What is Consciousness?

You are reading these words.

There may be colours and shapes in your field of vision. Sounds around you. Sensations in the body. Perhaps thoughts appearing as you read.

Whatever else we may eventually say about Consciousness, there is conscious experience happening now.

But what exactly is Consciousness?

We use the word easily. We say that someone is conscious or unconscious. We speak about states of consciousness, conscious decisions, self-consciousness, and conscious experience.

Yet the closer we look at the word, the less simple it becomes.

Is Consciousness something produced by the brain?

Is it a process?

A capacity?

An emergent property of sufficiently complex biological systems?

Is it inseparable from the contents of experience?

Or are some of the assumptions contained in these questions themselves worth examining?

These are not merely spiritual or philosophical questions. Consciousness is studied across neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, medicine, and contemplative traditions. Different approaches illuminate different aspects of the question, and fundamental questions remain open.

Probing Consciousness does not begin by choosing among them.

It begins with experience.

Begin With Experience

Before constructing a theory of Consciousness, can we examine experience itself?

A sound appears.

A sensation changes.

A thought comes and goes.

An emotion arises.

Attention moves.

Memory presents something that is no longer happening.

What can actually be observed here?

This kind of inquiry does not replace scientific investigation. Nor can examining one’s own experience establish scientific facts about the brain, the universe, or the ultimate nature of reality.

It asks a different kind of question:

What can I discover by looking carefully at experience itself?

The Ordinary Sense of self

Sooner or later, the investigation of Consciousness encounters another question.

Who—or what—is conscious?

Ordinarily, the answer seems obvious:

I am.

But what does the word I refer to?

The body?

The brain?

Memory?

Personality?

The continuing story of a life?

The felt sense of being located somewhere behind the eyes?

The one apparently observing thoughts and sensations?

Perhaps some combination of these?

In this work, the lowercase word self refers to this ordinary personal and psychological sense of identity: the familiar “me” associated with body, memory, personality, thought, history, relationships and experience.

Rather than accepting or rejecting that identity, we can examine it.

When I say “I,” what am I actually referring to?

What About the Self?

Some contemplative traditions use the word Self differently.

Within Vedanta, for example, the capitalized word Self can point not to a better personality, a spiritual ego, or a more refined individual identity, but toward Consciousness itself.

This is a profound contemplative claim.

And it should not be accepted merely because a tradition says so.

It raises a question that can accompany the inquiry:

Does careful investigation of experience reveal anything that supports—or challenges—this distinction between self and Self?

The distinction between self and Self will therefore remain something to be examined throughout this work, not a conclusion the reader is required to accept.

Can the ordinary sense of self be observed?

Can thoughts about “me” be noticed?

Can memories, sensations, emotions, roles, and identities be examined as contents of experience?

And if so, what—if anything—does that reveal about the relationship between self, Self and Consciousness?

There is no need to answer in advance.

Different Directions of Inquiry

Consciousness can be approached from different directions.

Science investigates brains, nervous systems, behaviour, cognition, perception, attention, sleep, anesthesia, neurological disorders, and measurable conditions associated with conscious experience.

First-person inquiry examines experience as it is lived.

Philosophy examines concepts, arguments and assumptions—including the assumptions contained in the questions we ask about Consciousness.

Psychology and cognitive science can investigate perception, identity, memory, attention, behaviour and the processes associated with our experience of ourselves and the world.

Phenomenology can examine the structures and qualities of experience as it appears.

And contemplative traditions can offer observations, arguments and methods of investigation developed through long engagement with questions of mind, self and Consciousness.

These approaches are not identical, and one should not be casually substituted for another.

But they can stand beside one another.

Scientific findings can challenge assumptions made through introspection.

Direct observation can raise questions that third-person descriptions may not settle.

Philosophy can examine the concepts underlying both.

And contemplative traditions can offer possibilities for investigation without requiring us to accept their metaphysical conclusions.

No single perspective needs to be declared the final authority before the investigation begins.

The Question Remains Open

Perhaps Consciousness will eventually be explained entirely through processes we can objectively investigate.

Perhaps our present concepts are insufficient.

Perhaps some questions will turn out to have been framed incorrectly.

Perhaps careful investigation will reveal distinctions we have not yet considered.

We do not need to decide beforehand.

For now, something much simpler is possible.

Notice what is happening.

A sound.

A sensation.

A thought.

The movement of attention.

And ask:

What do I actually know about Consciousness before I explain it?

The investigation begins wherever you are.