to reflect is to contemplate. when light strikes an object, it returns at the same angle, but not in the same direction, that it struck. when we look inwardly too far, we are looking outward.

reflected light is almost digital in that it experiences a single state change but otherwise is in the same direction and intensity as before. it is a rigid return, not a recalculation of the data incoming, but a redirection of it in the same form in which it arrived.

when one reflects, often what is occurring is the processing of external stimulus in the same way that it arrived. for this reason, awareness is hard to come by, as one must have it before one begins looking through stimulus, but can only find awareness in the first place through experience (including that transmitted via genetic memory).