The brain sees the whole and that is how it acts upon the objects in the world, as wholes, holistically.
The brain makes up the whole from the parts. The holistic approach and action of the brain toward the environment is a mode of function that is passed to our consciousness as well. We approach everything presented to our consciousness in a holistic manner, not as individual separate objects. More precisely the part of a whole that has drawn our attention, the stimulus from the surroundings our attention is focused upon, drags along every other part that makes up the whole.
That is how the gestalt process works, where even if a small part of a pattern is presented to us is sufficient to bring along to our consciousness the whole pattern. Our consciousness or brain is making up the whole from any of its individual parts.
Our consciousness acts in a holistic manner with concepts too. It includes within it the anticipation John Holland attributes to his reverberating cell assemblies and as such it directs our actions that about to happen in the future. Concepts connected by threads woven into a whole submerge in our consciousness, that represent our edge of consciousness at that particular moment, as it shifts in time, constantly re-arranging its contents. An uncanny action which if it is left undisturbed it will surprise us.
If however attempt to interfere, applying doctrines alien to human nature, adhering to the distorted simplified models prevalent in society we loose that spontaneity that our holistic consciousness amply give us. The holistic nature of consciousness becomes a drawback, as it treats the part as a whole, ignoring everything else. It directs our attention into a single thing, lead us in a state of ignorance and in one-dimensional overriding approach to life events.
Consciousness treats reality holistically, as reality acts as an infinite connected whole to our senses. Mach's principle at work.
