Consciousness vs. Awareness
Ali
R+ SARAL
Awareness is the automatic repetition of sensing a well-defined environment
with a pre-assigned procedure. Conscious
awareness occurs when awareness is not automatic.
Awareness is a subconscious
phenomenon. Subconscious has to be setup by the conscious which decides
the intentions and task lists so that the limits and the content of the
awareness are determined. Subconscious
can be conditioned by conscious[1]. Once the limits of the subject area
is set and the details of actions to be taken are determined the procedure is
activated repeatedly in the given subject area.
This causes us to ‘feel’ a sense of awareness for a while. This process continues either for a decay
period of time or like every feeling ends as soon as this awareness is
explicitly addressed.
Consciousness is a ‘vibration’ a ‘resonance’
of the thalamic part of our brain which is modulated by our senses.
“consciousness is
an … internal functional state modulated, rather than generated by senses”.
“the thalamocortical resonant column is the
functional architecture of the active state that generates consciousness”[2].
It is different to be aware of something and to be conscious of the
same thing/situation. To be conscious of
something is not only sensing it but also being aware of higher level, more
abstract knowledge and history[2].
Awareness is an unconscious, to be more precise, a subconscious
phenomenon. On the contrary, consciousness is the creating of relations between
the content of the focused attention window and the higher level knowledge[2]. Consciousness triggers this process and controls
its depth intentionally by first focusing then concentrating on the object.
“high frequency
oscillations (20 – 50 Hz) show a pattern of coherence that is either restricted
to its immediate vicinity or occurs between distant discrete areas” [2]
Self-awareness is also a subconscious (to unconscious) process which
needs to be re-triggered
as other
awarenesses. We tend to forget ourselves
when doing many things till there is a hurt,
or a need
such as thirst, hunger.
Self-consciousness is the interaction process of the conscious self ‘I’
and percieved phenomenons according to the autobiographical
episodic memory.
References:
[1] Markus Kiefer, “ Executive control over unconscious cognition: attentional sensitization of
unconscious information processing”, Front Hum Neurosci. 2012; 6: 61.
[2] R Llinás, U Ribary, D Contreras, and C Pedroarena The
neuronal basis for consciousness. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 1998 Nov 29; 353(1377): 1841–1849.
