Consciousness in the Triadism of Irreducible Changes

Without life, consciousness is impossible; an understanding of life is the only ground for defining or explaining consciousness. However, the many concepts presupposed by monism or dualism—whether “substance,” “property,” “relation,” or “process”—can define neither life nor consciousness, still less can they explain consciousness. For this reason, the author constructs a triadic framework centered on a self-consistent, complete, and universally applicable definition of life, interpreting and elucidating being qua being as three irreducible changes: matter, energy, and life. Within this framework, the paper deduces the definition and explanation of consciousness from multiple dimensions—ontology, epistemology, and semantics: • Consciousness is universal: it is the differentiation between energy and matter. • Consciousness is unique: it is the formalization and specification of energy by matter. • Consciousness is language without meaning, whereas life is meaning without language. • Within consciousness, the divisions of subject and object, or of self and world, originate from the asymmetry and directionality of life. Consciousness, as consciousness, lies not merely in matter and energy, but also in life as life—in living toward death. The incompleteness and inconsistency of many theories of consciousness often arise from a fundamental misunderstanding of life, of the organism, and above all, of the human as such.