Part of the difficulty in understanding consciousness is that it must take itself for granted. Everything we think we know about the world is perceived and abstracted through our own individual human consciousness, so getting a full grasp on the thing itself - which is the ground for all else as far as knowledge goes - is seemingly impossible. It makes sense to imagine that the world of sense filtered by our subjective experiences in some fashion reflects an objective reality, and thus far science is the best method for constructing an understanding of that reality. But how does one construct an objective framework of a phenomenon that is by its very nature necessarily subjective? It is the thing itself that permits and guides discovery of the thing, so how can we know when it is that we've understood it as itself?
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
