"Three people are on a street near some stark red flowers. The first is mentally rehearsing the important presentation he's heading to and barely registers the

"Three people are on a street near some stark red flowers. The first is mentally rehearsing the important presentation he's heading to and barely registers the presence of the flowers. The second is out for a jog and appreciates the flowers' beauty in passing. The third is on LSD and has been staring at the flowers for twenty minutes. I'd argue the third person is experiencing the most "redness". Oh, except the LSD was laced with nasty stuff and he forgot the experience later. Sike! He was unconscious the whole time! Oh, and the 2nd person got a head injury 17 years later and forgot that entire year. Sike! He was retroactively unconscious the whole time too! And the first person died, so he doesn't remember anything, and therefore his whole life was retroactively unconscious!" These are contrived examples where you are arguing about the semantics of the concept of consciousness. I will make it a little bit more practical. Practically, the first man is probably not very conscious, if he is completely occupied by the presentation. It is possible to be conscious and simultaneously have lots of thoughts, but it is improbable, because higher consciousness quiets down your analytical mind. The second might be conscious or might not be. The description cannot be used to figure it out. If they are completely occupied by the smell or beauty of the flowers, the buddhists would say that they become the flower, because you are where your attention is. If your attention is 100% on the flower, you are not conscious, because consciousness means that at least some of your attention is left for being aware of yourself. The third case is a little bit different, because in my understanding mind-altering chemical substances can produce states that are similar to higher consciousness, and can leave a strong imprint, like people who use LSD say (I don't have personal experience, I have used only some mild psychedelics 30 years ago, but still remember those experiences deeply.) But there are no shortcuts to higher consciousness. You have to pay the price some way or the other. I don't know enough about the subject to know what the price would be. If any one of them later forgot about their experiences although they had a higher level of consciousness at the time, that does not take away the consciousness. Memory does not equal consciousness. Memory can inform us about our level of consciousness, but it can also lie.