Abstract

Only on the basis of the understanding of life is it possible to define and explain consciousness. However, many concepts grounded in monistic or dualistic presuppositions—whether “substance,” “property,” “relation,” or “process”—can define neither life nor consciousness, let alone explain consciousness through life. For this reason, the author constructs a triadic framework centered on a complete, self-consistent, 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 difference between energy and matter. • Consciousness is unique: it is the formalization, singularization, and individualization of energy by matter. • Consciousness is language without meaning, whereas life is meaning without language. • The dualities of subject and object, of self and world, in consciousness, originate from the asymmetry and directionality of life’s change. Consciousness, as consciousness, lies not only in matter as matter and in energy as 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.