The whole point of humans having consciousness is in its ability to be somewhere else at some other time, which thus, unlike other animals, makes man able to plan, but which is also, in the few, unlike everyone else, at moments when consciousness is not so plotting and is simply sitting there, aware of itself. What bothers them so much about it that they want to do something about it.
What is the purpose in having past events recalled, and speculations regarding future ones presented if you are not at that moment engaged in meaningful planning? And yet, that is precisely how consciousness spends almost all of its time and what, (to the few), is the point in that?
It could be a means of staying-in-shape; consciousness keeping-in-practice for planning when it will be meaningful? It could be that except: how much review, re-review and re-re-review of the same matters is necessary? How many times need a man’s consciousness remind him, “It hurt when you put your hand in a flame before, so do not put your hand into a flame now, and do not do so in the future.” How many times – once – and yet, when it has nothing more significant to do, consciousness will not let such matters go.
Consciousness over plans – that is what disturbs a few people, and has caused them to conjure up the concept of man living in a dreamlike state, out of direct touch with immediate reality. It is a notion not without reason, but difficult to unravel back to its cause and be able to usefully employ. Consciousness will even, quite willingly, undertake endless false planning to change this very condition. Thus, a burglar you caught in your house becomes your compadre in looking for who invaded your home; a spider is unaware that it is trapped in its own web.
So consciousness does not merely over plan, it faux plans. It appears to be planning when it is clear that the plans will never be executed. The complaints men verbally register against one another rest on this: if one man’s actions threaten another’s survival he will act in response, not verbally condemn. If he does ultimately become engaged in a war of words, it will be after the threatening man has proffered a plan to assuage his concerns, and his verbal attack will be thereto aimed, rather than at the menacer’s actual behavior. This reality becomes lost amongst ordinary men and groups.
J.