What is the true nature of the self? What's the difference between self and consciousness? — Truth Seeker
The self is what is referenced in such various views as Hume's bundle, Metzinger's Ego Tunnel, Tononi and Koch's system of integrated information, systems' theorists predictive modelling of reality (a la
@apokrisis), these things are instantiated by brains in humans and constitute a loose functional identity. When this functioning ceases, say in sleep or under anaesthesia, the self ceases for that time.
Consciousness is, at minimum, what makes doing all these functions feel a certain way. Recently I've starting thinking that consciousness may be uniquely causal, so that nothing at all could happen without it.
So then "consciousness" is impersonal? For instance, my awareness of being self-aware isn't actually mine? — 180 Proof
It's a good question, if I understand it, which I'm not sure I do. I'll take an awake, functioning human as being a central case of a person, and it seems to me that both the functioning complex referred to above and the presence of consciousness are necessary for personhood (although there are other senses of 'person' I'm glossing over). So a person aware of their own consciousness is an aware functioning-complex aware of their awareness. So, if I've understood your question properly, consciousness abstracted from any functioning system is indeed impersonal, in that sense.
(But, inevitably, sometimes people (particularly the religious or spiritual) use 'person' simply to indicate the presence of consciousness in the abstract. Sometimes the distinction between 'self' and 'Self' is made, which I guess corresponds to the difference between the functional-complex and consciousness, but I'm no expert on that.)