Lets return to the classic Solipsism problem. How do I kmow that my consciousness is not the only consciousness and nothing else in the world exists.
We get to this position by observing that we have no way of knowing whether a worm is conscious. Or a dog and surprisingly a human. Yet I am undeniably conscious. When I awake in the morning and the world becomes apparent it is definite and it is definite for me. I see no other reason to believe there are other consciousnesses. Organisms could just be causal agents with brains meditating stimuli and there is no consciousness, person or being present.
Now like all things this is half true. It has two parts (1) the existence of a singular consciousness with no other and (2) the existence of a person closely associated with this consciousness. Lets tackle in order.
(1) Consciousness we have done many times. Thing to note is the contents of consciousness and the consciousness itself. It is like comparing the existence if a book and the characters inside the story. When I see a mountain far away, either my consciousness is far away as well, or the mountain is close. What cannot be the case as a mountain far away while my seeing is close. But they must be connected somehow. This means that the mountain I am conscious of is in a weird place. It is neither where the mountain hypothetically is, nor is it where I hypothetically am. This is like asking Neo in the Matrix where he is while in the Matrix. Or a gamer with VR headset on while attacking some fortress, where are they? The point is that things exist within consciousness, while consciousness itself cannot exist somewhere. This is handled step by step at the start of the Buddhist Shurangama Sutra.
(2) Let us first establish that when looking at a photograph of our self with other people there is nothing special about our self. We look just like them. Each person is a separate organism and apparently self contained. From this observation we can conclude that at least "externally" we are to consider our self like other people. If I have feelings then so do they. Feelings can be hypothesised to some extent as people behave in a way that fits with emotions and from our own experience of that behaviour that comes with a feeling. But we get to the stumbling block of consciousness now that perhaps they are not aware of those feelings, they just behave like robots.
Lets be slightly psychopathic for a second. Suppose other people are empty automata robots. Well from the intellectual examination of a photo where we all look the same we can conclude that perhaps we are just an automata our self. How do I know that I am not an automata robot? Well its interesting but actually I am. Do I make my heart beat, do I make my lungs breath, do I even think? All these things can be attributed to the body. It is just the consciousness which seems to be very closely associated to "me". But what if the consciousness was also just a product for the body? For a Stage One thought we are like a God overlooking the world unfolding but have no interaction with it. This is like solipsism but we have separated our self even from consciousness. This makes some sense as we are aware that consciousness is not continuous. We fall asleep and there seems to be a discontinuity till morning. "I" can vaguely see that I exist outside consciousness. And if I have ever been given an anaesthetic there is a very obvious connection between consciousness and chemicals that can interfere with its production.
Now the Stage Two thought. We can find it quite easy to image a worm without any "being" inside. Some can do this easy for animals too, especially when they want to eat them. And some can do it easily for people too espcially when they have been told to fight them. We can understand all the behaviour as just bodies, and we can add consciousness to this as well, without suggesting there is a "person" inside. This is where the Solipsist is right. There is no person inside other people. And returning to the photo we can see there is no person inside us!
Putting all that together. Consciousness is not inside my body. It is not anywhere because things are inside consciousness. Yet consciousness is a product of the "body" or at least it can be seen to be caused and an anaesthetic given to the body for example can "knock us out" and interfere with consciousness. So even while the pillar of our solipsism is knocked down, and we can vaguely see that our consciousness is not so universally important we still hold this idea of there being a pillar there. Stage One thought was that this pillar might be outside the world and just looking in passively. But Stage Two was to realise that there is literally no need for this "nothing" like being to be hanging around. If it was hanging around we like to think it hangs around in my body. But we can look at other people walking around they don't seem to be dragging this "being" around with them. Its a slightly psychopathic thought but they don't need a "person" inside any more than a worm does. What the psychopath fails to do is them apply this emptiness to them self. Looking around I can't see and don't need a person in here at all.
So personally I am not realised yet. But I can see that the real sticking point is that I still have the consciousness as a pillar upon which to rest the person of me. The belief that I am conscious remains. Yet at the same time I can see that walking around I am not carrying the consciousness with me; everything unfolds within the consciousness: it is not moving itself. So the consciousness cannot be within the body which moves. I raise my arm for example, does my consciousness move? No. When I move my head does my consciousness move? No. What I see changes but not the consciousness. Like a TV showing a train does not itself move. Or a POV game changes view as the avatar moves, but the computer screen does not move. So where am I? Normally we like to think we are closely connected to the body and all the worldly things like our name and history and job and likes and dislikes. But this is all body. "I" am left as this chewed up and spat out piece of gum stuck to the pavement of my consciousness. It is not necessary, and although I would like to have it cleaned up it is firmly stuck.
Now this might trigger some anxiety. What a boring world without "people" and what is the meaning of my life without someone inside to own and make it me. Well relax because the above musings change nothing. All the above was doing was looking closely at what is going on and seeing what fits and what does not. It is highly publicised that "self", at least a self "outside" the picture, that somehow remains unchanged by time is a fiction. But it is firmly believed and hard to see beyond. There is nothing outside what is going on right now, and every part of our self is deeply embedded in what is going on. There is nothing looking in, and separate from the world.
Buddha notes that the cause of all suffering stems from resistance created by this view of a separate independent self. This creates a pit into which the wheels of life get stuck again and again. We either strive to attain what we have put in the pit, or struggle to get out of the pit again. If we fill that pot hole in then life is free flowing, we are only ever going toward what we want and away from what we don't want but in both cases we are only ever here, and there is no detachable rover to be anywhere else.
