I think you're trying too hard to make the words fit a reality that doesn't.
You're a big collection of fast-cache lookup networks talking to each other, with a thin layer of supervisory control. Meditation is about quieting some of those networks, and using the supervisor layer to analyze how the various networks are connected, what they're doing, etc. When you're told to be present, it basically means "focus the supervisor so that it's observing the networks that send up data", instead of our default of "focus the supervisor on the data that the networks are sending us".
This has been one of the biggest issues I have with meditation practice and phrasing. It uses a lot of words that seem like they would make sense, but it never made any sense to me until I started viewing my brain as a networked ML system.
Which it is. It's just running on a biological machine, instead of a silicon one.
what exactly is this supervisory layer doing? Is your model here that supervisory model = consciousness; lookup network outputs = inputs to the supervisory model?
In The Mind Illuminated, Culadasa talks about the difference between attention (spotlight of consciousness) and awareness (consciousness of the background). Does anyone's mind vacillate rapidly between attention to the breath and background white noise? What happens in your mind when you notice background noise?
What do you mean by "realize"? It seems like subtle differences in definition would have outsized impacts on what answers would be accurate or useful about the underlying question.
When meditating, you try to “be present”. But, say a background noise happens. You can only be aware of the noise after the fact. Does this take you away from the present?
Or is it that you are actually observing the mind, what the mind is doing in the present. But then does observing objects of the mind (even non-judgmentally) take you away from the present? “Oh, I heard a background noise.”
Or is it more about being in a kind of flow with your awareness? Easy and relaxed. Just noting when things come up to the mind.