Consciousness

This deserves a post of its very own.

 

What do I mean by consciousness in this context?  Well, let me look at things I don’t mean first.

 

I do not mean conscious as opposed to unconscious.  I have never felt that the difference is very well defined, anyway.  If you are unconscious, what is your consciousness doing?  Why can’t you perceive it?  Or if you can, why is it unable to interact with your body with the result that other people are not aware that you still have it?  If it has in some way switched off, how does it get switched back on?  What is happening just before you regain consciousness?  Too many questions, and as the state of being unconscious doesn’t particularly interest me (except, perhaps, in the context of beer and a weekend evening…), I am not thinking of consciousness in this sense.

 

I also do not mean conscious in the sense of self-aware, although there is a relation to this.  I consider self awareness as a necessary part of consciousness.  I believe it is reasonable to assert that the vast majority, if not all, of people are self aware, except when they are, of course, unconscious.  And maybe even then.  However, I do not think that self awareness is the same as consciousness.

 

Why did I bring people in to the discussion just then?  Well, I do not know about you (although I can have a fair guess, from many discussions with other people, who I doubt are really that dissimilar from you), but I am aware (oh dear, here we go!) that I am not necessarily always actively conscious of what I am doing.  Take, for example, what can happen when you travel a familiar route, and upon arrival at a particular point, you suddenly wonder how you got there, as you don’t remember walking/driving past the land marks you know are on the journey.  Or when you are in the middle of a conversation (I notice this between partners quite often) and suddenly one realises that although they have been holding down their end of the discussion, they have not got the first clue what the other person (or, indeed, in some cases, they themselves) has been talking about.  I would argue that although as an individual we have been self-aware throughout such an experience, we have not been truly fully conscious.

 

I would like to think of my consciousness as being the part of me which makes decisions.  However, there is substantial evidence that this just is not the case (read Rodney Cotterill’s excellent book “Enchanted Looms” ).  For the moment, due to networking issues, amongst other things, I will leave this discussion there… and fill you in on my view of consciousness in a future entry!