forever for all possibilities to actualize. This unlimited timeline of unlimited probabilities is the phenomenon projecting the illusion of human creativity.

So, unbounded (and incomplete) is the way to go if you're favoring human freedom and creativity, and especially so if you embrace the elusive physics of the upturning spiral of consciousness.

If consciousness functions as a boundary administrator, formatting the picture of reality into the physical world of material objects with discrete boundaries in space and time, then there is the suggestion that at the QM scale on down to the Planck scale, an interval wherein, presumably, consciousness is not yet assembled, the state of the system is superposition. If so, then we can associate superposition with Kant's noumenal realm of things-in-themselves.

Therefore, the noumenal realm isn't in fact inaccessible to perception and knowledge thereof, instead, it's the granular building blocks of both reality and consciousness. Seeing the objects of the micro-cosmos entails meeting the challenge of interpolating consciousness into the mix such that it bridges the gap between QM and Newton. It is the boundary administration of consciousness as the formatting function rendering superposition into a discrete physics that establishes the consistency linking QM with Newton.

With the search for QM gravity underway, we can examine this context with the goal of applying the boundary administration of consciousness to time_causation. Just as there is an essential bonding of space and time, there is an essential bonding of time and causation, with consciousness enacting the role of the mediator effecting this bond.

Yes, it might be the case that consciousness parses the time boundaries of events as it parses the vector boundaries of physics. This leads us to a new conception of spacetime with consciousness interpolated into the mix as spacetime's nearly synonymous organizing principle.

Making an allowance for imprecision during this period of high conjecture, let it be said that consciousness is an integral function of spacetime. In this context, integral has meaning in two senses: a) consciousness is essential to spacetime; b) consciousness integrates spacetime into a formatted and navigable coherence.

So now we have the triumvirate radical: cogito-spacetime.

Descartes' cogito ergo sum can now be adjusted away from the hard-boundary bifurcation of substance and essence, a configuration that gives rise to the HPoC.

Instead, cogito-spacetime takes the place of cogito ergo sum. With consciousness now inducted into the physico_material realm of physics as the boundary administrator for the cognition of the physics of physico_material reality, this addition resolves the seeming inconsistency between QM and Newton. The seeming inconsistency between QM and Newton, plus Descartes' cogito ergo sum, operate as the wellsprings of the HPoC.

If the seeming inconsistency between QM and Newton, plus Descartes' cogito ergo sum, are accounted for systemically: a) QM is the pre-conscious realm of superposition; b) the cogito ergo sum is a focal point of the QM_Newton inconsistency due to the absence of consciousness as boundary administrator, then the addition dissolves away the hard bifurcation of the cogito ergo sum.

With consciousness situated in the physico_material realm, a promising attack on the question of how works the physics of subjectivity might be the conception of an upwards evolving spiral of higher-orders of mnemonic feedback looping, the reiterative physico_material home for consciousness.

Closing Thought - The HPoC is a symptom of the problem of the seeming inconsistency between QM and Newton. This seeming inconsistency, foreshadowed by Descartes' cogito ergo sum, raises questions that find answers in the objectification of consciousness as an agent that performs actions in the physico_material world. These actions are the boundary negotiations that find their essence in the the two modes of physics: a) the discrete boundaries of the particle form; b) the soft boundaries of the waveform.

If consciousness functions as a boundary administrator, formatting the picture of reality into the physical world of material objects with discrete boundaries in space and time, then there is the suggestion that at the QM scale on down to the Planck scale, an interval wherein, presumably, consciousness is not yet assembled, the state of the system is superposition. If so, then we can associate superposition with Kant's noumenal realm of things-in-themselves. — ucarr

The problem with your ideas is that they are too idiosyncratic, and that they don't reference anyone else's work in philosophy, cog sci and other fields. You've taken bits here, pieces there, and tried to combine them into what you see as a synthesis, but the problem I have is that I can barely make sense of the result. Your posts often contain many sweeping statements with deep implications, but that alone doesn't guarantee quality. I would recommend you find some established authors who's published works represent what you think is the best synthesis of these ideas and provide references to them, a practice that you will notice I try to do in many of my posts. (Sorry for being blunt, but you did request feedback.)

I would recommend you find some established authors who's published works represent what you think is the best synthesis of these ideas and provide references to them, a practice that you will notice I try to do in many of my posts. (Sorry for being blunt, but you did request feedback.) — Wayfarer

You have given me what I asked for, and I thank you for it. Already my understanding has a sharper focus because of what you've shared with me. I think your advice is good and I'm going to do what you advise.

Let me make a start right now by sharing my best idea about communicating who I am to another person. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man rocked my world with its insights. Marshall McLuhan lit up my mind with his observations about the evolution of mass media: first there was the spoken word; then there was the printed word; now there's the motion picture; next there might by AI through QM computing. Each medium expands communication across a bigger landscape with its computational coding at a greater removal from DNA-based organics.

I'm not at all a media guru. What I'm getting at is that McLuhan, like me, thinks in terms of big leaps forward through a narrative via intuition-supported insights. His book is full of stunning insights I feel in my gut while being challenged by the overborne continuity of his mind's quantum leaps of understanding.

Right! Excellent start, and thank you for the acknowledgement. My knowledge of McLuhan is second-hand although I do recognise that he was a pivotal thinker. (Another in that vein is Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death.)

Trying to think of a few of the books that influenced my philosophical development over the years: The Tao of Physics, Fritjof Capra; Where the Wasteland Ends, Theodore Rozak; Why Us? James le Fanu; Understanding the Present, Bryan Appleyard; The Sleepwalkers, Arthur Koestler - to name a few. What they have in common is the asking of Big Questions, against a backdrop of history of ideas. Of how the Western worldview developed. I recommend a synoptic and thematic approach - following how ideas develop over history. Actually another book that comes to mind in that respect is Russell's History of Western Philosophy - despite its critics, it is very good at putting things in that historical context.

So - please do carry on, but try and anchor your insights against sources. There is a practically endless amount of media on YouTube, plus quality publications like Aeon.co, Quantumagazine.org, Ted talks, BigThink, to mention a few. Find some articles that elaborate the points you want to make, and try to digest and present what you think is important about them. That would be my advice.

Instead, cogito-spacetime takes the place of cogito ergo sum. With consciousness now inducted into the physico_material realm of physics as the boundary administrator for the cognition of the physics of physico_material reality, this addition resolves the seeming inconsistency between QM and Newton. The seeming inconsistency between QM and Newton, plus Descartes' cogito ergo sum, operate as the wellsprings of the HPoC. — ucarr

I think conceptually this accords with R. G. Collingwood's elaboration of the Ontological Argument:

The distinction between processes that we can discover in the object, and processes which we can discover in our minds when we reflect on our thought about the object, is a distinction that we have no right to make here, because, as we learnt in reflecting upon the idea of nothing, we are here in a realm of thought in which there is no object, and in which therefore whatever necessarily happens in our minds when we think about a given concept is a process necessarily ascribed to the concept itself.
~Collingwood, The Nature of Metaphysical Study

Our thoughts exemplify what they conceptualize. This is why I don't quite gel with your notion of the "boundary administrator" role. I would say we are quantum-mechanical adjudicators of the quantum.

My notion of consciousness, as boundary administrator for the everyday picture of reality, casts it in the role of a mechanism of perceptual organization. In this role it's a type of formatting algorithm for rendering quantum reality in terms of what we call Newtonian physics.

Our thoughts exemplify what they conceptualize. — Pantagruel

My analysis of your above quote has: "thoughts exemplify" = "what they conceptualize." Thoughts model as examples of "what they conceptualize."

Your use of "conceptualize" is critically important.

con-cep-tu-al-ize
kənˈsep(t)SH(əw)əˌlīz
verb [with object]
form a concept or idea of (something): we can more easily conceptualize speed in miles per hour.

You are saying, as I understand you, that thoughts model the structural organization, i.e., the formatting of themselves. The statement pictures a seamless integration of form and content. It invokes Marshall McLuhan’s “the medium is the message.” Context and information are merged.

So, thinking is a structured environment that conveys information via the holism of itself. Thinking conveys information environmentally. This is the groundwork of emergence.

What feeds environmental holism? Quantum entanglement. Quantum entanglement, in turn, strategizes new forms of thought by suggesting what cannot be wholly contained. Consciousness feeds upon this uncontainability of quantum entanglement towards ever-arising new forms modeling permutating boundaries.

QM reality is the entangled environment of environments. Consciousness, feeding on this higher order of environmentalism, spits out ever-arising new forms modeling permutating boundaries.

Yes, regarding thought, the medium is the message. However, even the entangled environment of environments is merely circular without external referents.

There is no self without the other and its otherness. This contradictory relationship of strategic incompleteness is succinctly expressed linguistically through GIT (Gödel’s Incompleteness Theory).

The reconciliation of quantum entanglement rendering, via consciousness, Newtonian physics is the material correlate of GIT.

There will be no reduction to final axioms of any discipline because our reality is life-bearing, and life depends upon the strategic incompleteness supporting the self/other binary.

The self/other binary, being the referent/sign binary, sustains the inside/outside binary making life possible. That no self can complete itself makes life possible as strategic incompleteness. Because living things die, i.e., there is something vital beyond the living organism it cannot wholly access because this vital something is incomplete, living things die.

Death makes life-as-strategic-incompleteness possible. In the absence of death, existing things, having no vital referent beyond themselves, would be complete, circular and devoid of value.

In summation, the presence of life in our world demands objective reality (the otherness lying beyond the self-interest of the self) and impartial truth (the selfish connection to unselfishness). It also demands social intercourse (Our native incompleteness abhors isolation).

We are alive and real only because we can die. Consciousness divorced from death is a childish game. We grow up when we accept the strategic incompleteness of ourselves; it fends off death until the living project extends beyond the individual’s strategies for preserving its incompleteness.

We are alive and real only because we can die. Consciousness divorced from death is a childish game. We grow up when we accept the strategic incompleteness of ourselves; it fends off death until the living project extends beyond the individual’s strategies for preserving its incompleteness. — ucarr

Consciousness can be construed as a species-collective property, which at the bare minimum distances (and possibly insulates) it from the individual notion of (ego-)death. Your statement reads as existential. I've been a determined existentialist in the past; I'm coming to see existentialism, however, as more of a very sophisticated kind of psychology.

Consciousness can be construed as a species-collective property, which at the bare minimum distances (and possibly insulates) it from the individual notion of (ego-)death. — Pantagruel

It's interesting how radically life, with threat of death removed, loses value and therefore meaning. It motivates me a long way towards claiming time is the mathematics of life and death. Again, time, with threat of death removed, loses value and therefore meaning. Same again for information.

Dead information is information without a referent not itself. You are nothing in the absence of that which is not you. Primordial evil is objective otherness. The child in the store sees something it wants and pitches a tantrum on the floor when parent refuses their appeal. Most children grow up and get over the fact there are forces out there not you and what you want. These forces must be reckoned with rationally, or else the stunted individual must be warehoused in lockdown.

When you score a victory against your opposition, it has meaning and value. The circularity of you being you in isolation has no meaning or value.

Math printed in a book signifies inter-relations between signs. All of this circularity goes nowhere until a perishable human opens the book and imparts value and meaning to the signification by being able somehow to make use of it in the struggle to stave off blank nullity.

There is no membership within a coven of votaries that can stave off your very individual burial.

Existence is incomplete on purpose, and therein lives all the drama of life's adventures.

When you score a victory against your opposition, it has meaning and value. The circularity of you being you in isolation has no meaning or value. — ucarr

Which is why Collingwood's conception of logic-metaphysics is not just dialectical, but dialogical. Propositions only have meanings as answers to questions.

The distinction between processes that we can discover in the object, and processes which we can discover in our minds when we reflect on our thought about the object, is a distinction that we have no right to make here... ~Collingwood, The Nature of Metaphysical Study — Pantagruel

As I understand your Collingwood quote, the formatted configuration of the referent populating our thought is the cognition itself, not the external thing-in-itself. The self of the mind, in this example, is its own cognition, not the thing-in-itself. So perception of the world is a self/other binary. Our knowledge of the thing-in-itself is limited to the formatted configuration of the referent as thing-in-itself, not the objective thing-in-itself.

So far this seems to be consistent with my claim consciousness formats the boundaries of perceived things as a translation of things-in-themselves. We know our empirical experience is unlike the math descriptions of events transpiring within the QM realm.

Our thoughts exemplify what they conceptualize — Pantagruel

Since a concept is a generalization of a thing, i.e., an abstraction from a specific example to a set of examples linked thematically, conceptualization of a thing is an impression of a thematic form. What phenomenon conceptualizes a thing as a thematic form (thought) if not consciousness?

At present, I'm not seeing how:

Our thoughts exemplify what they conceptualize — Pantagruel

is inconsistent with:

...consciousness formats the boundaries of perceived things as a translation of things-in-themselves. — ucarr

At present, I'm not seeing how:

Our thoughts exemplify what they conceptualize
— Pantagruel

is inconsistent with:

...consciousness formats the boundaries of perceived things as a translation of things-in-themselves.
— ucarr — ucarr

I don't know that I said it was inconsistent, merely that your concept of "boundary administration" isn't gelling with me. Perspective might dictate that we perceive the same thing through different metaphors.

Consciousness, acting in the role of boundary administrator, formats a grid of material boundaries in superposition into a navigable environment. — ucarr

I'm just spitballing it here with no backup references (my apologies), but it seems to me as the quantum environment gets explored more deeply, basically what we've defined as "matter" is just different levels of energy in different forms. My hand feeling the surface of my desk is the energy fields of the atoms (which can be decomposed into energy) in my hand reacting to the energy fields of the atoms that make up the desk. Could one function of our consciousness be to define all the energy fields we come into contact with, whether "matter" or not, into a "navigable environment"? In this context I would separate consciousness from awareness as awareness doesn't require acknowledgement beyond "this exists", which may or may not be navigable.