What's the current understanding of consciousness?

How can you know yourself? Who are you? You are just the shell between the inner world and outer world. So to know it you are dependent on both.

Immediately a quote from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad came to my mind. It's not "Know thyself" rather than "Love thyself" but I think it goes in a similar direction. In the very least, it may showcase why it's important to know and understand the self. It also underlines why seeking knowledge beyond the self may be deemed irrelevant.

Therefore, Yajnavalkya says to Maitreyi, “Nobody loves anything for its own sake.” All love is love of the Self, in the pure spiritual sense. Not this self or that self, myself or yourself, itself—this kind of self is not the point. It is the universal Self that is actually pulling you in some form, and you are not able to catch the point. There is an illusion that is presented to the sense organs, and under the impression—due to the delusion—you go to the object thinking that it is beautiful, that it is necessary, that it is meaningful. There is no meaning in anything in this world except the meaning of the Selfhood of that object. — Brihadaranyaka

In accordance to these teachings, knowing thyself will lead to knowing the other. In fact, I reckon one comes to a much deeper understanding of others if they have understood their own self first, rather than simply observing some second or third party.

That means, self-awareness must precede other-awareness. That's the correct/preferred/recommended sequence for awareness (self-awareness first, other-awareness second). However, the current understanding of consciousness (self & other awareness and more) is that other-awareness preceded self-awareness: humans and a few other animals that are/seem to be self-aware evolved very late in life's history given the evidence available to us. — TheMadFool

I do struggle to grasp the common understanding of self-awareness outside of a human context.
Wikipedia says: "While consciousness is being aware of one's environment and body and lifestyle, self-awareness is the recognition of that awareness."

But isn't being conscious in itself the awareness of consciousness? What I'm trying to say is that while I'm sure there is something like self-awareness, at the same time the idea we have of it seems rather artificial. Even the famous mirror test to me, seems to me more of a test of mental capacity, rather than self-awareness.

Consider then being conscious but not self-aware. You've just been told to "Know thyself" and so you go your philosophical quest to do just that. What is is that you do? Likely, you'll be exploring the concept of yourself and all the aspects of it. You'll do so by thinking, with your mind, constructing words in your head that seemingly fit your condition. By the power of the word and your imagination, you may even try to abstract yourself from your own mind and body, as if trying to take a third-person look on your first-person being. You come to one conclusion or the other, in terms of thinking got as far away from yourself as you could possibly get and then proclaim: "I know myself!"

Now my question is: Do you really become self-aware through that? Through putting abstract layer upon layer on your persona, ultimately deciding at some point "this view is an objective enough consideration of myself."? Then let us imagine a hypothetical person that knows no language, no words. If they are unable to articulate themselves as we do, can they never become self-aware?


Here's a theory of mine: While language is the greatest tool of mankind, it can sometimes become a curse. The use of words in everyday life has totally shifted the workings of our thoughts. Since language is inherited culturally, from a point of other-awareness so to say, it may represent a sort of barrier to truly and deeply understanding the self. I believe there's a more intrinsic, natural way of thinking and knowing. Thoughtless thinking, where no words are necessary. Why is it that those who practice meditation claim that to become self-aware, you must still the mind?

Similarly how you don't use words in your head to move your body, it seems obvious to me that they aren't a necessity for thought either. Rather, we may differentiate between two kinds of thoughts:

1. The ones I do not need to formulate. Those are the thoughts for the self. The thoughts the self knows.

2. The ones I do need to formulate. The self still knows these thoughts. However, these are meant to eventually be shared with others. Like how we discuss philosophy here, words for my thoughts are necessary so that I may share those contemplations. These formulated thoughts are for interaction. The issue here is: We learn this from such an early age and engage so much with others, that it becomes our normal mode of thinking.

So when the Self is engaged in thoughtless thinking, is that not the highest form of self-awareness? For when we think without words, we are most aware that the Self simply knows. The more I can rely on myself knowing that my Self knows, the more self-aware I become.


Also I believe that any living being is capable of this thoughtless thought. There are varying levels of complexity of course - but I think it goes hand in hand with consciousness itself. Thoughtless thought is what moves and maintains our body. It's what makes us dream at night. It's what lets an animal differentiate between predator and prey. And it's the silent voice that lets us know that our mind is chattering again when we are sat deep in meditation.

Certainly we have this ability from our birth. How can a baby learn anything if it's not capable of thinking without words? In that sense, I do believe that all life comes into being self-aware. Even the tiniest, seemingly dumbest organisms around us.

As you say, know thyself before you know the other. So perhaps it's just the other way around? Perhaps we're so awfully unaware of our self (by courtesy of blending words into our thought process), that we simply fail to understand the self-awareness of other beings?

I think that you raise an interesting question about whether knowledge of self or others comes first, and it is complex because the two are interconnected. We experience life in terms of personal experience, but we grow up in a social context, not in isolation. The individuals who fail to make connections with others are the ones who are diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum, and they are usually diagnosed on the basis of having difficulties. One of the aspects of autism is a problem of understanding other minds.

You present the question of self- awareness vs knowledge of others as a paradox, and in some ways, I think it is comparable with knowledge of inner and outer reality. In some respects, one could argue that we are all interconnected rather than separate persons. However, that is contrary to personal experience and I certainly feel very separate to others. But, I do think that both self-awareness or awareness of others are essential and need to be balanced, so I would argue that neither should be primary and that the two aspects need to be conjoined as a basis for understanding.

How can you know yourself? — Prishon

I wish I knew that. I always had a problem with the advice to know thyself (temet nosce). There are two way of doing that:

1. Self-reflection but then the biases that you have will play havoc with the image of yourself i.e. distorted self-image. Remediable though with the help of knowledge about biases that afflict us but then the specter of bias looms ever as threateningly over this neat move: after all, how do we're not biased about what we think are cognitive biases

2. Reflection off of others but then other people could be as or, if you're unlucky, more biased than you; again, a distorted self-image results.

Do you see another way out of this rather disturbing and lamentable situation? We must know ourselves but there really is no way of doing that in a way that could be deemed satisfactory.

Who are you? — Prishon

As I suppose @180 Proof would reply,

who am i? same as Odysseus (homo viator) told the cyclops, "Nobody" ...

Therefore, Yajnavalkya says to Maitreyi, “Nobody loves anything for its own sake.” All love is love of the Self, in the pure spiritual sense. Not this self or that self, myself or yourself, itself - this kind of self is not the point. It is the universal Self that is actually pulling you in some form, and you are not able to catch the point. There is an illusion that is presented to the sense organs, and under the impression — Brihadaranyaka

You were right Smith, you were always right. — Mr. Anderson

Life's raison d'être is to copy itself; there's no statement stronger than "copy ME" to express self-love. Nothing is then more important than ME and to ensure my existence I want to copy myself!

But isn't being conscious in itself the awareness of consciousness? — Hermeticus

Here, I'll have to disagree with you. I will say nothing more than that though.

interconnected — Jack Cummins

other minds. — Jack Cummins

I don't know where you want to take this but there are solitary animals that only socialize to mate and once ejaculation is achieved, it's as if they never met. Such animals, loners you could call them, don't actually require other minds to be given an opportunity to become self-aware, for instance, they could see their own reflection in the water while they drink.

Before I forget, this reminds me of the myth of Narcissus. The question: was Narcissus really/completely self-aware? More to the point, was Narcissus not self-aware? :chin:

Life's raison d'être is to copy itself; there's no statement stronger than "copy ME" to express self-love. Nothing is then more important than ME and to ensure my existence I want to copy myself! — TheMadFool

Why do you think that thats the reason we live?. Sounds circular. Copy me? :smile:

I agree that Narcissus is interesting and, really, I think it is a good question as to what extent he was self aware. But, mirrors can be a source of joy and horror. Socrates looked within and perhaps that may have been because his reflected mirror image would not have been pleasant. There is also the question of narcissistic image disturbance and disorders, which can include problems with self image and esteem. But, often it is about self consciousness, as reflected in social mirroring. As the psychoanalysts suggest, the he self is fragile and can have problems under the gaze of another, or an inherent brokenness based on poor internal objects.

Why do you think that thats the reason we live?. Sounds circular. Copy me? :smile: — Prishon

What do you think is the reason why we live?

mirrors can be a source of joy and horror. — Jack Cummins

Especially the second one is "nice"!

The reason for living? Ooof! In any case not to pass on genes or memes, like modern science says (embodied by people as R. Dawkins, who see people as a vessel for selfish genes........???). I think life itself is the reason. What's life itself? Magic!

Especially the second one is "nice"!

The reason for living? Ooof! In any case not to pass on genes or memes, like modern science says (embodied by people as R. Dawkins, who see people as a vessel for selfish genes........???). I think life itself is the reason. What's life itself? Magic! — Prishon

Life for life's sake; all else (philosophy, love, honor, beauty, etc.) is an illusion! We've seen through the ruse, eh? We've seen life in its real form and while some may exclaim, "it sin't pretty!", I quite like cheating and copying is, I believe, the easiest way to do that (brain unnecessary!) :lol:

That said, now what?

Life for life's sake; all else (philosophy, love, honor, beauty, etc.) is an illusion! We've seen through the ruse, eh? — TheMadFool

Indeed! It's one big magic show. But the ruse is real!