I do believe consciouness is special, that it is a wonderful and novel way that the Universe has of contemplating itself, but the point I'm making is that we have no way of knowing how it works, in fact, we can't even be sure we have it.

Consciousness, like everything in the universe is relative.

The bug is conscious of its environment and interacts with it using the stored experiences and wave forms that are recorded in its tiny field of data. It is driven by stored data that is encoded into its DNA and more importantly - in a quantized field of data that supports this DNA.

That is why the bug doesn't suddenly act like a cat and vice-versa. Each animal and creature has a pre-existing field of data before it is born!

How does this work?

Okay we're going to have to think way out of the box here...so bear with me.

In a nutshell, there is no before or after in the universe!

All the things in the universe that will exist in the future from OUR frame of reference, already DO exist from another! So humanity was already in existence before the Earth was even formed! All this data, all these things that will exist, have existed or that you dream might exist - DO exist already, in, for lack of better terminology, a quantized field of waveform data. And not just one humanity - an infinite number of humanities in parallel universes that from our frame of reference, have existed, exist now or will exist.

These light speed and faster oscillating fields are the true "Adam & Eve" and make possible evolution and infinite diversity in an infinite number of parallel universes and our own. The missing link that folks have been looking for is not a physical one - it is invisible and accompanies physical evolution, both here on Earth and throughout our galaxy and the universe.

Yes, your death and mine have already happened in a trillion trillion very similar universes, with a slightly altered rate of vibration. Time is NOTHING like what folks are taught. Time is merely a relativistic interpretive marker, a comparison of two or more streams of data and their rates of vibration and interaction. Like the person in the rocket shooting out into space at the speed of light, he returns younger and experiences less 'time' than his/her compatriots back on Earth.

Why is that? Well slower consciousness frequencies equate to more "time" and faster frequencies equate to less "time" when dealing with a stationary rate of vibration like that of our material world. Our consciousness as we age becomes more developed and our minds oscillate at a higher fundamental frequency. The result is we really do experience less "time" than when we were younger because as we interface with the world around us, our vibration rate is now higher.

No mysteries exist once one begins to understand the secrets of the universe. Our consciousness plays out a vastly intricate choreography of actions and what's more, many of the folks who think they are debating something in their mind, are instead the victim of a what could be described as astral groupthink.

Once folks realize thoughts are not sacrosanct and can be corrupted and the walls of one's consciousness can be breached, those same folks, besides being somewhat initially distressed, are also on their guard to such violations and can live more productively, accomplish more, maintain emotional equilibrium and waste less time.

The average human lives a "groupthink life". They succumb to all sorts of impulses and drives that are not their own, but which have been successful at overriding the individual's consciousness. A schizophrenic or multiple personality is an obvious example of such parasitic groupthink, but everyone, to some degree or another succumbs to these parasites who live through others to fulfill their senses. At this time, smoking, drug use, gross obesity, alcoholism and poorly thought out sexual relations are some of the most obvious examples of what happens when one's own core consciousness is shouted down by parasites who share sensual experience through folks minds and bodies.

Yes, it sounds crazy or like the plot of a science fiction novel. Nothing can get in our heads! Our thoughts must be our own! I know, I too resisted, before arriving at such a conclusion. The idea that a human brain is exempt from physics is a tantalizing retreat. But our synaptic channels are nothing special; the electrochemical processes are not immune from interference and from interacting with shared wave forms that have component structures that manifest compatibility. And when one realizes the deceased, the unborn and nobody knows what all else are loitering around the universe in these quantized fields, one sees that human consciousness is very much like the groupthink of the honeybee or the ant!

Even as I type these words, I am aware of others, in a much higher frame of reference than my own, who assist in trying to share this knowledge. Yet as I am aware of these elements, so can I regulate it and use such 'groupthink' constructively. In such a way the universe can share its secrets to those who seek them.

So to answer your question, human consciousness is very special. It is not, by any means, the ultimate form of consciousness though. We are at the bottom spectra of consciousness. Self-awareness is also relative. 'Humanity' is far vaster than you can even begin to imagine and when one makes constructive links one gets to hang with folks far more 'self-aware' than our unique flavor of 'humanity'.

I'm moving this to off-topic, because the past/present/future are unified. In a vast majority of parallel universes where I don't move it to off-topic, it gets moved there anyway by an anxious moderator.

This saves them some work!

;-)

PS
Asking questions can be dangerous - sometimes the answer entails more than one bargains for.