Self-Awareness
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Consciousness and Awareness: These notions, along with the concepts of conscious, subconscious, and unconscious along with conscience need scrutiny. It seems like the best place to start the inquiry is with the idea of response: response is not only evident in the human and animate world in general, but also in the inanimate world. Magnets and thermostats are sensitive and respond to things like iron filings or temperatures. Plans respond to the sunlight, water or nutrients. And animals respond to these and other stimuli, especially if they present a threat to their survival, offspring or territory. In humans things get a bit more complicated: They not only respond to all the above mentioned phenomena, but the response is coupled with inner speech. We name things and in that very naming, recognition, classifying or judging, in which our past experience plays a central role, there is consciousness.
Self-consciousness is one layer above this: it is still consciousness, but of a previous mental content, this too accompanied by inner speech. Inasmuch as naming, recognition and judgment are conscious processes, and inasmuch as our past bears upon these, these also could be called self-conscious processes. Self-consciousness, in other words, is not just consciousness of anything, but awareness of the same thing explicitly, of course, by reference to our past experience.
What then of sub-consciousness and unconsciousness? Many of these thoughts, motivations, and perceptions get thrust into the background, and we are not aware of them most of them. Also, our behavior although conducted consciously, we are not explicitly aware of it as such. The things that have been shoved into the background could have a life of their own and influence our later behavior with or without our knowledge. If they can be easily brought into full consciousness through reflection, then we call them ‘subconscious’ entities. On the other hand, when we are never aware of them, except perhaps through hypnosis or analysis, we call these same elements ‘unconscious’. Many traumatic experiences, whether in childhood, or a critical situation like a war, can go dormant, and yet cause upheavals on the person.
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Self-consciousness: Generally speaking, I take self-consciousness and self-awareness as synonymous. Being conscious of myself or aware of myself are very ambiguous and vague terms: I may be aware of the position of my legs, the condition of my heart, the slight pain in my shoulder, a thought, memory or experience that flashes by in my consciousness, my talking to another person, thinking about a future project, the sensations of my head, mouth, breath, and so on. All these are various instances of self-consciousness or self-awareness.
Also, when I just sit here typing away on the computer, my scanning consciousness can be scanning my body results in the awareness of some of the bodily phenomena I mentioned above, but it is also the assessor. In other words, the scanner represents my self scanning and asking questions about my status in various things, where I stand, what I gain or lose, assessing whether I am losing or winning an argument.
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Attention and focusing: Normally, in order for the meaning mechanism (i.e. intentionality) to work, you need attention or focusing. Meaning is evident to us only when our attention is brought to bear upon something. In general, attention[1] is a modality of self-consciousness, especially when it is directed toward a previous act of perception or thinking. But it doesn’t have to be directed at those. The cursor and scanner are but different forms of focusing or attending.
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The Cursor or the Scanner (Self): In addition to the above, I also notice a very significant feature of the self: i.e. what one might call the ‘scanner’, ‘cursor’ or ‘monitor’, which are all forms of self-awareness or self-consciousness. I notice that I move my attention all over the body and notice various features of the body: say tensions, positions, pains, etc., just as I would by scanning my immediate past experience, how it has been more pleasant, relaxed, pained, depressed, afraid, etc. I can shift my position from one place in the body to another, and I also can shift it from the present, such as when I am listening to a piece of music or watching person sewing, to something in the past or in the future. I can search for various possibilities for the solution of a problem or find a clue to it by looking into my past experience, and think of various possible future consequences, and so on, and decide which ones to act upon. I can review my own positions and assumptions and question them or find the sources of problems. Also, I can switch between points of view or positions, put myself in someone else’s shoes or imagine myself looking at the things or me and my behavior from that person’s point of view, to which I can in turn respond to, at least within the context of my own self-dialogue. I can also be aware of the influences of my past acting on me and decide either through act through them or act otherwise, while letting them be.
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It’s easy to brush this all off as nothing but an illusion of agency, claiming that it’s an illusion to think that there is someone or something doing the scanning or thinking, or feeling, remembering or imaging, and that it’s just a bunch of thoughts, images from the past arising and passing away. I think there is a fundamental mistake here. There may be some truth to this claim, but what it ignores is the fact that I can willfully change my attention to be placed wherever I wish. That’s why I call this the ‘cursor’ action.
The cursor activity is probably almost always accompanied by speech movements. What’s undeniable in this context, in my opinion, is that some sort of conscious activity, such as my being aware of these thoughts, is going on. The activity may indeed have its neural correlates, and that to my mind cannot be simply explained by saying it’s a series of passing and passive thoughts and impressions arising and disappearing. It seems to me that neural correlates cannot exhaust my active, willful, conscious activity. Even if It is only a bunch of neurons acting in assembly, the cursor, nevertheless, is probably the source of our belief in ourselves as an active agent.
Self-awareness can be extensive: for any person with a developed consciousness, (perhaps with a huge ego), there is always a cloud of knowledge[2] (knowledge being all the things one has identified oneself with positively or negatively, and all of one’s past experiences and thinking) hanging over everything one thinks, experiences, feels and does. This knowledge in the background is the ‘subject’ side of self-awareness. But it takes on a specific relevant position against the current ‘object’, and makes comments and judgments, all of which are in the form of thoughts. In this process there is always the concern or worry about the self at the center governing the process. As a consequence, there is always an assessment, finding one’s status at any moment -- whether one is gaining or losing, whether something is pleasant or unpleasant, etc. -- maintaining or promoting it in some fashion, or deprecating it, which is another form of maintenance of the self. Fear is one of those modes.
In subsequent acts of reflection or self-awareness, we could once again be conscious of the motive with which we were acting or saying something, and become ‘other’ than the motivation. For example, in a discussion, if upon reflection if it becomes clear that the motivation for arguing with my friend was to win over an argument, then, I could, if I am so inclined, change the course of conversation to a less competitive mode. This can be an endless process. It’s perhaps possible to become aware of the entire motivational structure, but that requires letting go of the identifications which are the source of the motives in the first place.
I think something like this process underlies changes in our behavior when they are consciously undertaken. This reflection or self-awareness also allows us to grow out of old patterns of behavior or habits. The process creates a ‘space’ or distance between us and what we are looking at.
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The Movement of the Self (Being and Becoming): Self-awareness extends to all areas of life, one’s past experiences, memories, future hopes and desires, present status, one’s own thoughts and thoughts about thoughts, one’s own pleasures and pain, discomfort, achievements, and failures, responses, anger, guilt, feelings of depression, frustrations, and on and on. This awareness is multi-layered, each layer being aware of what one was aware of before, thought of, remembered, or said. This includes what is normally called self-consciousness, which in an acute form can stultify one’s actions, paralyze one on the stage or tongue-tied.
The movement of the self is a consequence of this self-awareness and consists primarily in ‘wanting or trying to be elsewhere,’ to be in a different state than what one is in, or wanting to preserve one’s present state, if it happens to be pleasant one, compensating for one’s inadequacies, such as feelings of inferiority, in various fashions, struggling to overcome a state of depression, or struggling to get out one’s present boredom or meaningless in life, and so on. All these responses put the self in a mode of travel or becoming. This is the primary source of our restlessness. And being aware of this and wanting to overcome it also generates further becoming.
In this movement there is both being and becoming. One has to ‘be’ something, i.e. identified with something, in order to ‘become’ something else, i.e. attempting to become something other than oneself, be somewhere else, be in some other state than one is, or another state which preserves the current state. The presupposition in all becoming is striving to ‘arrive’ somewhere, or rest in some state. Unfortunately, this is an attempt which is destined to failure. For the very movement to arrive at a different state also creates a further movement to come to another state. Inherent in the becoming is the built-in self-awareness which has to result in further becoming. It’s an endless travel. The travel to overcome one’s inadequacies has to result in further inadequacies, for one’s awareness of one’s state has to constantly, in order to make sure, to compare it with other states either more adequate or better, or feel proud of one’s status. Comparison is in the very nature of self-conscious mind. Over time, one becomes weary of the travel in the search for a resting place, for peace. There can be no peace in this travel.
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Possibilities of Change: While changes can happen either from external sources or internally or a combination of the two. Let’s for a moment focus on the changes that can happen from within: One of the aspects of self-awareness or reflection is to look at the same situation from different angles or perspectives or points of view, often another person’s. To be sure the perspectives are all, or almost all, borrowed from the outside sources. But when we look at a problem, for instance, from a different angle, we not only gain a different perspective, and look at it in a different light, but gain insight into a solution to it. The mere awareness of such a possibility is oftentimes enough to become instantly free from the problem.
Take for instance, my being involved with a woman romantically, which doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere. I may look at various possibilities, regardless of what their source is, such as asking myself, “What’s so great about this lady?” And realize that another person looks, in fact, more attractive and amenable, or open to a relationship. One of those possibilities may look plausible enough for me to instantly disentangle myself from this person.
Or look at another instance: My smoking habit, I notice, is invariably associated with my drinking. And when I look at it the connection in such a way, that I find that there is no need for this necessary connection, I can instantly sever in my mind the link between the two, and be free of the smoking habit and my slavery to it, regardless of its deleterious consequences.
What is interesting about this process is that sometimes it enables us to look at the world and everything in us or around is without any perspective, and in the process become utterly passive. We can thus arrive at, at least momentarily, a total state of peace, until of course something else engages our attention, and hooks us to a situation.
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Moments when we seem to be or act without the self: There surely are moments when we seem to be or act or live without the self: Take some examples:
When I listen to someone, I have a habit of setting aside all other interests or concerns of mine and just be all ears to the person. At that moment there may be no thoughts going through my mind. Yet after finishing hearing what the person has to say, I come up with a response, of course, springing from my past experience, which I consider to be appropriate to the situation on hand. But there certainly has been understanding and scanning the report as I listen to the person, but this process may be going on rather passively or subterraneously, without my explicitly thinking any thoughts about the report.
Or, when I am attempting to solve a philosophical or intellectual or artistic problem, I may be so engrossed in the situation that I have no moment to spare to think about myself, except perhaps the satisfaction of solving the problem or the disappointment at not being able to solve.
Or, when I am in the presence of a child, watching the child play, and, at times, also participating in the play. But when I see the child run into some danger, such falling into a ditch, I immediately spring into action without a care about what might happen to me and use all my knowledge and skills from my past to salvage the child. This may all seem without a selfish or self-centered motive. But am all that carefree about myself? Am not watching what might be the consequences for me, or how I may be held responsible if I don’t succeed in my efforts, or thinking of how I might rewarded for my seemingly altruistic action?
It all depends on the moment. I may be just doing out of sheer habit, or I may have hesitation in helping the kid, or any number of other motives may slip in. All this doesn’t mean that I am acting with my self-interest in my mind, or without it. There may be moments during this effort when there is no thought of the self occurring.
Notice that from a third person point of view, the act itself is what counts as selfless, not what possibly motivates a person to do it. Of course, any ulterior motives could be discovered after the act on a later occasion.[3]
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Anchoring: Consciousness (or whatever you call it) is unstable[4] and cannot usually remain without attaching itself to something – be it an experience, an idea, an object, a person or a situation. It’s not that the ‘I’ or some person is identifying with something, but there is identification through this attachment. And once attached, that consciousness acts as an agent or a subject and views and responds to others from that point of view, of course utilizing previous knowledge.
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Dropping the Veil of Maya: On page 46 above, I talked about self-talk and “telling ourselves” and how it is responsible for our assuming various points of view, looking at things from different angles or perspectives, and how it can be responsible for change. Here I need to add a further note: The perspective one assumes can be broad enough to encompass the whole motivation structure in our psyche. It can ask itself the meaning of life, “Why should I have anything other than I what already have?” “Why should life have any meaning?’’ and so on, to the extent that at least for the moment, that we can simply let go of everything. And that may just be, temporarily, what loss of self means.
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But there is another movement here: without any cause, or effort on our part, there may come to be moments of life when all perspectives just drop off in our consciousness, and it becomes totally passive, looking at everything as a totally innocent person. This may be quite similar to what UG might call the “declutched” state. Conflicts and frustrations and all other mental dramas disappear, at least for the moment. And the energies in the organism are no doubt released by this.
All the interactions of the self with the surrounding world, not just relationships, are determined by this attachment. Each one of the identifications acting constitutes for the moment the self. And clusters of them are also formed and become mental tracks of various kinds.
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The Person: Of course, both in my own view and as to how others views me, I have certain characteristics: Objectively, as a person other people give me an identity of some sort with character traits, with a certain legal status, a name, with m property, possessions and so on. I am irascible, friendly, cowardly, courageous, and so forth. Part of the idea of the person is someone having a having a consistent set of characteristics, a character as it were, which makes my behavior more or less predictable, although unpredictability may itself be one of these characteristics. This is how people generally define or describe my character, and this picture does not necessarily agree with how I think about myself.
In my own mind, i.e. subjectively, I am what am, or just am. Also, I am what I think about myself, my self image. The idea of myself as a person does not operate within my own mind prominently except in relation, comparison or contrast to other people or persons. For instance, only when someone mistreats me, I get the feeling I am not treated as a person with dignity, as the other person treats himself or herself.
But I am also what I think other people think of me, including my physical appearance, my behavior, my relationships and so on. And I constantly adjust myself, my persona and my behavior to approximate to that image that I form of myself. My whole life can be one stage performance, as if I am on stage all the time, even when I am with myself and no one is around.
Is there such a thing as my ‘true’ nature? Not all patterns of behavior are necessarily attributable to our upbringing and environmental influences. A person may indeed be brought up in a violent environment, or abused when he or she was a child, but against all odds he may grow up to be a gentle, kind and non-violent person. I have noticed kids and grown-ups who are incorrigibly aggressive or unexplainably kind. I strongly suspect that there may be genetic factors outside of these influences at work that might explain why some people are such.
Perhaps similar explanations as to why someone, against all odds, is artistically inclined, or helping others, or their curiosity is so overwhelming that they end up becoming scientists. There is, after all, something to be said about “Follow your heart.” (Or “Follow your bliss”, “Follow your true nature,” and so on.) This may also be the core of our character formation and essential personality.
This is not to say that that one couldn’t transcend one’s conditioning acquired from our upbringing or environment, and become at least temporarily or relatively free from them.
[1] It is interesting to note here that Indian philosophy assigns a whole organ (manas) to the faculty of attention. According to it, perception is not complete or successful without the cooperation of manas. Indeed, it was also considered as the coordinator of sense-impressions.
[2] I once asked UG about what he meant by ‘knowledge’. His answer: whatever in the past gave you pleasure or pain. Of course, one could include under this umbrella all the information, skills, thoughts and experiences we had had in our past concerning each of the relevant subjects.
[3] See above p. 39 for more on selfishness. Also my book, Being Yourself, 2014, Ch. 19: “Is There Such a Thing as Selflessness?” pp. 179.
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