Consciousness is Not the Same as Awareness
What is consciousness, anyway?
The terms consciousness and awareness are often considered synonyms. This is linguistically wrong because these two words have different meanings. If you look for definitions of these two terms, you will only find vague descriptions that use other, equally vaguely defined terms or even circle back to themselves, and therefore either say nothing or leave a lot of room for interpretation.
Follow me as I explore how we make experiences. This will give you an insight into how your mind works and show you the correct use of the terms consciousness and awareness.
What do you perceive at this moment? Maybe you see something. Maybe you hear something. You experience your surroundings through your outer senses. And you perceive states of your body, such as warmth, tension, or pain, through your inner senses. You have learned to regard these perceptions and therefore your body and your surroundings as real. Feelings are the same as perceptions, because the word feel comes from the Old English word felan, which means ‘to perceive.’ Usually, the term perception is used for what comes from the outer senses, and the word feeling for what the inner senses provide. You can find out more about feelings/perceptions in my article “Feelings are Not the Same as Emotions.”
What else is “in” you at this moment? Your thoughts. Thoughts are not real. They are imagined. So your present experience has two parts: a real and an imagined part. Perceptions or feelings are real, thoughts are imagined. You can find out more about thoughts in my article “This is the Difference Between Humans and Animals.”
Look at an object. Then close your eyes and think of the object you just saw. By remembering, you create a thought, ie an imagined image. This image can be more or less clear, more or less detailed, depending on your powers of imagination and remembering.
Listen to something, eg a tune or birdsong. Then think about what you just heard. The remembered sound can be more or less clear, more or less detailed, depending on your powers of imagination and remembering.
When you hear something, the sound is real. When you remember what you heard, it is imagined. When you open your eyes, what you see is real. When you close your eyes and remember what you saw, it is imagined.
What is the difference between real and imagined? You may say “clarity;” but the clarity of an imagined image depends on your powers of imagination and remembering; both are a matter of talent and training; for example, there are people with photographic memory. Clarity is not a distinguishing feature.
What do you see in this picture?
You probably see a cube, which is a three-dimensional object. But this is an illusion, because the picture is clearly only two-dimensional; it is a configuration of twelve straight line segments that suggests a cube. In fact, the picture even suggests two versions of a cube, one with the lower left square as the front and one with the upper right square as the front.
So this picture has a real version (twelve straight line segments) and two imagined versions (first cube, second cube). You can more or less easily choose which version you see. For most people, it is most difficult to see the truth of the twelve line segments.
When you see a cube, you see an imagined image – although it is a perception with the eyes and not a thought, so it should be a real image. So we ask again: what is real and what is imagined? Optical illusions show that real and imagined can merge into one another. Therefore, we unify them using the term ‘know.’
The Old English word witan means ‘to know.’ It has the root *weid-, which means ‘to see.’ Therefore, the term know can be used for any kind of seeing; for seeing something real and for seeing the imagined – and it can be generalized to all perceptions, such as hearing. Your most elementary experience is to know ... and in fact, it is your only experience. Your present knowing comprises your perceptions/feelings and your thoughts – at least to a first approximation; there are two other types of knowings that we will mention later.
To illustrate this, imagine that your mind has a knowing “screen.” This knowing screen contains what you know now; it has two windows: a perception window for the perceptions/feelings and a thinking window for the thoughts.
At every moment, a new present knowing replaces your present knowing, which then becomes a past knowing. Imagine how each present knowing is a new top page in a book, which becomes thicker from moment to moment: the book of your life
You can access past knowings by turning back the pages of the book. This is remembering. Remembering makes a past knowing a present knowing.
When you remember, you look back at your history. Therefore, you know that you have a history. This experience creates the ego, the ‘I.’ ‘I’ is the identification with your own history.
The word conscious originates from the Latin words com, meaning ‘with, together,’ and scire, meaning ‘to know.’ Therefore, conscious means ‘knowing together’ or ‘knowing a togetherness,’ and consciousness is ‘a knowing of a togetherness.’ Your life history is a togetherness of knowings, namely the collection of a lifetime of knowings. Therefore, the word consciousness can be aptly used to denote knowing of your history. The basis of consciousness is, therefore, the ability to remember.
The word aware has the root *wer-, which means ‘to perceive.’ Therefore, awareness means ‘perceiving.’
Awareness happens in the perception window of your knowing screen. Consciousness happens in the thinking window. Awareness is now. Consciousness includes the past.
Observe yourself: When you are in the here and now, eg because you focus on an activity, you are pure awareness. Even your ‘I,’ ie your identification with your history, can disappear in such a moment. Many meditations aim to bring you there.
In the now – and therefore in your awareness – there are also two other types of knowings: familiarities and intuitions. I describe them in my article “Intuition is Much More Than Just a Sixth Sense.” For a deeper and understanding of your mind, read my book “Consciousness – Its Nature, Purpose, and How to Use It.” There you will find a complete ‘Theory of Mind.’
Imagining a knowing screen can help you become an observer of your thoughts. This is the basis for self-exploration. Here are two exercises to get you started:
Exercise 1: Observe your present knowing, ie “look” at your knowing screen. What is in the perception window? What is in the thinking window?
Exercise 2: Practice switching focus between the perception window and the thinking window.
Further readings:
Article “Feelings are Not the Same as Emotions”
Article “Intuition is Much More Than Just a Sixth Sense”
Article “This is the Difference Between Humans and Animals”
Book “Consciousness – Its Nature, Purpose, and How to Use It”
Are you implying that we the generator of all our thoughts or, like feelings, can we also perceive thoughts that simply arise?
I'm working on an essay attempting to explain how _vital_ _fiction_ as a core component in the development of creativity since fiction deals with several properties of complex structural symbolic organization and reasoning... let me ask you this real quick....
Is it more parsimonious to assume _everything_ is a fiction until we can reasonably ascertain that which is _provisionally true_ (Marshall MacLuhan), rather than to assume things are _true_ unless we learn they are fictions ... you'll recognize this is at the core of the problem Western civilization is experiencing with this massive flood of bullshit permeating the culture in the form of so-called "misinformation" or "malinformation" etc... we all make assumptions predicated on assumed "truths," and this is obviously not helping us in this climate of Peak Bullshit.
Thanks again for reading and taking the time to reply.