consciousness
Here's an old mini-essay on consciousness: I've been spending a great deal of time trying to understand exactly what “consciousness” means and how to wrap my head around the idea of anything being more or less conscious than anything else. If consciousness is agreed upon by most to be some type of indication that a being is able to perceive its surroundings, then how is there an unconscious at all? Even at the smallest layer of reality, atoms and particles and energy all have to, to a degree, have an awareness of what's happening around them in order to react to their surroundings. Now, take an atom with electrons present. Those electrons “know” they are “attracted” to certain other particles. They have to or else they would not move. They may not have the same line of thinking one may associated with making conscious decisions, but them having any type of “preference” to what moves them suggests they “know” enough about their surroundings to react. How is this conscio