There are different thoughts on this —
that we retain separate consciousness and care about the goings-on on earth
that we retain separate consciousness and don’t care about the goings-on on earth (the Jain method)
that we don’t retain separate consciousness but are absorbed into “something”
As per what we see in the Bible we know that
1. we are “alive” in Christ - death was conquered
2. that we will be “one” with God
Paul expects to be conscious in the intermediate state when he says he “would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8; cf. Phil. 1:21–24).
The clearest passages indicating consciousness in the intermediate state are in Revelation, where the souls of the martyred are depicted praying and worshipping God (Rev. 6:9–11, 7:13–15).
I think this makes it clear that from a Christian point of view we still retain our distinctive consciousness and are not “absorbed” per se. To “look” at us requires God to provide us that information - He becomes the medium connecting us all (being “one” with Him).
I think they are “aware” of the happenings, but in someway that we, living in space-time, can’t comprehend.
Ecclesiastes 9:10 may seem the opposite, but one needs to not excerpt but read the entire chapter:
For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward; but the memory of them is lost. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and they have no more for ever any share in all that is done under the sun. Go, eat your bread with enjoyment… Enjoy life with the wife who you love… which he has given you under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. Again, I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift…
The inspired author does not say the dead have no existence at all. The context reveals that he was saying the dead have nothing to do, and no knowledge of, what is happening “under the sun” as I’ve said before. But, in the end, the writer of Ecclesiastes knows that justice is coming in the next life. So certain is he of this that he can say in the final two verses of the book:
The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
The writer of Ecclesiastes is focusing upon what happens “under the sun” until the very end when he tells us that the after-life is the place where everything will finally make sense. He does not attempt to give us an in-depth teaching of the nature of the after-life. He simply assures his readers that ultimate justice awaits in God’s good time.
And Eccl is dated to BEFORE the “living in Christ”.
And Ecclesiastes is best read as satire (meant by its author to critique and mock the vain pursuits of human life, ultimately guiding readers to a deeper awareness of divine wisdom).