A Self Referential Concept

Conciousness is one of those funny words that every human being seems to have an innate concept of, but that fails to fall under any single definition. The idea itself seems to grandiose to be described in any one sentence, even if it was a huge run on sentence that recursed on itself ad infinitum, producing a wonderfully complex structure that even the brilliant among us couldn't understand (though, Douglas Hofstadter might argue that this sentence itself might be conscious). Poking fun aside, what is it with this bizarre looking word that befundles us simple minded creatures? Seriously, its a large word at 12 letters, is easy to misspell, and odd to pronounce. Only three letters in it occur once, with 3 s's, 2 c's, 2 o's, and 2 n's. For god's sake its only missing one vowel in the English alphabet! Well, its easy enough to pick apart the word letter by letter, but lets stop avoiding the actual difficult part, which is defining it, which is damn near impossible to do.

For example, look up the wikipedia page and you get this uncommital attempt of a definition: "Consciousness is a type of mental state, a way of perceiving, particularly the perception of a relationship between self and other ... Consciousness may involve thoughts, sensations, perceptions, moods, emotions, dreams, and self-awareness." What type of mental state? There is more then one way of perceiving? The perception of the relationship between self and other? I thought that was more then a perception, seemed pretty concrete to me. Consciouness may involve thoughts of blah, blah, blah? MAY? I think the word "may" shouldn't be in a definition of any word. You know, this word may mean this, or it may mean that, or; you know what, we really don't know what it means.

So, there is the crux of it, what does it really mean? Despite my ad nasuem assault at the above definition, its got the right words and character in it, but added a bunch of fluff in a misguided attempt to be complete. Part of the problem is we still don't know what conciousness physically is (if you enterntain any romantic dualistic notions, this might not be the best reading for you). Obviously if there was some concept of where conciousness comes from, or even if there is a only single physical explanation for it (and not many equally valid ones), then things might be easier to explain.

But in reality, whether we know the physical meaning behind conciousness or not is besides the point. We can obviously still define it as its something we live and breath everyday. Its what allows me to sit here late at night and type about all these crazy ideas that swim around my head endlessly, wishing that I was actually unconscious at this particular moment. Which then allows me to sit here even later in the night wondering why I decided to type the previous sentence about those crazy ideas that were swiming around my brain not that long ago (hmm, not so endless after all). Also allowing me to type another sentence wondering about why I typed the sentence beforehand about the sentence before it ... on and on and on. But thats it, a self referntial concept, an idea that inherently refers to itself no matter which way you look at it. Consciousness is simply the concept that allows me to think about myself as a conscious human being (pffft, and I criticized the wikipedia definition).

The idea of conciousness is inherently tied to the idea of self; in a sense its what allows us to examine out wants and desires, to control our extincts molded by millions of years of adaptation to our environment. This is intimately tied to free will, to the ability to prevent myself from acting on my immediate desires, not because its for or against my benefit, but simply because I can. Ultimately its the fact that I can control my thoughts, that I can thread them together and form them into some coherent conceptions of my reality, that qualifies me as conscious.

Well, thats a beginning anyway. My only real goal was to frame my idea of conciousness for further discussion, not really "define" it in any definitive manner (ugh, blash these subconsious word games!). What I really want to jot down is thoughts on things that go far beyond conciousness, but that certainly rest on it as a base. But I'll save that for later, my subconcious needs to digest some of these ideas.

-ed