Everything in a Continuum

 In the process of being awake and aware, and aware of nothing in particular – it was an empty screen, no forms or feelings – I realize that without life, there is nothing to reflect on, not even awareness. But what is life? Is it an opposite of life? If so, how can life arise out of and made of inert things? Life and “non-life” are parts of a continuum. One comes out of another and merges into another. They are interdependent.

That is true of space and time as shown by Einstein and others. That is in the realm of the physical universe. 

Consciousness and emptiness seem to be such a pair too, in the realm of thought. 

At the micro/quantum level, wave and particle seem to be such a pair as fundamental units of the universe.

One cannot think of one in each pair without the other. They are part of a continuum. They are relative to each other.

It appears that there is no absolute, independent entity called space or time or life or non-life, conscious or comatose, particle or wave. They are relative to the other of that pair in a continuum. Our mind, which thinks with concepts made of sensory impressions and images, classifies everything and names each one. In the process of classification, the mind forgets that these separations are its own creations.

Come to think of it, color is a continuum. So are soundwaves. Our mind makes everything dichotomous for practical reasons – to live in this world. “Either or”, “yes-No” thinking is the mind’s survival mode. However, to understand the true nature of things, the mind needs analog thinking. That is why we humans have the pre-frontal cortex. It is our duty to use mind in both its “survival” mode and in the “understanding” mode.

But what is mind? How did it come about? What if there is no mind, like it was millennia ago, before humans came on the scene. Everything – particles and waves, space and time – was there. But there was no life. Therefore, no need for a category called life. Since there was no life, there was no mind to start classifying either.

Does any of this make sense?