We Are All One (Consciousness)

Why thank you. Being thought provoking is my favourite perk of being sentient, and I try to do my best. Now, onwards! Your first paragraph seems a bit contradictory. You disagree with my statement, and suggest with the logic I used I wouldn't be the same person as I was when I was young, but then go on to say, I am "holistically the same, but at a cellular level different." According to my logic, and that premise, it's therefore true that I, in fact, wouldn't be the same person as I was when I was young. You'll have to clarify what you mean by "the connection" in your last sentence, but it seems to me we're dealing with a good ol' fashioned Ship of Theseus (https://en.wikipedia.org...). If you take an object and call it the sum of it's parts, and then replace all of those parts with identical copies, is it still the same object? When we refer to our physical presence, the same paradox applies. With what you're saying, you seem to be agreeing with this premise, rather than disagreeing as you claim. You then take this further, saying that if we observe ourselves as nothing but parts we have nothing to call a self. I would argue that if the, "I" is the sum of those parts, then we can call all of those parts "I", so long as they are still, in fact, a part. Removal of those parts generally disqualifies one as being a self entity, you lose the "I" if you lose the parts, just as you lose a tree if you lose the branches, trunk, and roots. This is a confusing element of this argument as it's mostly semantics. Am I simply the sum of my parts? If so, the parts are me. If I'm not, how is that possible? If my individual parts, physical and mental alike, become arranged in such a way that it can be called me, it would follow that I am the sum of those parts. Cogito Ergo Sum (https://en.wikipedia.org...), the Latin name for "I think, therefore I am", while an excellent philosophical proposition on it's own unfortunately doesn't help us in this debate. That sentence essentially postulates that, If I am able to doubt my existence, I must exist. While you are correct in saying that if parts of you were removed, and they doubted their existence, they would exist (as a consciousness). We've already established the existence of consciousness as a necessary condition for the rest of the argument, so there's no need to further prove it here. This "I" could be anything, we don't really have a way of knowing at this time, but it doesn't really matter, because as long as there's some part of you, physical or not, to exist as a self, as an "I", then we can proceed with the rest of the debate. It could be anything, your entire body or a single neuron, and it wouldn't change the premise. It's a bit of a tangent as well, but what is this stripped down version of self that no longer necessitates a mind or identity? While I could reason that this either a, doesn't exist, or b, can't possibly be proven to exist, what you're postulating is a essential, most bare form of consciousness. But this consciousness wouldn't be a stripped down version of "I", because the condition in order to achieve it is to remove the "I" and see what's left. This pure consciousness would be completely devoid of everything that made it your pure consciousness. Now, I will point out immediately that there is no substantial, empirical evidence to support the non-physical, bodiless, egoless self, or at least if there is a bodiless, egoless self which can be experienced through the suggested methods there is no proof that it fits within the bounds of non-material as you've suggested. We don't really know what dreams are. They could be points of pure consciousness, but they could equally simply be our perceiving our brain, for lack of a better word, defragment itself like a hard drive. We don't know. However, rather than simply use that as an excuse to invalidate the whole thing, let's run with it. First of all, the example with dreams. If dreams truly are the most base state of consciousness, demonstrating a non-physical, and therefore unlimited and universal existence, why don't I have the same dreams you have? I know from experience that my dreams have form, because I've never had one that's identical to another one. I know that my dreams experience time, because my dreams yesterday weren't the same as my dreams last week. And, I know my dreams are divided, because you don't have them too. It would seem to reason that dreams aren't actually "non-matter" as it is postulated. But let's say that this essential consciousness is non-material. It is therefore formless, timeless, and singular. This is intriguing on it's own, but doesn't solve the issue of you and I. We have established that the self is either an identity, a physical form, a collection of memories, or some combination of the lot. All of these are material, and therefore can't be the essential consciousness. If they come from the essential consciousness, they still aren't the essential consciousness. If, in order to create "you", the essential consciousness must have your memories and identity added to it, and it must be squeezed into the brain you possess, then it has become a material you, and by definition can't be that essential consciousness. If you remove all of the you in order to return to the essential, then you are no longer existing to experience/possess it, and so you can't be the essential consciousness. You simply can't both exist and possess something that's exclusive to your existing. If we are able to unlock our minds eye, this wouldn't be the essential consciousness, because in order for it to exist you can't be looking through your minds eye. Not only that, if you are able to glimpse at something in this state, how do we know it is, in fact, the essential consciousness that is non-material which we observe? I don't know about you, but I find it extremely hard to wrap my head around. You touched upon this concept in the last couple little paragraphs. A couple of other things to address, though (geze, I might actually run out of room here): "Thoughts are part of our mind but I wouldn't conciser them base level consciousness, there is obvious observable division." Is there? If so I've never observed it. Please do elaborate on this. "We can define conscious experience by thinking of 'unconsciousness'" But don't we define unconsciousness as a lack of consciousness? Seems like a bit of a paradox, I also couldn't find that elaboration in your main body, but I'm probably just misunderstanding. If we can't know where consciousness is, we can't know where it isn't. Ultimately, it seems almost like we're saying the same thing. You say here, "Only being able to glimpse it also makes sense, because if it's a non-thing when we perceive it with our human experience tool of matter, we assimilate references of our material reality to it and paradoxically snub out the experience." And I'm simply arguing that because of this, we can't perceive it, or further than that possess it, and still be us. The fact that we know we're us, cogito ergo sum, means that we can't be the connected, essential consciousness.