top of page
Search

Thought(s) Experiment

  • Writer: H.B. Augustine
    H.B. Augustine
  • Mar 28, 2024
  • 1 min read

I conceived of the following thought experiment in a high school philosophy class. It seemed intuitively true that pure consciousness exists independent of our five senses and any other contents of experience. But maybe not. Hence, the experiment. Is consciousness ultimately a matter of sound? Imagine pressing a mental button and “turning off” all sound. Do you still exist? Yes, of course. Now do this for all the other bodily senses. Somehow, amazingly, you still exist. So in this scenario, with all these buttons pressed, what do you experience? You aren’t just your bodily senses of touch, taste, etc. Those aren’t the only contents of experience. You also experience thoughts and emotions. Turn off all negative emotions - no sadness, anger, fear, only the positives. Now, one by one, turn each of those elements of experience off, so all that remains is thought. Now turn the gauge a bit so you experience a thought only every 10 seconds. Now every 30 seconds. Every 60 seconds. What do you experience between thoughts? Nothing. And yet, you still exist. You exist independent of experience. You are pure, infinite, awareness. You are not a thinking thing. You are not thought. You are not a thing. You simply are, and you always will be.

 
 
 

Recent Posts

See All
Oh, God...

A captivating way to contemplate God begins with a simple, disarming truth: some of the most powerful forces in your life are invisible, yet undeniable. Air, for example, never announces itself. You c

 
 
 
The Quantum Mechanics of Magic

If magic were real in the way people imagine - shaping reality with thought, levitating objects, bending probability - then quantum mechanics would have to operate very differently from how scientists

 
 
 
Paying Teachers & Politicians $1M

If the United States paid every teacher and every politician $1 million per year while also requiring politicians to hold a JD, MBA, and PhDs in Economics, Political Science, and Philosophy, the short

 
 
 

Comments


Let's correspond.

Thanks for submitting!

© 2007-2026

H.B. Augustine

bottom of page