Picture a lump of clay on a potter's wheel. Does the clay know what it's going to become? A vase? A mug? A slightly wonky ashtray?
Of course not. It's clay. It doesn't do plans.
Now imagine consciousness is like that clay: the stuff everything is made from.
Asking whether consciousness has a plan is like asking what's north of the North Pole. There's no answer, because there's nowhere further to go.
And you can't investigate consciousness either, because you'd be using consciousness to do the investigating. It's like trying to bite your own teeth, or see your own eyes without a mirror.
Try it and you just end up going round in circles, as our upside-down friend has discovered. Some questions defeat themselves, a bit like this sign.
Nobody upstairs with a clipboard
Maybe you pictured someone like this: a wise old figure on a throne, with the plan for your life filed away in a big golden cabinet.
But if there's no master plan, then any plan you think life has for you is one you've imagined.
Read all about it!
Free DIY life plan. No strings attached.
Look closely at our friend here. He looks like a puppet, but there are no strings. That's the whole point.
There's no plan for your life except the one you make. That means you're free: free to plan something small, like learning the guitar, or something huge, like changing the world.
And if every mind in the universe is just as free, imagine how many extraordinary plans are being made right now. Most of them are far stranger than anything we could dream up.
Your turn
Grab a pen. What's one thing you'd put in your plan this year?
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