Basic properties of human consciousness in psychology and philosophy

CONSCIOUSNESS, one of the central general scientific and philosophical concepts, which has a wide range of meanings (“Proteus of Philosophy”, according to E. Cassirer): 1) the state of “waking”, in contrast to unconscious states - deep sleep, fainting, etc. (cf. ., for example, such expressions in everyday use as “lose consciousness” or “gain consciousness”); 2) a state of “sanity”, which presupposes the possibility of reporting about one’s experiences and actions (the moral aspect of S. is connected with this, fixed in the concepts of responsibility, conscience, etc.); 3) a set of phenomena of subjective experience, including an element of reflection, the same as self-consciousness; 4) a system of certain attitudes and ideas about the world (S. “historical”, “class”, “moral”, etc.). As a subjective experience, S. includes both sensory and semantic components (see Imagination, Perception, Thinking).

Due to the ambiguity of this concept, it is designated in modern times. languages, terms that do not always have the same meaning, some of which highlight the state of shared knowledge (Russian “consciousness”, Latin conscientia), others – personal awareness (German Bewusstsein), others – vigilant wakefulness (English awareness). Many of these terms are relatively recent. Until the 18th century The word that is closest in meaning is Russian. language there was a word “conscience”. This word has been preserved in the meaning of S. in the Serbo-Croatian language and in Russian. the adjective “conscious”, which has the semantic connotation of “conscientious”. Like Lat. conscientia, modern French conscience is used in both meanings - morals. origin, conscience, and cognitive capacity for reflection.

Properties of consciousness

Consciousness is a reflection of objective reality in a person’s head. Each of us thinks in images that are born in the mind.

The higher the level of consciousness, the more a person is able to analyze his own actions and actions.

Consciousness allows a person to resort to deep reflection, think analytically and synthetically. A person with developed consciousness is always a person with high intelligence. The ability to analyze a situation and make responsible decisions characterizes a strong personality who knows how to admit even his own defeats.

The properties of consciousness are its significant characteristics that manifest themselves in the process of reflecting objects of the material world. Let's consider how these properties are expressed.

Altered states of consciousness

Human consciousness can be in different states. While awake, a person is fully aware of what is happening, can control and be aware of his actions.

During sleep, consciousness enters another state called an altered state of consciousness. In this state, some functions of the body are switched off, but consciousness continues to work and process previously received information.

In a state of hypnosis or meditation, consciousness also enters an altered state. In these cases, immediately before the transition to such a state, you can set some task for consciousness, and consciousness will perform it during this state.

Basic properties of personality consciousness

Activity

One of the main properties of consciousness can be considered activity. Every action that a person performs has a motive and purpose. No one acts thoughtlessly, obeying only a chaotic combination of circumstances. If the goal is desired, then the person is often ready to make even incredible efforts to achieve it. Consciousness controls human behavior and tries to calculate everything in such a way that it is most beneficial to the person himself. Our ability to predict a situation and see our own prospects is a merit of consciousness. Such a property as activity allows consciousness to remain in a working state constantly. Under what circumstances is a person ready to take active steps? In the case when he understands the need for the actions taken.

Dynamism

By dynamism we understand such an orientation towards an object or phenomenon of the surrounding reality, in which consciousness reveals the ability for continuous development. The property of dynamism is that a person’s attention is always changing. We are able to concentrate for the most part only on what is truly meaningful and interesting to us. Turning to some object evokes various emotions; we connect our feelings to what we hear and see around us, what we observe. This property of consciousness as dynamism is always aimed at immersing in the essence of the phenomenon or object in question.

Constant reflection

It must be said that the ability to analyze one’s own actions and actions is an integral and significant characteristic of consciousness. A property called “reflection” helps at the right moment to turn to the source of your “I”, your inner essence and talk with it as frankly as possible. In such internal dialogues, a person often discovers that he lived and acted incorrectly, and was inattentive to his loved ones. Constant reflection is a property of consciousness that allows for effective self-observation at different periods of life. A person almost always compares his present self with the way he was before. Such a property of consciousness as reflection makes it easy to do this. Consciousness itself is capable of expanding and expanding a person’s understanding of the world.

Values ​​and motives

Another property of consciousness is its focus on internal sources of significance. We are talking about values ​​for the sake of which specific actions are taken. Human consciousness is of a motivational and value-based nature. A person sometimes has to make incredible efforts on himself in order to be able to negotiate with his inner conscience. Values ​​and motives set in motion his mental activity.

Thus, the properties of consciousness always reflect the essence of a particular personality, its internal nature and capabilities. Each person is completely individual and each has their own preferences.

What philosophers say

Philosophers believed that consciousness does not exist in isolation from reality. It is the relationship of oneself with reality.

We see the world around us and feel, perceive, think, and fantasize something in connection with it.

Different directions of philosophy interpreted this concept in their own way:

1. dualism tends to divide man into consciousness and matter, where the first is spirit, the second is body. Consciousness is eternal, since it continues to live even after the physical death of the body;
2. According to idealism, consciousness comes first, then the surrounding world. Matter does not exist if it is unconscious;
3. materialists wrote that only highly organized matter, which is capable of creation, has consciousness (I understand that we are talking about a person).

Consciousness, its properties, characteristics

The psyche as a reflection of reality in the human brain is characterized by different levels.

The highest level of the psyche characteristic of a person forms consciousness.

Consciousness is the highest, integrating form of the psyche, the result of the socio-historical conditions for the formation of a person in work, with constant communication (using language) with other people.

Its first characteristic. Human consciousness includes a body of knowledge about the world around us. The structure of consciousness thus includes the most important cognitive processes: sensations and perceptions, memory, imagination and thinking.

With the help of sensations and perceptions, with the direct reflection of stimuli affecting the brain, a sensory picture of the world as it appears to a person at the moment is formed in the mind. Memory allows you to renew images of the past in the mind, imagination allows you to build figurative models of what is an object of needs, but is absent at the present time. Thinking ensures problem solving through the use of generalized knowledge.

The second characteristic of consciousness is the clear distinction enshrined in it between subject and object, i.e., that which belongs to a person’s “I” and his “not-I.” Man, who for the first time in the history of the organic world stood out from it and contrasted himself with his surroundings, continues to retain this opposition and difference in his consciousness. A person makes a conscious self-assessment of his actions and himself as a whole.

The third characteristic of consciousness is ensuring goal-setting human activity.

The functions of consciousness include the formation of goals for an activity, while its motives are formed and weighed, volitional decisions are made, the progress of actions is taken into account and the necessary adjustments are made to it, etc.

The fourth characteristic of consciousness is the inclusion of a certain attitude in its composition. The world of feelings inevitably enters a person’s consciousness, where complex objective and, above all, social relations in which a person is included are reflected. Emotional assessments of interpersonal relationships are represented in the human mind.

Basic functions of human consciousness

Reflective. Consciousness organizes cognitive processes (perception, representation, thinking), and also organizes memory.

Estimated. Consciousness takes part in the formation of some emotions and most feelings.

A person evaluates most events and himself at the level of consciousness.

Creative. Creativity is impossible without consciousness. Many voluntary types of imagination are organized at a conscious level: invention, artistic creativity.

Reflective. A type of consciousness is self-awareness - the process by which a person analyzes his thoughts and actions, observes himself, evaluates himself, etc.

Transformative. A person consciously defines most of his goals and outlines the path to achieving them.

Time-forming. Consciousness is responsible for the formation of a holistic temporal picture of the world, in which there is a memory of the past, awareness of the present and an idea of ​​the future. This is how human consciousness differs from the psyche of animals.

Properties of consciousness:

Activity - Consciousness is associated with activity, with an active influence on the world around us.

Selective nature - Consciousness is not directed at the whole world as a whole, but only at certain of its objects (most often associated with some unrealized needs)

Generalization and abstraction - Consciousness does not operate with real objects and phenomena of the surrounding world, but with generalized and abstract concepts, devoid of some of the attributes of specific objects of reality.

Integrity - The consciousness of a mentally healthy person, as a rule, has integrity.

• 1. Consciousness and its properties. Types of consciousness
• 2. Self-awareness. Structure of consciousness. "I-concept"
• 3. The relationship between consciousness and the unconscious

Lecture 4. Consciousness

1. Consciousness and its properties. Types of consciousness

As a result of evolution, the nervous system and, first of all, the brain have reached a level of development that allows a person to engage in work. Under the influence of labor of a collective nature, a person began to develop mental processes that led to the emergence of consciousness - the highest level of mental development inherent only to man. Thus, the emergence of consciousness in humans has both biological and cultural-social conditionality, i.e., the emergence of consciousness outside of society is impossible. The main conditions for the emergence and development of consciousness are the appropriate level of biological development, the presence of a social environment and collective work.

Consciousness

– the highest level of mental reflection and regulation, inherent only to man as a socio-historical being. From a practical point of view, consciousness can be considered as a continuously changing set of sensory and mental images that directly appear before the subject in his inner world and anticipate his practical activity. Consciousness is studied by many sciences - philosophy, anthropology, neurophysiology, sociology, psychology, physiology, etc. All religions pay close attention to consciousness.

From a psychological point of view, we can talk about several established properties of consciousness:

1) the consciousness of an individual is characterized by activity, which is determined primarily by the specific internal state of the subject at the moment of action, as well as by the presence of a goal and sustainable activity to achieve it;

2 consciousness is characterized by intentionality[25], i.e., direction towards some object. Consciousness is always consciousness of something;

3) the ability of human consciousness for reflection[26], introspection, i.e. the possibility of awareness of consciousness itself;

4) consciousness has a motivational and value character. It is always motivated, pursuing some goals, which is determined by the needs of the body and personality.

One of the functions of consciousness is the formation of goals of activity, the preliminary mental construction of actions and the anticipation of their results, which ensures reasonable regulation of human behavior and activity. Consciousness developed in humans only in social contacts. In phylogenesis, human consciousness developed and became possible only under conditions of active influence on nature, in conditions of labor activity. In addition, both in phylogenesis and ontogenesis, speech becomes the subjective carrier of human consciousness, which first acts as a means of communication, and then becomes a means of thinking.

In psychology, there are several types of human consciousness:

• everyday

– is formed first among other types of consciousness, arises during interaction with things, is fixed in language in the form of the first concepts;

• design

– covers a range of tasks related to the design and implementation of specific business goals;

• scientific

– relies on scientific concepts, concepts, models, explores not the individual properties of objects, but their relationships;

• aesthetic

– associated with the process of emotional perception of the surrounding world;

• ethical

– determines a person’s moral attitudes (from extreme integrity to immorality). Unlike other types of consciousness, the degree of development of a person’s ethical (moral) consciousness is difficult to assess by himself.

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Along with the development of civilization, human consciousness continues to develop, and at the present historical moment this development is accelerating, which is caused by the accelerated pace of scientific, technical and cultural progress.

2. Self-awareness. Structure of consciousness. "I-concept"

The necessary and first stage in the formation of consciousness is self-awareness, i.e., awareness of oneself, one’s “self.” Self-awareness manifests itself as self-knowledge, self-esteem, self-control and self-acceptance.

Self-knowledge

– this is a person’s focus on knowing his physical (bodily), mental, spiritual capabilities and qualities, his place among other people. Self-knowledge is carried out through analysis of the results of one’s own activities, one’s behavior and relationships with other people, through awareness of the attitude of other people towards oneself and through self-observation of one’s states, experiences, thoughts, and actions.

Self-knowledge is the basis for self-esteem,

which includes knowledge of the scale of values ​​by which a person can evaluate himself. Self-esteem can be adequate (real) and inadequate - either overestimated or underestimated. The American psychologist W. James has a formula for human self-esteem[27]:

L.N. Tolstoy expressed the idea that a person is a fraction that strives for unity, but never reaches it. The numerator of this fraction is what a person is, and the denominator is what he thinks about himself.

Self-knowledge is the basis for constant self-control,

which manifests itself in a person’s awareness and assessment of his own actions.

The result of a person’s self-knowledge is his self-acceptance

– his development of a system of ideas about himself, or “I-image”, which determines the individual’s attitude towards himself, is the basis for building relationships with other people.

The ability to reflect determines a person’s ability to observe himself, his state, which determines the formation of his individual “I-concept”,

which is the totality of a person’s ideas about himself.
A person evaluates all information about the world around him on the basis of ideas about himself and forms behavior based on his system of values, ideals and motivational attitudes. “self-concept”
is strictly individual, since different people have different assessments of ongoing events, the same objects of the real world, and the assessments of some people are quite objective, i.e., they correspond to reality, while the assessments of others, on the contrary, are extremely subjective .

In psychology, there are two forms of “I-concept” - real and ideal. The main thing in the real one is the person’s idea of ​​himself, which corresponds to reality, and in the ideal, the person’s idea of ​​himself in accordance with his desires, i.e., the way a person wants to be. For most people, the real and ideal self-concepts are different. These discrepancies can lead to both positive and negative consequences: on the one hand, it can lead to intrapersonal conflict, and on the other hand, it can become a source of personal self-improvement.

3. The relationship between consciousness and the unconscious

All mental phenomena can be divided into two groups. The first are realized by the person himself. The manifestation of the latter is not reflected in the human consciousness - they are called unconscious processes,

or
unconscious.
The unconscious
is a set of mental processes, acts, states caused by such influences, the influence of which a person is not aware of on his behavior.
There is no self-control or self-esteem here. Elements of the unconscious are represented to one degree or another in many mental processes, for example, an unconscious sense of balance, unconscious images of perception associated with the recognition of what was previously seen. The unconscious in a person’s personality is those aspects of personality that a person is not aware of in himself, but which are inherent to him and manifest themselves involuntarily.

A.G. Asmolov proposed [28] to combine various manifestations of the unconscious in human behavior into the following groups:

¦ supra-individual supraconscious phenomena

- these are patterns of behavior that are typical for a given group (community), acquired by the subject, the influence of which is not realized by the person himself. These patterns, learned through imitation, determine the socially typical characteristics of human behavior;

¦ unconscious motives of behavior

– being repressed from the consciousness of the individual due to a conflict with the social demands of society, hidden drives form hidden complexes that affect the individual and manifest themselves in indirect symbolic forms (dreams, slips of the tongue, slips of the tongue, etc.). Such unconscious motives can be identified by S. Freud's method of psychoanalysis;

¦ unconscious reserves of the senses

– influence on the behavior of such stimuli that a person cannot give himself an account of; such phenomena were described by I.M. Sechenov as the “sixth sense”;

¦ unconscious regulators of ways of performing activities

(operational attitudes and stereotypes) - arise in the process of solving various problems (perceptual, mnemonic, motor, mental) and are predetermined by past experience of behavior in similar situations.

The psyche in general, consciousness and the unconscious in particular ensure a person’s fitness and adaptation to the outside world. Consciousness controls the most complex forms of behavior that require constant attention and conscious control. But many behavioral acts are performed by a person on an unconscious level. Consciousness and the unconscious are qualitatively different levels of orientation in reality, each of which makes its own contribution to the regulation of the subject’s activity.

Table of contents

Basic properties of consciousness

Within this property, internal conflicts of values ​​or interests are possible.

Constancy - Relative stability, immutability and continuity of consciousness, determined by memory.

The constancy of consciousness is determined by the properties of the individual.

Dynamism - Its changeability and ability for continuous development, determined by short-term and rapidly changing mental processes that can be fixed in the state and in new personality traits.

Distortion - Consciousness always reflects reality in a distorted form (some of the information is lost, and the other part is distorted by individual characteristics of perception and personal attitudes)

Individual character - The consciousness of each person is different from the consciousness of other people.

This is due to a number of factors: genetic differences, upbringing conditions, life experience, social environment, etc.

Ability to reflect - Consciousness has the ability to introspect and self-evaluate, and can also imagine how other people evaluate it.

Forms and types

Consciousness in psychology is a dual concept that can mean such forms of consciousness as social and individual consciousness.

Social consciousness is the totality of knowledge, ideas and views inherent in a particular society or all of humanity at a certain stage of its development.

Structure of consciousness in psychology

Individual consciousness is the totality of knowledge, ideas and views of an individual.

Both forms of consciousness influence each other throughout their entire existence. As a result of this interaction, the development of both social and individual consciousness of all people occurs.

Depending on the degree of clarity of individual consciousness, several types are distinguished:

• Clear (when a person thinks actively, answers questions clearly and reacts adequately to surrounding events).
• Unclear (when a person shows indifference towards himself, and he answers the questions posed slowly and not always correctly).
• Stupor (if a person cannot independently navigate in space and reacts slowly to external stimuli).
• Dullness (if a person is almost always in hibernation, from which he can only be brought out for a short time).
• Coma (when a person is in deep sleep and does not react to anything).
• Delusion (when a person perceives reality in a distorted form and reacts inadequately to external events).
• Hallucinations (if a person experiences auditory or visual distortions of information perceived from outside).

Properties of consciousness

The term “consciousness” (co-knowledge) is currently a generalization that suggests itself based on the development of philosophy, anthropology, psychology and other areas of knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences, can be understood as the highest level of mental reflection and joint action.

Some naive anthropocentrists believe that such a level of development is possible only among representatives of human society. Meanwhile, scientists more familiar with the natural sciences would not say so.

In its most general form, from a systemic-pragmatic point of view, consciousness is a set of permanently changing sensations, sensory and mental images that appear before the inner gaze of a conscious subject and predetermine his practical and mental activity.

The properties of consciousness are studied in some branches of psychology, as well as in other areas of knowledge.

The connection between human consciousness and subconscious

Consciousness in psychology is a complex system that is inextricably linked with the subconscious, which is an automatic performer of certain actions and tasks previously assigned to it with the help of consciousness. The conscious mind can be compared to the captain of a ship, and the subconscious mind to its attendants. Consciousness and subconsciousness cannot exist without each other.

The subconscious develops the skills of the human body, thinking skills, as well as a set of reactions that are automatically triggered under certain external conditions.

Examples of physical skills stored in the subconscious include skills such as a person's ability to walk, hold a spoon correctly, or ride a bicycle. Teaching the subconscious mind skills occurs consciously with the help of consciousness.

Properties of consciousness in psychology

There are several basic psychological properties of human consciousness:

1. The consciousness of a person (as an aware subject) is necessarily distinguished by activity, most of all conditioned by the specific specifics of the internal state of the subject at the time of action. In most cases, we can talk about the subject having a specific goal and consistent vectors of activity to achieve the goal.

• The consciousness of the subject is characterized by intentionality, that is, a focus on something (not necessarily an object of the material world, not necessarily a specific one). Consciousness is always awareness (or awareness, and at the moment of communication with another subject or group, even co-awareness) of some fact or thought.
• Consciousness is characterized by constant reflection, that is, the subject undergoes a process of continuous introspection. The subject may be aware of the very presence of consciousness and recognition.
• Consciousness is mainly of a motivational and value-based nature (at least among Europeans). Of course, at the present moment in the development of knowledge about man, it would be naive, rude and flat; it would be in vain to think that consciousness is always motivated. This is a mossy thought from the middle of the last century. However, it can definitely be argued that a real subject in our world always strives for a goal (even if the goal is the absence of a goal), he is forced to this by attachment to a completely material living organism.

Other important properties of consciousness include: integrity, abstraction, generality, selectivity, dynamism, distortion, uniqueness and individuality.

In general, it should be understood that although consciousness arises in our world only in real living thinking subjects, it is classified as the sphere of the ideal, since images, sensations and meanings cannot be considered as material objects.

Mind control

Consciousness in psychology is an intangible part of the human body, with the help of which a person can be controlled. In psychology, there are techniques with which some people can influence the behavior of other people.

With the help of these psychological techniques, using the characteristics of a person’s character, his social and individual needs, there is an impact on the emotional side of a person’s consciousness.

As a result, if a person is not familiar with such methods or if his consciousness is not sufficiently developed, he can be manipulated by other people and encourage him to do certain actions that are beneficial to these people, and not to the person himself.

There are several types of mind control, the main ones being agitation, propaganda and manipulation.

All types of mind control use the following techniques:

CONSCIOUSNESS AND PSYCHE. SIGNS AND PROPERTIES OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

The understanding of consciousness, which arose in ancient times and existed for centuries, identifies it with all the psychological characteristics of a person.

Everything that is connected with the human soul, everything in which it manifests itself, was attributed by ancient scientists to the content of consciousness, since the psyche is, in essence, consciousness and there is no other psyche (unconscious).

Thanks to the works of Rene Descartes and John Locke, based on this statement, psychology has long turned into a science of consciousness (although the unconscious in the psyche is also recognized, but still this topic is little touched upon).

There is a point of view that connects a person’s consciousness with experiences, images, thoughts that he is able to describe in some way and about which he is somehow able to communicate to other people.

Consciousness in this definition is a joint, universal knowledge of people, knowledge shared by people, which is able to be transmitted from person to person and as a result become general or collective knowledge. Many scientists relate consciousness exclusively to language and speech, i.e., only what is transmitted through words enters consciousness and can exist in it.

Consciousness vs subconsciousness

The human psyche contains consciousness and subconsciousness. To better understand this information, scientific literature often shows an image of an iceberg, most of which is hidden under water.

Its tip, sticking out above the surface, is consciousness. What is hidden under water and invisible is the subconscious. The surface of the water is the boundary between consciousness and subconsciousness, which are interconnected but never mixed.

Something can, of course, be fished out from the lower layer (psychologists use various techniques for this), but it is impossible to pull out and understand literally everything. A lifetime is not enough.

We have found out what consciousness is. This is what exists at a given moment in time, and what we can control. What is the subconscious? Freudians contrast both of these concepts as directly opposite.

By the way, it was Freud, the creator of psychoanalysis, who actively spoke about unconscious processes, and his psychotherapy was to penetrate into the deep layers of the human psyche and discover unconscious conflicts there that become the cause of neuroses.

The subconscious mind stores all the information about what an individual has ever seen, heard, felt, sensed, said and thought about. You can call the subconscious a warehouse or repository of mental experience.

Imagine that you are walking through a park: there are many flowers, trees, people with children, strollers, dogs, benches, etc. around. And so you look at passers-by, not paying attention to the vegetation.

But since the latter still caught your eye (you just didn’t realize it), the information about green plants will be imprinted and go straight to the subconscious. That same night you will see trees in a dream and you will be surprised why and why did you have such a dream?

And dreams are “hello from there,” from the unconscious part. They are often strange and illogical: this happens because in the world of dreams (what dreams are) no laws (scientific, political, personal, etc.) work.

Also, the subconscious mind stores negative experiences, elements of reality that a person cannot realize painlessly for himself, which have a destructive effect on the human psyche (shocking events, deaths, rapes, etc.).

The main function of the subconscious is to maintain mental health. If we were aware of literally everything, we would go crazy long ago.

For this purpose, there is a censor in the psyche, standing on the border between consciousness and subconsciousness. Conditioned by multiple indicators, it is he who decides what will pass into the zone of awareness and what will remain hidden.

Author of the article: Liliya Sergeevna Kovalenko (psychologist)

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Comments and reviews (6)

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the soul is consciousness

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after: It has long been proven that only man is endowed with consciousness: it is his main distinguishing feature in comparison with other living beings.

You don't have to read it. Author, if you are watching Chernigovskaya’s video and are interested in issues of consciousness, then how can you write this?

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Good article, thanks! A small request to indicate the authors of the articles. Or are they on Her Majesty's secret service?!