Delving into the unreal

From chapter 5 of The Dice Game of Shiva: How Consciousness Creates the Universe. Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Smoley

Another property of consciousness is implied by the definition I gave at the beginning of this book. If consciousness is the ability to relate self and other, this must entail the capacity to distinguish, to say “this” and “not this.” This capacity is not limited to the primordial distinction between self and other; it can also isolate various “others” into the separate things and events that are collectively known as the world.

The complementary property to this ability to distinguish is the capacity to see similarities, to liken. If you are able to look up at a tree and recognize it as a tree, this is largely because you have seen trees before and know what they are. Recognition, along with memory, is largely a function of the capacity to see similarities. If you’d never seen a tree before, you would be able (probably) to perceive it as distinct from its background, but you would not know it as a tree.