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Single Idea 9319

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / b. Essence of consciousness ]

Full Idea

Is consciousness just a special type of self-awareness, or is being self-aware a special way of being conscious?

Gist of Idea

Is consciousness a type of self-awareness, or is being self-aware a way of being conscious?

Source

Robert van Gulick (Mirror Mirror - Is That All? [2006], Intro)

Book Ref

'Self-Representational Approaches to Consciousness', ed/tr. Kriegel,U /Williford,K [MIT 2006], p.11


A Reaction

This is a really good key question, which has hovered over the debate since Locke's definition of a person (as 'self-aware'). I take the self to be a mechanism of most brains, which is prior to consciousness. Maybe the two are inseparable.


The 12 ideas with the same theme [the defining aspect of being conscious]:

We can understand thinking occuring without imagination or sensation [Descartes]
Consciousness is shaped dialectically, by opposing forces and concepts [Hegel, by Aho]
Pure consciousness is a sealed off system of actual Being [Husserl]
Sartre says consciousness is just directedness towards external objects [Sartre, by Rowlands]
Consciousness always transcends itself [Sartre]
Consciousness and experience of qualities are not the same [Armstrong]
Heidegger showed that passing time is the key to consciousness [Derrida]
The mind experiences space, but it is not experienced as spatial [Searle]
An organism is conscious if and only if there is something it is like to be that organism [Nagel]
Is consciousness a type of self-awareness, or is being self-aware a way of being conscious? [Gulick]
Can we be aware but not conscious? [Chalmers]
Consciousness is a process (of neural interactions), not a location, thing, property, connectivity, or activity [Edelman/Tononi]