{"id":245378,"date":"2026-10-14T05:18:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T10:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/pure-consciousness-reveals-a-boundless-reality-beyond-objects"},"modified":"2026-10-14T05:18:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T10:18:29","slug":"pure-consciousness-reveals-a-boundless-reality-beyond-objects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/pure-consciousness-reveals-a-boundless-reality-beyond-objects","title":{"rendered":"Pure consciousness reveals a boundless reality beyond objects"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/pure-consciousness-reveals-a-boundless-reality-beyond-objects.webp\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>When we are conscious, we are conscious of some thing: be it an object, a person, or an idea. But China-based philosopher <strong>Itay Shani<\/strong> argues that such \u201cordinary consciousness\u201d is made possible by what he calls \u201cpure consciousness\u201d\u2014a consciousness without objects, structure, boundaries, or form, which meditative and mystical traditions have long been aware of. Pure consciousness, Shani contends, is awareness of a boundless reality that no word or thought could ever capture, that can only be gestured at using negation, metaphor and contradiction. To recognize it is to recognize that there are worlds beyond our familiar world of objects and things.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When contemporary scientists and philosophers contemplate the question \u201cWhat is consciousness?\u201d they tend to do so by focusing on <em>phenomenal states<\/em>, namely, mental states endowed with a qualitative feel \u2014 a \u201cwhat it\u2019s like\u201d character. When one is awake, aware, and fully in one\u2019s senses, one is typically subject to a continuous stream of experiences involving rapidly unfolding trains of thoughts, feelings, and images, and accompanied by longer-lasting moods and emotional overtones.<\/p>\n<p>Such phenomenal states feel a certain way. The sweet smell of the rose; the icy chill of a morning swim in the river; the tender pangs of longing \u2014 all are different from each other in terms of what it is like to have them. They are also, generally, directed at certain objects of thought, real or imaginary. A conscious experience is therefore said to be \u201cof\u201d or \u201cabout\u201d something. There is something we think of when we think, something we perceive when we perceive, and so on. Moreover, these objects are presented in consciousness from a certain point of view\u2014the perspective of the conscious subject. For example, objects are viewed from a particular angle, perceived as approaching or receding, as far or near, as surprising or familiar, and so on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When we are conscious, we are conscious of some thing: be it an object, a person, or an idea. But China-based philosopher Itay Shani argues that such \u201cordinary consciousness\u201d is made possible by what he calls \u201cpure consciousness\u201d\u2014a consciousness without objects, structure, boundaries, or form, which meditative and mystical traditions have long been aware of. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}