After reading the statements about consciousness, one significant idea came into my mind which relates directly to how I interpret ‘consciousness’: there seems to be a split between the physical and mental realms when describing and discussing the essence of the word ‘consciousness’. The patient regained consciousness when the anesthetic wore off. In this context, the word is referring exclusively to the physical nature of ‘not being comatose’ or physically inert. The variations of understanding and interpreting reality (my grasp of the word ‘consciousness’) are absent within this definition in the first sentence. I think the 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 8th statements correlate with the first in this way; the connotation is one of pure physicality and biology… basically, the inability of the subject to be aware, awake, alert, responsive, and cognizant because of biological causes (lack of oxygen, anesthetics, sleeping, etc.). However, it is important to note that changes of consciousness due to biological responses also alter the ‘waking state consciousness’, or the lens through which one perceives the universe. For instance, being under the influence of an anesthetic certainly changes this lens- not only on a corporeal and somatic level, but also within a mental, emotional, cognitive, psychological context. Similarly, ingesting an entheogen (psychedelic substance) will cause a change in biology that could potentially render someone unresponsive or seemingly absent from this physical, material realm (although the body is indeed present the inner ‘being’ is not), but still present somewhere in the universe (perhaps in an immaterial dimension) experiencing different versions of what is- he/she is employing different mental filters that strain and percolate information into something that individual can comprehend or construe (perhaps feeling that he/she is at ONE with the universe, understanding that all matter is merely vibration condensed in different frequencies, we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, etc.). Consequently, the aforementioned dichotomy/split between ‘physical’ and ‘mental’ realms of consciousness becomes more blurred and ambiguous. The 2nd statement is: You can’t deny that chimpanzees are conscious. What is ‘conscious’ in this context? Is it the definition previously discussed (not inert, alert, or unresponsive)? Is it the idea of the awareness by the mind of itself and the world? Because of this obscurity, it is difficult to pinpoint one, or even a few, concrete definitions of ‘consciousness’. Statement #6 is a good example of this: There couldn’t be art without consciousness. Is this asserting that if one is asleep one literally cannot draw on a piece of paper? Or is it asserting that some uniquely endowed self- and world- awareness is necessary to create a poignant and inspiring painting, as if a rock thrown into a pond and rippling the water in concentric grooves on the surface cannot possibly be art? And the most existentially abstract statement of them all, being conscious is an essential aspect of being human, doesn’t really help any more to construct a working definition of ‘consciousness’. Does ‘an essential aspect’ imply the exclusivity of humans as the sole possessors of consciousness? I assume that in this context the word is referring to being aware of oneself and the world, as the scientific, ethnocentric paradigms of this culture tend to view humanity as an omnipotent species equipped with some divine specialness that isolates it from the rest of the existence. In many indigenous groups, spirit, awareness, or ‘consciousness’ is embodied in all things, all matter… or rather, all matter is spirit. A Gebusi elder would say that ‘being conscious’ is an essential aspect of existing. I think that a lot of our present definitions/understanding of consciousness is impregnated with the value systems of the scientific, materialist cultural values and assumptions that are really fictitious conceptions of reality
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