The alien hypothesis?

[Mike Weaver]

>from an empirical standpoint, all there is, is consciousness.....no way
>to know if there's anything else.....impossible.....

When the zen student reached that kind of conclusion, that's when they got 
clouted across the head with the large book - which represented in that 
case not the Word but the External Reality!

cheers Mike (somewhat insomniac, feeling a little sensitive about consciousness)