The six sense fields cannot arise without consciousness. In the absence of that consciousness, there is a lack of contact. That lack of contact is known via direct knowledge. It exists as a bare relationship between emptiness and the Self.
However, and this would be my argument, cessation of perception and feeling is a dimension into which beings are reborn. As the highest possible attainment, it is the far limit to what the Self can experience.
The Self is acquired in three ways. By gross material form, by the mind made element, or by the formless element. That is how the Self perpetuates its existence through Samsara. It isn’t the case that the Self is a false idea.
It is only after extinguishing the Self that one is able to assert, “all phenomena are not-Self”.
The Self is extremely real. And the Self is extinguished in one way, by contact with the unconditioned. That is the difference between all of the attainments and Nibbana.
My understanding is that there is a bare relationship between mind/sense objects and faculties like perception and knowledge. Ordinarily, consciousness mediates the “gap” in between those mind/sense objects.
But, my understanding is that “red” (for example) exists independently of the knower. And infinite space would as well. And, admittedly, consciousness bridges the gap between knowledge and knower.
With cessation attainments, however, consciousness has ceased. I think we agree on that.
For me, it’s like a glass jar full of water. If you pour out the water, then you still have a glass jar - albeit an empty glass jar. Whereas when it is full of water, it contacts water - where it is empty, the contours of the jar exist on opposite sides in a bare, empty relationship. We recognize it as “empty space”. When the subject is a sentient being and the “water” is consciousness, that empty inherent relationship is just “knowledge”.
I’m suggesting that there are states of discernment which don’t rely on consciousness. As in the way a jar “understands” if it is full or empty.
Well. We’ll have to disagree. I don’t see any remnant of consciousness in nothingness. I think the word “nothingness” speaks for itself. “Consciousness” is. Nothingness isn’t. There’s no room, IMO, for consciousness in nothingness.
But, if we’re appealing to subtler and subtler states of consciousness, then I could just as easily assert the existence of an even subtler state of consciousness which exists beyond perception. I have no need to. The relationship between total cessation of perception, feeling and knowledge of that release is a bare and empty one.
It can be compared to a universe with no beings in it. It exists as a pure empty relationship to itself.
Absolutely! Consciousness is the cause for the aggregates to cling. In cessation of perception and feeling, there is no contact between the aggregates. Thus, one exists in an empty relationship to the aggregates and the world at large. It’s that empty relationship which is fundamentally “knowable”. In that sense, it’s also extremely profound. To exist as a point of reference and to have experienced the unbinding of the being from the body in a state of purified and untouched power. That is how the cessation attainment has meaning. To negate the appreciation for that state by implicating it with unconsciousness is to render it useless.
Sure. But we also have:
When a monk is emerging from the cessation of perception & feeling, mental fabrications arise first, then bodily fabrications, then verbal fabrications."
That is the volition I’m referring to.
wish I could turn it off some times. 
well … I encourage you to adopt a view on nothingness that ascribes regular consciousness to the attainment, whilst still staying true to the experience.