The Speed of Thought

Everyone knows that nothing is faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, but it isn’t clear why this is the case. To explain why things can’t go faster with a tautological "because it's the universal constant" is the same thing as saying “because they can’t” and is hardly a satisfactory answer.  

Light slows down in water or glass, and when it moves in water we say the medium is water, and when it moves in glass we say the medium is glass, but when it moves in empty space we fall silent. How can a wave vibrate nothing? There is no physical basis for light to move in empty space at all, let alone define the fastest speed possible.

One possible explanation that comes from all-mind theory is that light moves on waves of consciousness.  Not your consciousness or anyone's else's for that matter, but just pure, unrefined consciousness, the consciousness that pervades - and creates - all existence.

We experience at least six types of consciousness, each associated with a sense - sight consciousness which we call "vision," sound consciousness which we call "hearing," scent consciousness which we call "smelling," flavor consciousness which we call "tasting," touch consciousness which we call "feeling," and thought consciousness which we call "thinking."   Anytime a sensation encounters a sentient being's sense organ, be it eye, ear, nose, tongue, skin, or mind, one form or another of consciousness arises. 

On close examination, though, we realize that there has to be an even deeper consciousness that has created a mental model of a self along with memory, emotion, and desire and aversion, and we can call this deeper consciousness "self-consciousness," and we experience that as well.  In fact, it's self consciousness that more or less defines the whole luminous experience we have of existence.  

Light doesn't move through space on waves of any of the sense consciousnesses or on self-consciousness, though.  On even deeper examination, we can see that there is an eighth consciousness,  a substrate consciousness that is independent of any self, and that exists before we are born and continues after we die.  No being or entity possesses substrate consciousness. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that all beings and entities are conceptions or creations of substrate consciousness, and are in a manner of speaking possessions themselves of substrate consciousness.  

It is this eighth consciousness that brings the universe into existence.  It is this eighth consciousness that rises and falls and creates waves of light in empty space. Nothing moves faster than these waves because they are a direct manifestation of pure consciousness, and just as the hand cannot grasp the fist, consciousness cannot "think" faster than thought.   

I may not be completely correct on my interpretation of the physics (and metaphysics) involved here, or on the eight forms of consciousness, but while it may sound odd at first to think of the entire existent universe as one eternal consciousness, is that any more absurd than a creator that's somehow separate from the creation, or a big bang that emerged out of nothingness?