The notion that consciousness arises when a system with a vast number of possible complex states converges upon one such state, a notion that is cognate to the observation that the neo-cortex is characterised by a wildly promiscuous network of interconnections between its subsystems, unlike other more specialised parts of the brain where efficient operations are facilitated by a rigid division of labour. Normally one would expect that such a density of interconnection would create a level of chaos that would deny the stability needed for any significant operations to be accomplished in any subsystem, but then when you consider that any such operation must be ready to be instantly modified, remade or destroyed, must be both significant and momentary, convergent and frictionless, this may make more sense. The pattern of interconnections brings about a vast multiplication of states through all the possible interactions, and not limited to pairwise, of subsystems. Like all such theories the attractions of this one mask the fact that the very thing it purports to explain is not at all explained, but merely repositioned in the terms of the theory, and with all its original mystery intact. What is curious is that the pattern of this theory is strikingly similar to the mysterious collapse of the wave function notion in classical quantum theory and to the multiverse theory as a solution to the cosmic fine-tuning problem. In all cases what is at stake is the selection, or choice, of one out of a vast or even infinite space of possibilities, and always on behalf of ordinary reality, of things as they are, or simply of what is. It is reminiscent of an earlier, suggestive, but apparently quite misleading identification between the structure of the atom and that of the solar system. These vague isomorphisms are doubtless equally misleading. In the case of the multiverse as resolving the stumbling block of the so-called anthropic principle, it would seem to have the theoretical consequence that the universe we find ourselves in ought to be highly typical of any universe able to contain sentient beings capable of evolving the intelligence required to wonder at being in such a universe. But if this is so, it makes the Fermi paradox much sharper than it already is. And, following the clue of the shared pattern, we may also wonder what the equivalent of this paradox is at the level of consciousness?