Consciousness is relational; it is the realisation of a posterior reality on the basis of a prior reality. Normally these are called objective and subjective, but these terms are limited and misleading. A reality is a universe, it is closed under cause, implication, dependence and every such asymmetric relation, although this closure is no more than virtual, that is descriptive terms can stand in for functional terms. Thus, for example, the self or subject or 'I' is an abstract term which stands in for the prior reality. It can appear as if the posterior reality, being the more real, imposes itself on the prior reality. This is absurd, but results from the necessarily greater dominance of the posterior reality, that is, its greater visibility. In terms of realisation, the posterior reality is a reduction of the prior reality. The question is, and this is almost a koan, what is the basis of the prior reality?
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