Introduction: Form Is a Possibility of Consciousness, Not Its Prison
Discussions of consciousness often tacitly accept an initial frame: only the material is real, only what can be formalized is reliable, and thinking is possible only through particular forms. Such a frame can be extraordinarily useful. It allows us to introduce terms, compare observations, reproduce results, construct models, and communicate knowledge. But the practical power of formalization does not prove that the formalizable exhausts what exists.
An illegitimate transition can easily occur here:
formalized content can be worked with reliably
↓
only what can be formalized is real
The first assertion concerns a method’s capabilities. The second concerns the boundaries of reality. No necessary logical transition connects them.
The problem becomes especially apparent when one directly examines one’s own consciousness. Consciousness can not only think within a form and not only see a form as a form. It can cease retaining any form at all. A thought may receive no continuation, meaning may never become an object of attention, and reasoning may stop. Yet consciousness does not disappear. Presence, perception, orientation, and the ability to act remain.
This allows three independent states to be distinguished:
- consciousness within form;
- consciousness in relation to form;
- consciousness without a form currently retained in attention.
The third state cannot be reduced to the second. Seeing a form as a form means still looking at it. Releasing a form from attention means no longer being currently engaged with it.
What Is Meant by Form Here
In this article, form does not mean every structure an external observer can discover in the activity of the brain, body, or perception. Form is considered from the standpoint of the experiencing subject.
Form arises where something:
- has been singled out from what is happening;
- is retained by attention;
- has a definite boundary;
- is recognized as “this particular thing”;
- acquires meaning;
- becomes part of a sequence of thoughts;
- becomes a thesis, image, problem, rule, or object of a relationship.
For example, the sentence “I’m already 38 years old and haven’t achieved anything” is a form. It fixes age, the past, achievement, a norm, comparison, and an evaluation of life. This is not merely a collection of words. It is an organized space of distinctions within which some conclusions begin to seem natural while others do not even arise.
Form need not be expressed aloud. An inner phrase, a retained image, an anxious scenario, a category, an expectation, a picture of the future, or an implicit rule can also organize attention. What matters is not the presence of words itself, but the fixation of particular content as meaningful and current.
At the same time, not everything happening in consciousness is already a retained form. Something may flash and disappear without acquiring a boundary, name, meaning, or continuation. One can see a tree without saying “tree” internally, examining it, or turning it into an object of thought. One can hear the city, walk down the street, and orient oneself in space without formulating a single thesis about what is happening.
Thus, we must distinguish:
the presence of something happening
≠
the meaningful fixation of what is happening
It is this distinction that makes it possible to discuss the third state of consciousness.
General Scheme of the Three States
| State | What Happens to Form | Position of Attention | Characteristic Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Within form | Form is accepted as reality itself | Attention follows distinctions established by the form | “I’m 38, I’ve achieved nothing, so my life is a failure” |
| In relation to form | Form is recognized as a construction | Attention is directed toward the form and its boundaries | “Connecting age and success is just one possible frame” |
| Without form in current attention | Form is neither retained nor replaced by another | There is no fixed object of attention | The thought about age receives no continuation; presence remains |
These states should not be understood as three philosophical theories or stages of obligatory development. They are three distinct modes available to the same subject. The subject can move between them many times in a single minute.
First State: Consciousness Within Form
In the first state, form is not experienced as an introduced construction. It coincides with what seems to be reality.
Consider the thought:
I’m already 38 years old, and I haven’t achieved anything.
If consciousness enters this form, it begins moving along an internally prescribed trajectory:
38 years old
↓
it's already too late
↓
others have accomplished more
↓
I've fallen behind
↓
my life does not conform to the norm
↓
there's something wrong with me
Each subsequent step seems to follow from the previous one because the initial form has already introduced the necessary categories:
- there is a correct age by which achievements should occur;
- a life is measured by outcomes achieved;
- people should be compared according to a single scale;
- falling behind on that scale constitutes personal defeat;
- the past determines the significance of the present.
The subject may never utter these assumptions. They function as a background that determines what matters and which conclusions are permissible. Being within form means more than agreeing with an individual sentence. It means perceiving the space formed by that sentence as the only accessible space of reality.
Personal anxiety is not the only thing that works this way. Materialism, idealism, a religious system, political ideology, a scientific paradigm, or an everyday notion of success can function similarly. As long as the frame remains invisible, its conclusions are perceived as properties of the world rather than consequences of how it was organized.
The first state is not an error in itself. Without entering forms, it would be impossible to reason coherently, solve problems, make plans, calculate, design, and communicate. The error emerges when a useful form is declared mandatory and exhaustive:
I can think by means of this form
↓
I must think only by means of it
↓
nothing exists outside it
Form ceases to be an instrument of the subject and begins determining the permissible boundaries of the subject itself.
Second State: Consciousness in Relation to Form
In the second state, the subject recognizes form as form. The subject no longer fully coincides with it and gains the possibility of investigating its organization.
The same thought now looks different:
The connection “38 years old — few achievements — life has failed” is a particular construction. I can examine its grounds and am not obliged to accept it as reality itself.
Here consciousness can ask:
- why age is connected with an obligatory outcome;
- who established the criterion of achievement;
- why one biography should be compared with another;
- whether a universal life schedule exists;
- what understanding of success was adopted in advance;
- what changes if other categories are introduced.
This is a metaposition. Instead of moving exclusively along routes established by form, the subject makes the form itself an object of attention.
state 1
SUBJECT → moves within FORM
state 2
SUBJECT → examines FORM
In the second state, it is possible to suspend acceptance of a thesis, compare several frames, identify hidden assumptions, change definitions, or create a new system. This is one of consciousness’s most important capacities. Thanks to it, no particular form must retain power over the subject forever.
Yet the metaposition has a limit: form remains in focus. The subject may no longer live inside the cage, but still stands beside it, examining its bars, measuring the distance between them, and explaining why the cage is not the whole world.
Therefore, the second state is not yet the absence of form. It is another relationship to form. At a minimum, it retains:
- the form being examined;
- the distinction between subject and form;
- the thesis that form is not obligatory;
- the operation of analysis or suspension;
- a new frame within which the previous frame is called limited.
The metaposition frees the subject from unconditional submission to form, but it does not free attention from the need to remain engaged with it.
Third State: Form Is Absent from Current Attention
The third state begins not when form has been refuted, but when it ceases to be retained.
The subject is not obliged to tell themselves:
This thought is merely a social construction.
They need not replace it with a positive assertion:
At 38, it’s not too late to achieve success.
They need not construct a new ontology:
Age and success are unreal, and I am free from social norms.
All these would be new forms, still organized around the original problem. A different operation is possible: not continuing the thought at all.
“I'm already 38 years old...”
↓
the thought is not retained
↓
it receives no continuation
↓
it is not refuted
↓
it is not replaced by a new thought
↓
it disappears from current attention
After this, consciousness continues. The person walks, sees the street, hears sounds, avoids obstacles, feels their body, and is present. But the construction “age — achievement — evaluation of life” no longer organizes their current world.
This is not a victory over form. Victory would retain the defeated form as the central reference point. It is not a negation of form. Negating X still depends on X. It is not distance from form. Distance presupposes that the form remains before the subject.
The third state can be expressed very simply:
Form no longer receives attention, while consciousness remains.
This is precisely why it differs radically from the metaposition.
Mental Silence
A direct example of the third state is mental silence. There is no formed thought, inner sentence, reasoning, or meaning retained as the current subject matter.
This does not necessarily entail the absolute absence of every momentary impulse. Thought-like events may arise like virtual particles: flashing briefly and immediately disappearing. The decisive distinction is whether such a flash receives attention.
If attention takes it up, formation begins:
flash
↓
retention
↓
singling out “this”
↓
meaning
↓
formed thought
↓
sequence of thoughts
If attention does not take it up, something else happens:
flash
↓
not retained
↓
receives neither name nor continuation
↓
disappears
presence continues
In mental silence, there is no need to monitor each thought deliberately. Such monitoring would itself become an activity and create a relationship between “observer” and “observed thought.” One may refrain from analyzing what arises, classifying it, or even continually checking whether silence has been maintained.
The question “Am I thinking about anything right now?” is itself a brief thought. But afterward, the question may be released, and silence may continue. The appearance of a check does not prove that the entire preceding state was filled with thinking about not thinking.
For example:
five seconds without a retained thought
↓
“What was I thinking about just now?”
↓
no definite content can be reconstructed
The sixth second does not rewrite the first five. Distinguishing a state afterward does not retrospectively turn that state into uninterrupted reasoning about itself.
Presence Without Fixation of Meaning
Mental silence is not a loss of consciousness. The subject does not disappear, fall asleep, or cease perceiving. What disappears or is reduced to a minimum is the layer of active formation of meaning.
What remains:
- presence;
- a field of perception;
- bodily state;
- orientation in space;
- the possibility of responding to an event;
- the ability to redirect attention;
- the ability to begin a thought if required.
One can look at a tree without thinking “this is a tree.” One can refrain from evaluating its beauty, examining the form of its leaves, or recalling events associated with it. The tree is in the field of perception but does not become a fixed object of attention.
It is useful to distinguish two modes here:
the tree is present in the field of perception
and
I retain the tree as an object of attention
In the second case, effort, boundary, and the possibility of further movement of meaning arise: color, species, age, name, relationship. In the first, none of these must become actualized.
Therefore, presence should not be understood as another object on which the subject necessarily concentrates. The phrase “I observe presence” already introduces an observer, an object of observation, and a directed relationship between them. In the third state itself, such fixation may be absent. Presence is not examined; it is experienced.
Attention as Support for Form
The distinction between the three states is particularly clearly revealed through attention.
Form becomes current not only because it arose at some point, but also because the subject continues to give it attention. For a thought to turn into reasoning, it must be retained, returned to, connected with other content, and not allowed to disappear immediately.
Focusing requires an additional operation:
single out X
↓
retain X
↓
separate X from the background
↓
continue working with X
This operation is experienced as tension and expenditure of energy. When focus is removed, effort diminishes. That is why mental silence can feel like a minimum of activity while consciousness remains.
It does not follow that attention creates every form out of nothing or that physical processes stop. The conclusion is different: for the subject, form exists as content currently organizing experience insofar as it receives sufficient support from attention.
A thought may arise without intention, but the subject is not obliged to:
- accept it as true;
- make it their current position;
- develop it;
- refute it;
- find a replacement for it;
- remember it;
- even establish what exactly it was about.
Freedom of consciousness manifests not only in choosing between thoughts. A more radical freedom lies in the possibility of giving a thought no continuation at all.
Three Possible Transitions in One Example
Consider the original thought once again:
I’m already 38 years old, and I haven’t achieved anything.
Transition into Form
The subject accepts the given distinctions and continues them:
38 years old → too late → others are ahead → I lost → the future is closing
Form receives attention, emotional force, and new confirmations. It becomes a trajectory of consciousness.
Transition to Form as an Object
The subject stops automatically following the thought and investigates the construction:
“Why should being 38 mean it's too late?”
“What counts as an achievement?”
“Who established this scale?”
The form loses its status as unconditional reality but remains the center of attention.
Transition Without Continuing Form
The subject follows neither the original trajectory nor the trajectory of analysis:
“I'm already 38...”
[do not retain]
street, breathing, movement, presence
The form has not been refuted or corrected. It has simply ceased determining the current state of consciousness.
This third transition cannot be called a less intellectual variant of the second. It does not lie on a scale of how well a form is processed at all. No processing takes place. The subject rejects not one particular answer, but the necessity of continuing the question itself.
Why Describing a State Does Not Cancel the State
The most obvious objection is this: if a state without form can be described, then there must have been form within it after all.
This objection conflates experience with its subsequent description.
experience
↓
subsequent recollection
↓
distinction of what was experienced
↓
verbal description
The description has form. The article has form. The concept of “mental silence” has form. But it does not follow that the experienced state already contained this article, concept, or description.
A map of a landscape does not need to be present at the moment a route is walked. A musical recording of silence does not turn the silence into a narrative about silence that was sounding at the time. The ability to give form to an event later does not prove that, at the moment it was experienced, the event was identical to that formation.
Form arises when the subject returns to what was experienced, singles it out, and communicates it. This is a new operation of consciousness. It demonstrates the capacity to move from the third state to the second, but does not eliminate the distinction between them.
Main Objections and Their Boundaries
“If the Brain Continues Processing Information, Forms Still Exist”
This assertion changes the level of consideration. Neural activity, sensory processing, motor coordination, and the structure of the visual field can be described. But the presence of structure in an external observer’s model is not identical to the presence of meaningful content retained by the subject.
Even if every state of consciousness corresponds to an extremely complex physical process, that does not yet imply that the subject formulates, retains, or experiences that process as a form at every moment. The form of scientific description belongs to the description. It cannot be transferred into experience without separate justification.
“If Someone Doesn’t Remember a Thought, That Doesn’t Mean There Was No Thought”
Inability to remember does not in itself constitute absolute proof of the absence of any event. But the state described is not established solely from a subsequent gap in memory. The subject directly distinguishes the effortful retention of thought from the absence of such retention, the transition into reasoning from releasing reasoning, and the presence of an inner phrase from its cessation.
The point is not to prove that no processes occurred in the nervous system. The point is the experienced absence of a definite, meaningful, retained thought.
“Thinking About Not Thinking Is Also a Thought”
Yes, an intention to stop thinking and a check of the result may be thoughts. But they need not last throughout the state. The thought “do not continue” may disappear along with the thought it stopped. Thereafter, presence remains without any need to repeat a command continually.
“Presence Itself Is Also a Form”
The word “presence” is a form of subsequent distinction. But experienced presence need not contain the concept of presence at every moment. Otherwise, every event would have to be identified with its later name.
To name something is to give it form for thinking and communication. This does not mean that before being named it already existed in the form of that name and definition.
“The Absence of One Particular Thought Doesn’t Mean the Absence of Every Form”
If “form” means any causality, organization, or distinguishability a theorist can attribute to a state, the objection becomes true by definition. But then the word “form” has been expanded in advance so that a state outside form is logically forbidden. This is not a discovery about consciousness but a consequence of the vocabulary chosen.
The experience under consideration asserts something more definite and directly testable: the subject can retain no formed meaningful content at all, choose no object of focus, and develop no reasoning while remaining conscious. This suffices to show that current formal thought is not a necessary condition of conscious presence.
Ontological Consequences
Consciousness Is Not Identical to a Stream of Formed Thoughts
If formed thought can cease while consciousness continues, the two cannot be equated.
thought appears and disappears
presence remains
Consequently, thought is a possible content or mode of consciousness, but does not exhaust it.
A Particular Form Is Not a Necessary Condition of the Subject
The subject can enter a form, examine it, change it, release it, and refrain from replacing it with another. Form depends on the subject’s capacity to retain it, whereas the subject does not disappear when that retention ceases.
Within a subject-centered ontology, this supports the assertion:
Form is a way consciousness organizes content, not a necessary basis for the existence of consciousness.
Formalizability Does Not Define the Boundary of What Exists
Formalization shows that a subject can identify, organize, and communicate particular content. It does not itself prove that nothing exists outside that operation.
content has been successfully formalized
≠
only formalized content exists
Moreover, mental silence itself is encountered as an experience before its subsequent formation into a concept. Writing about it requires returning to form. But the possibility of returning does not imply that temporarily being without it is impossible.
The Success of Science Does Not Turn Scientific Method into a Complete Ontology
Scientific form is indispensable where measurement, reproducibility, comparison, and prediction are required. But success in those procedures does not entail that reality must be exhausted by what they are capable of recording.
A method can be reliable within its domain without being an exhaustive description of existence. The requirement to regard only what can be formalized as real is an additional philosophical thesis, not a result of formalization alone.
The Subject Can Not Only Choose Forms but Also Cease Forming Them
Freedom of thought is usually described as a choice between systems:
form A → form B
Or as the creation of a new system:
form A → criticism of A → form C
The third state opens another possibility:
form A → cessation of retention → presence without replacement
Consciousness is not obliged to immediately fill freed attention with a new thesis.
Existential Significance of the Third State
Some forms are maintained not by their demonstrated validity but by continuous attention. An anxious thought may repeatedly become the subject’s current world because the subject continues it, argues with it, searches for refutations, and constructs an alternative biography around it.
The metaposition is useful: it shows that a thought is not identical to reality. Yet sometimes endless deconstruction keeps the unwanted form at the center of life. The person no longer believes in the cage but still studies its structure every day.
A third possibility consists not in finding a final counterargument but in granting the construction no further attention. The thought “I haven’t achieved anything” need receive neither a prosecution nor a defense. It may receive no continuation.
This is not universal advice to ignore facts, obligations, or dangers. If a situation calls for a decision, form is needed: the problem must be distinguished, conditions assessed, and an action chosen. But not every thought that arises is a demand made by reality. Some forms remain an active force only for as long as the subject repeatedly enters them.
The ability not to continue a form restores a more fundamental freedom to the subject:
I can do more than change the answer. I can refrain from maintaining a question that need not be my question.
The Three States as Trajectories of Consciousness
Consciousness can be considered capable of choosing a trajectory among several possibilities.
When a form arises, at least three directions are available:
┌→ enter the form and develop it
arising content ─────────┼→ make the form an object of examination
└→ neither retain nor continue the form
In the first case, attention moves along trajectories already contained in the form. In the second, the subject changes levels and investigates the very space of those trajectories. In the third, the subject does not choose a route within that construction at all.
This description does not turn the third state into a hidden form at the moment it is experienced. The scheme emerges now, in subsequent reflection. It serves as a map of transitions without replacing the experience itself.
Conclusion
The three states of consciousness differ not in the content of beliefs but in the relationship between attention and form.
In the first state, the subject is within form. Its categories establish reality, and attention follows the routes it presents.
In the second state, the subject sees form as form. They can analyze it, suspend acceptance, compare it with other forms, and create alternatives. But form remains in focus.
In the third state, form is neither refuted nor replaced. It simply is not retained by attention. Formed meaningful content disappears, while consciousness, perception, and presence remain.
The central distinction can be expressed as follows:
1. I live within this form.
2. I see that this is a form.
3. I am not obliged to engage with this form at all right now.
The directly available third state supports a strong conclusion: formal thought is not a necessary condition of conscious presence. Form may arise, receive attention, change, and disappear, while the subject continues to be.
Form is therefore a possibility of consciousness, not its ontological boundary. Formalizability is a capacity to give form to content, not proof that everything that exists must fit within form. Consciousness can use forms, look at forms, and leave forms unattended. None of them automatically gains the right to determine the limits of reality.
