What Do We Actually Know About What We Are?

Probing Consciousness · Essay 01

An invitation to look, not to believe.

By

Dharmendra Singh

· September 4, 2026

There is something strange about being human.

We can describe distant galaxies. We can examine the structure
of an atom. We can map parts of the brain, sequence a genome,
build machines that learn, and send instruments beyond the edge
of our solar system.

And yet one of the simplest questions remains remarkably difficult:

What am I?

Not: What is my name? Where was I born? What do I believe?
What do I do for a living? What has happened to me?

Those questions have answers.
But they may not answer the question being asked.

What are we, before all the descriptions we have accumulated
about ourselves?

This is where Probing Consciousness begins.

Not with an answer. With a question.

The person we have learned to be

Imagine for a moment that you could place everything you know
about yourself on a table.

Your name.

Your nationality.

Your age.

Your gender.

Your occupation.

Your education.

Your successes and failures.

Your political opinions.

Your religious or philosophical beliefs.

Your memories.

Your relationships.

Your hopes.

Your fears.

Your story.

Much of this is important.
Some of it is necessary for living in the world.

But notice something.

Almost all of it was acquired.

There was a time when you did not know your name.
There was a time when you did not know your nationality.
You did not arrive knowing your profession, social status,
political views, religion, family history or personal story.

These were gradually added.

Pause here

A simple question

What was here before they were added?

Don’t reach immediately for a philosophical answer.
Look.

Before “I am this”

Perhaps one of the most interesting statements a human being
can make is also one of the simplest:

I am.

Usually we don’t leave it there.

I am Canadian. I am Chinese. I am American. I am Indian.

I am young. I am old. I am tall. I am short.

I am white. I am black. I am brown.

I am a parent. I am a teacher.

I am successful. I am unsuccessful.

I am spiritual. I am an atheist.

I am afraid. I am happy. I am brokenhearted.

The words following I am can change throughout
an entire lifetime.

But what about the simple fact expressed by I am?

Before I am this or I am that comes the
immediate fact that I am.

Experience is occurring.
This moment is somehow known.

What is it that we are actually referring to when we say “I”?

Don’t believe me

This is where I want to make something clear.

I am not asking you to believe that beneath your personality
there is some mystical entity called the Self.

I am not asking you to adopt a religious teaching.
I am not asking you to accept a philosophical system.
And I am certainly not asking you to accept my authority.

Belief would end the investigation before it had properly begun.

Instead, we can examine our experience.
Right now.

You are seeing these words.
Perhaps sounds are occurring around you.
There may be sensations in the body.
Thoughts may be appearing.

Perhaps one thought says:
This is interesting.

Another may say:
This is nonsense.

Both are welcome.

But something curious remains.

The thought is known.
The sound is known.
The sensation is known.
The image on the screen is known.
Even uncertainty is known.

So we can ask:

What is it that knows experience?

Not what philosophers have called it.
Not what religion says it is.
Not what we would like it to be.

What can actually be discovered?

Turn the investigation around

Most investigation points outward.

We investigate objects.
We investigate organisms.
We investigate societies.
We investigate planets, particles, cells and brains.

But there is another direction inquiry can take.

The investigator can investigate the investigator.

The knower can become the subject of investigation.

What is the one who says I?

Where exactly is it?
Is it identical to the body?
Is it thought?
Is it memory?
Is it personality?
Is it the continuous story we tell ourselves?

Or have we assembled many changing things
and called the collection me?

These questions are not rhetorical.

I don’t want to supply the answer. There will be pointers, but no answers.

The interesting part is looking.

A small experiment

Direct inquiry

Try this now

Stop reading for a few seconds.

Look around you.

Notice whatever is present:
a wall, a window, a hand, a tree,
a sound, a sensation.

Now notice a thought.

Perhaps even the thought:
What am I supposed to notice?

That’s fine.

Now ask:

Am I aware?

You probably did not need to consult a book.
You did not need another person to tell you.
You did not need an argument.

The question itself is appearing in experience and is known.
Before deciding what that knowing is, we can investigate it.

Now comes the more interesting investigation.

Does this awareness itself have a nationality?

Is it young or old?

Does it have a profession?

Is it wealthy or poor?

Is it educated or uneducated?

Is it tall or short?

Can you find its colour?

Can you locate a political opinion inside it?

Can you find a boundary in present experience where
the knowing of experience ends and something wholly
outside it begins?

Don’t imagine an answer.

Look for the boundary.

That distinction matters.

The boundary of awareness

We normally assume that awareness belongs to us.

My awareness.

But before accepting that assumption,
perhaps we should investigate it.

Where exactly does awareness stop?

Close your eyes for a moment.

Sounds may still appear.
Sensations appear.
Thoughts appear.
Perhaps an image appears in imagination.

Where is the boundary surrounding the knowing
of these experiences?

Can you actually find one?

This does not prove that awareness is infinite.

It does not prove a religious doctrine.

It does not establish that the universe is Consciousness.

Those would be conclusions.

For now we are doing something much simpler.

We are examining what experience itself reveals
— and what it does not.

That difference between
discovery and conclusion
will matter enormously in everything we explore here.

Science and first-person inquiry

Science has transformed our understanding of the world,
including our understanding of the brain and human experience.

Probing Consciousness is not an argument against science.

Quite the opposite.

The spirit of genuine investigation
— question assumptions, examine evidence,
remain willing to be wrong —
is deeply compatible with what we are doing.

But there is a dimension of experience
that cannot be replaced by description.

Someone can explain the chemistry of sweetness.
You still have to taste sugar to know what sweetness tastes like.

Someone can describe pain neurologically.
The description is not the pain.

Likewise, theories about Consciousness
are not the same thing as investigating
conscious experience directly.

Third-person investigation and first-person investigation
need not be enemies.

They may simply be looking through different windows.

Perhaps the question is enough

We live in a world overflowing with answers.

Religions have answers.
Philosophies have answers.
Political systems have answers.
Teachers have answers.
Scientists construct models.
Algorithms provide answers almost instantly.

And now artificial intelligence can generate pages of them
in seconds.

Perhaps what we sometimes lack is not another answer.

Perhaps we have forgotten how to remain with a question
long enough for the question to expose our assumptions.

What am I?

There is no need to answer tonight.

Carry the question.

When someone says your name, notice what responds.

When anger appears, ask what knows the anger.

When fear appears, ask whether the awareness of fear
is itself afraid.

When a memory appears, notice that the memory is present now.

When you look into a mirror, ask whether what sees
the reflection can itself be found in the reflection.

Not as a technique.

Not as a ritual.

As investigation.

Where we begin

Probing Consciousness will explore Consciousness,
self, knowledge, meditation, fear, identity,
life, death and the extraordinary mystery
of ordinary experience.

We will occasionally encounter science.
We will encounter philosophy.
We may encounter ancient contemplative traditions.
We will examine ideas that have occupied
human beings for thousands of years.

But none of them need become authorities.

Every claim remains open to investigation.

Including mine.

Especially mine.

Because if this inquiry is worthwhile,
its purpose cannot be to replace
one collection of beliefs with another.

It must eventually return us to the only place
investigation can actually happen:

our own experience.

So perhaps we can begin without doctrine,
without a promised destination,
and without pretending that we already know
what we will find.