"The foolishness of materialism" - it's prompted a lot on my part to really dive into this thermodynamic understanding.

I guess where I get hung up is on how we can't necessarily track consciousness the way that we can, say, water.

As our universe moves outwards and as energy radiates out, as everything moves from a concentrated state to a dispersed state and from order to disorder, our mind can work the other way - like the mass that coalesces or the driving force behind creating order from the disorder, working from future to past, like you say, but we can't really track this. Or can we?

For instance, we can see how water from an evaporating lake in Greece ends up turning into snow that falls over Norway. What of consciousness? Where is the energy transfer? Given that it's so intangible, I suppose we're not expected to quantify it and I suppose this is why, like you reference, we can only logically suppose consciousness as an energy.

But what if we can, in fact, quantify it in our actions. Maybe our sagas and humanly creations, our concepts and our products are akin to the snowflakes that fall over Norway.

Or is that too cheesy. .

It's infuriating because the mind constantly wants more of a footing on this subject and it feels like there's only one more corner to turn before we can snugly fit in a missing piece that brings this all together. But it has to be accepted that it's a complete impossibility to even understand what that piece could be.