Someone asked me recently, what is consciousness and how does it differ from self awareness? My answer?Self awareness is the experience of any non visual sensation, where “sensation” is “the measurement of movement.” The sense of “difference.” The sense of “change.” The sense of “motility.”Now to see what I am saying, try tasting a piece of toast while not picturing this happening. What will likely happen is, if you do your best to be aware, you will engage your four non visual physical senses; taste, touch, smell and sound, along with your two internal self senses; thinking and feeling. More important, if you succeed in remaining non visual, you will experience what it’s like to be aware but not conscious.How do I define “self awareness” then?” “Self awareness” is the “non visual sensation of change.” Moreover, to see this as true, simply try staring at a small object while sitting comfortably. A still object, such as a book or a bowl sitting on a table. What will happen is that as you continue to stare at this object, you will feel urges to reset your mind, perhaps by blinking, perhaps by shifting your head. Why? Because making these movements is what allows us to be aware of still objects.What I am saying is, without relative change (either the object changing in relation to us, or us changing in relation to the object, or both), we slowly lose focus, then go blank. We literally become unable to see this object unless we create movement, either by resetting ourselves physically or by resetting the screen of our minds. If this does not happen, then whatever we were seeing becomes invisible to us. As well as that we become unaware of ourselves. Again, no change, no awareness.Interestingly enough, this very phenomenon occurs often in the animal world, where animals frequently know to be still in order to minimize their being killed. Pseudo invisibility, in a sense. This in fact this is one of the plot devices Michael Crichton used in Jurassic Park, wherein he had scenes in which people had to be still so that a dinosaur would not see them. And eat them.Now consider what I have been saying. If we do not sense movement, we do not sense. Period. This means what we call sensation is the experience of “measuring movement.” Changes in temperature, texture, taste, smell and sound. As well as changes in our thoughts and emotions. Moreover, lest you see what I’m saying as primarily referring to physical movement, consider this. The human condition we call “depression” is largely a state wherein we cannot sense movement, either internally (within our mind, as in thoughts and feelings) or externally (outside our mind, as in, the five physical senses). Thus depression is a symptom of unconsciousness.How then is consciousness different?”Consciousness” is the “skill of picturing movement on the screen of the mind.” As such, we could say it is the experience of measuring movement (awareness) while picturing this experience as a fully sensed, living event on the screen of our mind (consciousness).So is picturing change on the screen of the mind, “consciousness?” Yes.As for what Emergence Personality Theory posits; that babies live in a constant state of consciousness in their first two years of life, one can easily see this idea as true. In fact, even before babies develop depth perception, they make great efforts to turn and face all things which move, while at the same time, losing interest in things which do not move. Thus, while most adults assume babies cannot be conscious of their actions, nor able to make conscious choices, they are merely confusing being conscious with what you do with consciousness; “being” with “doing.”Being conscious of a menu is being able to picture, in a living sense, every choice on the menu. Consciously choosing from this menu is making a fully informed decision based on what is on this menu. Here, “fully informed” means being aware, in all six senses, of how everything on the menu moves in relation to you and to it. Which is just another way to say, consciousness is “the skill of picturing movement on the screen of the mind.”Author: Steven PaglieraniArticle Source: EzineArticles.comProvided by: Import duty tariff
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