Objects are just bundles of properties, with no essence.
What do you think?
It is awareness, or consciousness, which perceives objects, not that objects have no essence or are just bundles of properties. To have bundles of properties an objective mind would have to theorize those properties and it would be consciousness which would perceive those properties through sensation, in this case, sight.
Noumenon would not be subject to conscious perception, to being aware of sensation, to being aware that one is aware of what is being felt. We cannot feel atoms and molecules but we theorize that they exist. If one argues that atoms can indeed be seen, and are not therefore a theory, then what about strings? We declare properties even by its absense or by effects attributed to something we theorize, for example, black holes, dark matter and dark energy.
For convention we assign essence to an object - a rock has the essence of rockiness, rigidity, hardness, etc; water has the essence of being hot or cold, hard or soft, stream, water, ice, etc.
As it pertains to Kantian philosophy, it's definition is "a thing as it is in itself, as distinct from a thing as it is knowable by the senses through phenomenal attributes," wouldn't the life force be considered noumenon? What about Consciousness, as opposed to consciousness? We cannot sense our life force but know that we are alive, that we are tired, that we are well, etc. We perceive this feeling through the mind, even when asleep or unconscious. Would the autonomic processes that keep the body functioning without our needing conscious thought to keep it running be considered noumenon? The question is then will we be able to know when we are dead? So long as there is life within the brain we may very well perceive life. But the question is whether we will perceive that the mind is thinking whilst also knowing that we are dead. We know that Awareness can be conscious of consciousness thinking. The question is whether we will be aware of the same while dead? The body dies, the brain cells finally die, does Consciousness live inside the mind, as a mental byproduct, or can it survive as an independent property outside a brain that perceives the world through consciousness? If the answer is no, then what about ghosts, spirits, angels and demons?
Mind cannot be used to transcend the mind. The eye cannot see itself; taste cannot taste itself; sound cannot hear itself. 'Phenomena' cannot be phenomena without 'noumenon'. The limit of possible conceptualization - the abstract of mind - is noumenon, the infinity of the unknown. Noumenon, the only subject, objectifies itself and perceives the universe, manifesting phenomenally within itself, but apparently outside, in order to be a perceivable object. For the noumenon to manifest itself objectively as the phenomenal universe, the concept of space-time comes into operation because objects, in order to be cognizable, have to be extended in space by giving them volume and must be stretched in duration or time because otherwise they could not be perceived.
The sentient being is only a very small part within the process of the apparent mirrorization of the noumenon into the phenomenal universe. It is only one object in the total objectivization and, as such, 'we' can have no nature of our own. And yet - and this is important- phenomena are not something separately created, or even projected, but are indeed noumenon conceptualized or objectivized. In other words, the difference is purely notional. Without the notion, they are ever inseparable, and there is no real duality between noumenon and phenomena.
This identity - this inseparableness - is the key to the understanding, or rather the apperceiving of our true nature, because if this basic unity between the noumenon and the phenomenon is lost sight of, we would get bogged down in the quagmire of objectivization and concepts. Once it is understood that the noumenon is all that we are, and that the phenomena are what we appear to be as separate objects, it will also be understood that no entity can be involved in what we are, and therefore, the concept of an entity needing 'liberation' will be seen as nonsense; and 'liberation', if any, will be seen as liberation from the very concept of bondage and liberation.
Noumenon and Phenomena - The summary of Maharaj's teachings ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Emphasis mine.
So, I guess you can say that there is no phenomenon, that there is only noumenon; there is no phenomena, there is only noumena.
No mind, no thinking, no phenomena perception. But we know that Awareness doesn't necessarily need time, which is a product of the mind. Once one becomes one with Awareness one is not aware that one is not thinking, one is just pure feeling, full sensation, full being. Being Conscious of being conscious needs time, but Consciousness itself is not limited by time, by the awareness that time is passing, or that time exists.
