Consciousness has been called the final frontier of philosophy and science. We ask whether it “really exists,” seek neural correlates, and debate its ontological status. Yet the debate persists, endlessly looping between realism and illusionism. Why?
As with time and the self, the persistence of this question is not an accident: it arises from a thing-based framing imposed on phenomena that are fundamentally relational. This post shows how the relational ontology dissolves the classical puzzle of consciousness and opens a path to more productive inquiry.
The Question
“Does consciousness really exist?”
Presented sympathetically, the question is urgent. We are conscious, we experience, we reflect. Scientific and philosophical frameworks treat consciousness as either a system, a process, or an emergent property. The question feels like it should have a yes/no answer.
Why It Feels Legitimate
Several pressures make this question compelling:
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Phenomenological immediacy: Conscious experience feels undeniable.
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Neuroscientific modeling: Brains, neurons, and networks appear as candidates for hosting consciousness.
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Philosophical tradition: From Descartes to Chalmers, consciousness has been treated as an object of ontological scrutiny.
These pressures combine to make the question appear foundational.
The Hidden Commitments
The question silently assumes:
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Substantiality: Consciousness is a thing — a property or substance.
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Localisation: It can be pinpointed to a particular entity, system, or process.
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Independence: It exists apart from the relational and social contexts in which it manifests.
These assumptions, largely unexamined, guarantee that the debate oscillates indefinitely.
The Endless Loop
Once these assumptions are in place:
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Realists: Consciousness exists independently, perhaps as an irreducible property or neural system.
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Illusionists: Consciousness is a construction, an epiphenomenon, or a mistaken attribution.
Both positions accept the same thing-based framing, so neither can resolve the debate. The loop is structural, not epistemic.
The Structural Diagnosis
The problem is the ontology embedded in the question itself.
From a relational perspective:
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Consciousness is not a thing, but a phenomenon arising from relational actualisation.
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It exists as an event-like pattern: a coordinated emergence across neural, cognitive, perceptual, and social dynamics.
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Attempting to locate consciousness as a pre-existing object is a category error: the “thing” cannot be disentangled from the relations that bring it into view.
In other words, consciousness is real as actualisation, not as a substance. Its existence is perspectival, relational, and structured by potential, rather than a binary yes/no question.
What to Ask Instead
Once the relational frame is adopted, productive questions replace unanswerable ones:
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How do relational dynamics across neural and social systems generate the phenomena we call consciousness?
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Under what conditions do patterns stabilise into recognisable conscious events?
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How does attention, memory, language, and interaction coordinate the actualisation of consciousness?
These questions are tractable because they describe processes and constraints, not objects. They shift inquiry from metaphysical speculation to phenomena tracing.
Closing
As with time and the self, the persistence of the consciousness debate is an artefact of a thing-based framing. By treating consciousness as a phenomenon arising from relational actualisation, the classical puzzle dissolves.
We do not deny experience or the reality of conscious phenomena. We only recognise that asking whether consciousness “really exists” in the objectified sense is a dead end. The path forward lies in tracing patterns, interactions, and actualisations — understanding consciousness from within the relational web where it occurs.
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