I find I must dispute this.

My coffee cup, on my desk before me, is not perceived directly. Much like radar detects airplanes, all our senses can be thought of in similar terms, as detectors.

Radar can display as a blip on an oscilloscope, an information box or even a little airplane emoji on a screen, or any number of other fashions. As long as the displayed information conforms in a meaningful way to detected inputs the 'experience' of it can vary and still be perfectly accurate. And so with our own senses. In that sense, then, what we 'see' is 'imaginary’ because what we’re really ‘seeing’ is photon interactions in our eyes.

As far as thoughts, they too exist, just as our senses do, as detected interactions. Force events. Neurons ‘firing’ or what have you.

I think you build a false distinction.

My take: I think of awareness as feeling, and it is something all sentient creatures, at least, possess. We feel interactions in our eyes, ears, fingers, gut, brain, so on. All felt interactions are felt NOW. NOW is the only ‘time’ they can be felt.

Consciousness, as I use the term, is also an awareness, but in this case of ‘self.’ Self-awareness. We have it. It seems that not many other sentient creatures do,

Thanks for the read!