When we look at the world, we see meanings & infer objects, not the other way round. This means that the utility of any material phenomena, the usefulness of any given object, is the first thing we perceive when we look at the environment around us, not the object itself, that comes after. The implications of this for the investigation into what constitutes consciousness, are immense.

For us to understand what consciousness is, we have to look at how we perceive & how that relates to the way we act in the world, how we think about everything & anything, how we think/believe how we perceive, is the opposite of how it actually happens.

So our consciousness, sees meaning, which must therefore be the most obvious thing about any given material phenomena we encounter with our senses.

This leads us to how our senses work, & to asking; what are they, exactly?

This is where it starts to get complicated. Your eyes are organic cameras & the place where you "see", is inside your head, not out in front of you, not in your eyes, but inside your head. This means we're all, in one sense of the term, blindly walking around not bumping into things.

We create Maps of Meaning, inside our heads, that tell us where to go, what to do, how many options of appropriate response we possess, whether it's light or dark, humidity, ambient temperature, the lot..

Just something to give to all of you, for you to think about for the next forty years, or whatever amount of time you might have left. I welcome questions.

Maps of Meaning is a book, by Dr Jordan B Peterson.. Clinical Psychologist & was/is Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, Canada.