The yes in the dark

Purposes tend to be derived from something that is explicitly not the self. We can see this by giving examples of various proposed ways of living one's life: in the Triumvirate, principles are derived from a figure of sufficient authority, for which one labours. These take the form of absolute commandments, 'Thou shalt not kill' and similar. They are explicit ways of directing one's energy towards a definite goal, and thus defining one's purpose. This pattern is repeated in Hinduism and Buddhism: here, it is the nature of the universe, or samsara, that supplies the principles of right action, again directed towards a goal. These goals are characterised as periods of bliss, when all the impeti are absolutely satisfied. Since some of the impeti are mutually contradictory in this respect (for example, Power & Harmony cannot be absolutely satisfied at the same time) these goals are false.

We also have the more modern defined ethics of the philosophers, the most important examples of which are utilitarianism and Kant's Categorical Imperative. Both supply external principles which are validated by their seeming correct; but fail with regard to the fact that they only seem correct when one is already embedded in a particular way of life, or course of ethical tradition: in this case Christianity. They do, however, count as purposes for the, well, purpose of this exposition, inasmuch as they are external guides to energy expression.

It therefore seems that if I seek to find a purpose in the reflexive consciousness itself, it must be a universal caused by the nature of that consciousness. I therefore ask the question again: what separates it from the rest of the experienced world? What makes it? What makes even the most basic form of it imaginable, a perception of a single dimension, a single impeti and a single method of expressing energy, a tiny yes in the darkness? To be sure, the value of consciousness is to consciousness itself, but what gives it its own value? The reflexive relation that results when the impeti encounter the world must be examined in greater depth.