Sensible Deck Of Uncertainty

Our present field of consciousness is a centre surrounded by a fringe that shades insensibly into a subconscious of more.

William James, the psychologist, philosopher, and medical doctor, had a major influence on 19th century thought as well as the modern day concept of consciousness. James spent his entire academic career at Harvard. He taught his first experimental psychology course at Harvard in 1875. Most of us do sense the wheel of consciousness that keeps turning within us. We may not know how to describe it sensibly, but we do know our field of waking consciousness is just a slice of the consciousness that exists within us.

We want to know more about our subconscious. We search for help in various places. We rely of religion to explain some of it, but having faith in something bigger than us is not an explanation; it is a stopgap. Faith in something outside of the self is the objective way of shuffling our complete consciousness into an unknown, but sensible deck of uncertainty. We allow the cards of faith to be dealt, and then we experience an outcome.

As James points out, our consciousness is insensibly subjective. It does not always conform to the rules of Hoyle or the man-made rules of God. It uses the ego part of itself to be sensible, but the ego often develops its own insensibility, and that free will or intent changes the nature of our complete consciousness. Nothing strange about that in the world of consciousness. Consciousness is the action of energy within each experience. Each experience changes our awareness, and expands a layer or two of our sub-consciousness.

Our fringe consciousness is deeper that we suspect. The subconscious is but one layer in an endless psychic structure. We don’t explore most of these layers because our faith in our sensible deck of uncertainty keeps us focused on the result not the cause.