|
|
Author & Title:
Giorgio Marchetti, A Theory of Consciousness (Giorgio Marchetti Copyright
2001)
Abstract:
In this
article I try to give an answer to some of the fundamental questions
concerning consciousness. How is it possible to conciliate and explain the
apparent contradiction present in the metaphor of the stream of
consciousness as something flowing uninterruptedly, but which is,
nevertheless, composed of single pulses of consciousness? How is attention
involved in the formation of conscious perception? How can we explain the
phenomenal quality of our conscious perceptions?
To answer these questions, I
resort to two basic concepts: the perceptual system and the schema of
self. The perceptual system makes it possible for an organism to be
conscious, whereas the schema of self provides the rules that make an
organism perceive, move, act, behave, and live in general. The stream of
consciousness arises from the uninterrupted interaction of the schema of
self and the perceptual system. Every conscious perception affects the
schema of self, modifying and updating it. Every modification of the
schema of self implies a new particular instruction to the perceptual
system, and in general to the organism. The uniqueness of each single
pulse of consciousness is determined by the particular instruction that
each time the schema of self gives to the perceptual system.
Attention, which can be
considered as the core part of the perceptual system, is not only
responsible for the selective aspect of consciousness, but also for its
phenomenal quality. The organ of attention can be seen as the source of
the organism’s nervous energy, and attention as the nervous energy that
gives the organism the possibility of performing actions capable of
directly affecting the organism’s state of energy. The attentional
activity performed by the organism involves a variation in the state of
the nervous energy. It is this variation that constitutes the phenomenal
aspect of consciousness. When acting, the organism can experience and feel
directly its actions and the results of its actions, thus making possible
the delimitation and emergence of the subject.
The schema of self,
once it has learnt and embodied the notion that the organism, by means of
conscious perceiving, is able to affect the course of its own actions,
provides the organism with a new degree of freedom that gives it the
possibility of directly controlling itself. The schema of self, whose main
goal is to keep the organism operating, thus succeeds in equipping the
organism with the capacity to self-regulate itself, and consequently find
by itself the best ways and means to assure its survival and create new
strategies and aims. This constitutes the fundamental passage from
consciousness to self-consciousness.
Keywords:
stream of consciousness, perceptual
system, schema of self, attention, state of nervous energy, conscious
experience, language, self-consciousness
Reading: PDF file
|
