Whatever
consciousness is, it must have structure. Even emptiness can be defined only in
contrast to abundance and nonduality versus duality (as the word says). Or it's
just "Mu". And that would be the end of this paper - and everything
else.
I suggest we
allow ourselves some more time and try to start from a consciousness that is as
concrete as possible, from a conscious object, say a glass of water. We
perceive something that we distinguish from ourselves. We also differentiate it
from its environment (table, cupboard, room) and determine it in relation to
other known things (table, cup, plate) to what it "is". That is, we circumscribe its existence by
comparisons. It is also being stabilized by external and internal interactions
(pouring and drinking, molecular attraction and repulsion).
We can question
these interactions ever more deeply and will never find a bottom. Biological
processes, mechanical laws of motion and physical fields remain empty without a
structure circumscribing them. That is to say, we can regard circumscription as
a basic property of everything conscious and thus of consciousness.
Now, at the
heart of every circumscription there results something hugely underrated so far:
the central point. A single point relating directly to the whole. As for the
water glass for example, it is the center of gravity and optical center or, if
both differ, the center circumscribed by them, and so on. Because only the
whole as such has a center. Through each division new centers (those of the
splinters) arise and by each change (such as a bordering with handle) another
one. Even if the change is symmetrical (without handle): Since the central point,
like any other point, is nothing in
itself and has meaning only in relation to a particular wholeness, another
whole circumscribes another central point - also in the same "place" (here
the center of a bordered glass). And
even the point next to the center is the center of something else (say, a unit
of glass and spoon).
Thus, there
is a unique relationship between the infinitely small - infinitesimal - center
and the circumscribing wholeness. To ignore the center point would be to ignore
the whole thing. In the periphery (marginal zone), in turn, the external border
is significant for the whole, in this way emphasizing its relation to the center point.
Since this structure holds for all parts of an
object as well as for their relations to the wholeness, between the center and the periphery, and between this center and its periphery, and so on, I call this entirety
infinitesimality structure or i-structure.
Of course,
the relationship between us (the object of our self-consciousness) and the more
external object is also i-structured. And when we dive into an object, we find
there only different i-structures: trembling "particles", vibrating
"fields", circumscribed "laws".
