THE FUSE

Consciousness is not just experience—it is experience that can take itself as an object. The critical turn occurs when "happening" becomes "happening to me," and later becomes "me noticing myself noticing." William James formalized this as the I/Me split—the knower and the known. This dipole may be consciousness's core dynamic: self-as-observer and self-as-observed, never perfectly still, generating inner life through constant motion. When we start to self-reflect, developing a "theory of mind" about oneself within one's own mind through the eyes of others, as reflected by our own eyes making eye contact in the mirror, something quite remarkable takes place.