Originally Posted by
dolphin
I think this seems difficult because it seems like a very minor but crucial detail concerning the definition of awareness is being overlooked. Let me explain:
google defines awareness as "knowledge or perception of a situation or fact."
google defines knowledge as "awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation."
google defines perception as "the state of being or process of becoming aware of something through the senses."
Notice that awareness is defined as knowledge OR perception of a situation or fact. This means that awareness of something by definition does not require both knowledge and perception of it; it only requires one of the two. If it did require both, then we would by definition not be aware of both things we know but do not perceive and things we perceive but do not know.
Therefore, if the familiarity of our surroundings persists, we don't have to perceive them to remain aware of them. So, to remain aware of surroundings while thinking or concentrating, we can first gain familiarity of our surroundings through experience of them and then feel free do our thinking or concentrating without perceiving the surroundings. As long as familiarity of the surroundings persists, then awareness of them will persist as well.
That said, if our surroundings are changing, then we might lose our familiarity of them. So, if our surroundings change, we need to be familiar with those changes to maintain knowledge of them.