You can start by saying that if it has not been conscious to someone at some time it does not exist. However, you cannot say that if it has been conscious at some time to someone, it does exist, it is real. If you want to pursue old philosophical arguments, you might claim that the most fundamental stuff in the universe is photons or quarks or neutrinos, or cosmic energy or something like that. If you are diligent in pursuing inclusion-exclusion boundaries, you will always arrive at the simple fact that whatever the stuff of the really real is, without consciousness no one knows that it exists; ergo, consciousness is the most basic stuff of universe.
The distinction between inside and outside origins is irresistible. But, not all contents of consciousness are phenomena. To use Kant’s definition of terms, phenomena are events out there in the world and noumena are conscious experiences that originate from within. The brain places samples of its inner workings into consciousness; ghost images, selftalk, dreams are normal noumena. Delusions and hallucinations are abnormal noumena.
Consciousness is associated with awareness and vigilance. The unconscious animal will not hear or see the predator approaching. The conscious and vigilant animal maintains a global awareness of the local environment.
Sensory receptors are tuned to features of the environment that may satisfy drives or signal danger. Projects are generated by brain programs that often provide little or no information to consciousness except – “do it”.
Consciousness has a self-reflective option. You can stop, find a quiet place and ask “why am I doing that?” You may not get an answer or the answer you get by talking to yourself may not be true. Humans routinely fabricate nonsense stories about why they do things. If you insist on stopping and asking “why am I doing that?” repeatedly, but not compulsively, you become a poet, philosopher or monk.
You can play with the idea that you are an independent consciousness who got attached to a body for a ride on planet earth. This is something like taking a ride in Disneyland. You buy your ticket; get in and away you go. Maybe they give you a phony steering wheel so that you think you are driving, but actually, you are just along for the ride. You discover what is on the path, one experience at a time. You find out how you respond during the experience, not before.
Consciousness as a Container
As a monitor image of brain activity, consciousness will support different content. The contents of consciousness vary continuously and mostly involuntarily. We can refer to the contents of consciousness as "awareness" and you are more aware when the contents of consciousness are rich and varied. The underlying process of consciousness involves bringing monitor images of the outside world together with monitor images of inside the body. Images of the outside tend to be detailed and explicit in consciousness.
If consciousness is portrayed as a container for all experiences, you can begin to subdivide consciousness into regions depending on where the contents originated. There have been a variety of methodical constructions that divide the mind into compartments such as the consciousness and subconscious that interact in funny ways. An advance in understanding recognizes that most brain processing is done without representation in consciousness.
The contents that appear in consciousness are samples of brain activity. Vision dominates consciousness in a normal brain and is closely linked to the perception of location and sounds. When you can see, a marvelously detailed and interesting moving picture of what is out there dominates consciousness. The information content of the picture is enormous. If you try to record all the visual information in a few seconds of visual scanning your environment, you would consume gigabytes of computer memory. Thus consciousness consists of realtime monitor images that are not recorded in memory.
In contrast, monitor images of inside the body are vague and variable. Feelings and body sensation bubble up as if from below consciousness and disappear. If everything is going well, there may be little no feeling, just a pleasant neutral state. The idea is that a monitor image arising from the body tunes you into the world outside to locate something desired. When you are hungry, you feel vague sensations and scan your visual environment for signs of food. When you are thirsty, you look for signals that suggest water or water-containing beverages. Vague sensations from the inside are connected with detailed, explicit information from the outside.
Humans have difficulty describing the daily changes in the clarity of their consciousness. We do not have good words for all the possible changes in clarity of consciousness and descriptions such as "blurred, foggy, spacey, dizzy, dopey, intoxicated, drunk and stoned" indicate distortion or loss of monitor images in consciousness.
From Neuroscience Notes by Stephen Gislason MD
The distinction between inside and outside origins is irresistible. But, not all contents of consciousness are phenomena. To use Kant’s definition of terms, phenomena are events out there in the world and noumena are conscious experiences that originate from within. The brain places samples of its inner workings into consciousness; ghost images, selftalk, dreams are normal noumena. Delusions and hallucinations are abnormal noumena.
Consciousness is associated with awareness and vigilance. The unconscious animal will not hear or see the predator approaching. The conscious and vigilant animal maintains a global awareness of the local environment.
Sensory receptors are tuned to features of the environment that may satisfy drives or signal danger. Projects are generated by brain programs that often provide little or no information to consciousness except – “do it”.
Consciousness has a self-reflective option. You can stop, find a quiet place and ask “why am I doing that?” You may not get an answer or the answer you get by talking to yourself may not be true. Humans routinely fabricate nonsense stories about why they do things. If you insist on stopping and asking “why am I doing that?” repeatedly, but not compulsively, you become a poet, philosopher or monk.
You can play with the idea that you are an independent consciousness who got attached to a body for a ride on planet earth. This is something like taking a ride in Disneyland. You buy your ticket; get in and away you go. Maybe they give you a phony steering wheel so that you think you are driving, but actually, you are just along for the ride. You discover what is on the path, one experience at a time. You find out how you respond during the experience, not before.
Consciousness as a Container
As a monitor image of brain activity, consciousness will support different content. The contents of consciousness vary continuously and mostly involuntarily. We can refer to the contents of consciousness as "awareness" and you are more aware when the contents of consciousness are rich and varied. The underlying process of consciousness involves bringing monitor images of the outside world together with monitor images of inside the body. Images of the outside tend to be detailed and explicit in consciousness.
If consciousness is portrayed as a container for all experiences, you can begin to subdivide consciousness into regions depending on where the contents originated. There have been a variety of methodical constructions that divide the mind into compartments such as the consciousness and subconscious that interact in funny ways. An advance in understanding recognizes that most brain processing is done without representation in consciousness.
The contents that appear in consciousness are samples of brain activity. Vision dominates consciousness in a normal brain and is closely linked to the perception of location and sounds. When you can see, a marvelously detailed and interesting moving picture of what is out there dominates consciousness. The information content of the picture is enormous. If you try to record all the visual information in a few seconds of visual scanning your environment, you would consume gigabytes of computer memory. Thus consciousness consists of realtime monitor images that are not recorded in memory.
In contrast, monitor images of inside the body are vague and variable. Feelings and body sensation bubble up as if from below consciousness and disappear. If everything is going well, there may be little no feeling, just a pleasant neutral state. The idea is that a monitor image arising from the body tunes you into the world outside to locate something desired. When you are hungry, you feel vague sensations and scan your visual environment for signs of food. When you are thirsty, you look for signals that suggest water or water-containing beverages. Vague sensations from the inside are connected with detailed, explicit information from the outside.
Humans have difficulty describing the daily changes in the clarity of their consciousness. We do not have good words for all the possible changes in clarity of consciousness and descriptions such as "blurred, foggy, spacey, dizzy, dopey, intoxicated, drunk and stoned" indicate distortion or loss of monitor images in consciousness.
From Neuroscience Notes by Stephen Gislason MD