Awareness, mind, sentience, thinking, perception, introspection, self - all that we group together as "consciousness" - are fundamental to human beings, but consciousness is a difficult subject to define, measure or specify in a coherent way, although attempts have been made to do that. Just defining the word is fraught with controversy, uncertainty and more than a little confusion. Some want to define it narrowly, as Julian Jaynes does in limiting it to introspection alone: thinking about thinking, or thinking about your own mind and thoughts. Others want to define it broadly as panpsychism, in which everything - even a rock - is "conscious" to some degree. There are even some materialists who claim that consciousness is just an illusion! However, I expect most people are more reasonable, knowing what they mean by being conscious, even if they cannot define it precisely.
Beyond knowing what consciousness is and how to reasonably define it, there is the "hard problem of consciousness", being able to understand it and how we humans can be conscious in the full sense of self awareness and being a thinking agent in the world. Part of the problem is that consciousness involves numerous different aspects of brain and mind activity, many of which are themselves poorly defined, overlooked, or misunderstood. Some claim that the "mind" is what the brain does, while others find evidence that the mind is dualistic, at least partly a separate entity - the "soul" if you will - and merely uses the brain to act as its location and interface for agency in the body and the external world.
Having recently read a lot about the mind, artificial intelligence, consciousness, and being human, I began to collect aspects of consciousness in an attempt to wrap my head (as it were) around the concept and thereby, somehow, better understand it. The following is my collection of processes or mental activities that can be considered aspects of conscious experience and behaviour. I have attempted to group these into some semblance of logical categories:
Sensation:
This is receiving the signals arriving from your senses: sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, proprioception, etc. These come into our brains all the time, but are often (usually?) not noticed or acknowledged by our minds. E.g. the nerves in my backside are constantly informing my brain about the pressures and temperatures they sense while I sit here typing, but I rarely am aware of them, much less pay attention to them. Typically, I take notice (become aware) only when there are unusual changes.
Awareness:
This is the next step in perception, taking in and recognizing what comes through the senses or your body: visual images, hearing voices, pain in your toe, emotions, and so on. For instance, I am vaguely aware of the sound of the air circulation in this room, the light coming in through the window, and other peripheral inputs, but here too, they do not usually impinge on my thinking.
Attention/Focus:
Here now is where we apply our minds to the perceptions we become aware of, paying attention to some aspect of your awareness in priority over most of the rest. This may be intentional, as in looking out the window and evaluating what I see there. Or it may be like an interrupt routine, where some perception suddenly changes and you react by focusing on it to see what happened or if you need to respond. The air flow stops suddenly, or there is a cold feeling in my seat. Those are usually dynamic, or a change that rises to the level of awareness, and somehow triggers your brain to get the mind involved. The triggers probably arise from your subconscious, which is monitoring much of the sensations, and raises a flag or interrupt to your mind as an awareness, allowing your mind to focus on it. The interrupt may be gentle as in a persistent itch, or may be very high priority as a sudden stab of pain in your back or knee.
Feelings/Emotion:
These are the internal, mental sensations as it were, because they originate within the brain or the mind itself. This includes all the emotions at a reasonable level: pleasure, hurt, disappointment, sorrow, anger, joy, hope, etc. It also includes feelings like depression, excitement, expectation, comfort, boredom, etc., which are different from feeling a touch or coldness and other external senses. Here too, there may be numerous emotions and feelings floating around my person at a low level, at any given time, only one or a few of which I am aware, yet they are present if I pay attention. For example, I may recall that I'm still upset about something that happened yesterday, but I put it aside to think about (pay attention to) something I deem as higher priority.
Concentration:
This is the highest level of consciousness regarding perceptions and attention. In this mode, you apply most, if not all, of your conscious attention and resources to one perception and its correlates or consequences. That flash out the window might be an explosion or lightning; better pay attention, investigate, decide what to do and initiate action. During this event, all unrelated perceptions, attention, thoughts and activities are side-lined or put on hold as you deal with the highest priority. This also applies internally, to deep thinking, focusing on a task or issue, or dealing with a strong emotion that takes over other aspects, shifting other awareness to the periphery. An example of that is focusing on doing a Sudoku puzzle to the point where you only realize you leg is stiff after completing the puzzle.
Understanding:
This is the internal, mental aspect that goes along with awareness; e.g. knowing what you are looking at, understanding the words on the page, hearing what your neighbour is saying, identifying that smell, realizing that you are angry or tired. Your mind has engaged with the sensations and perceptions or your own internal thoughts, to extract sense and even meaning from them. At one level, I can glance at a page in a book and realize ("understand") that there is a block of print there. At the next level, I can focus on the print, see that it is in English, and can read it, knowing each of the words. Then I can understand what I'm reading; what the words mean and how the sentences flow, imparting information to my mind. My mind is then thinking about what I am reading.
Interpretation:
While understanding as described usually does not require much focus or attention, taking it to the next level does require thought and application of other mental resources. To deeply understand or to gain knowledge and learn requires that we interpret what we see, hear, read or feel. And that involves connecting the initial understanding with your mental model of reality to see what it means at a deeper level, or to you personally. Does what I'm reading fit into my prior understanding of the subject? Is it coherent and meaningful? Does this new information change anything for me?
Reasoning/Processing:
This is perhaps the first level of truly human mentality. Most higher animals can do the above aspects in their consciousness - setting aside the "reading" example. Any dog or cat can assess its perceptions, understand and interpret them from its own perspective, then concentrate on and take action regarding them. Reasoning, however, is the further application of organization and logic used to draw conclusions or make surmises about something being thought about: deduction, induction, speculation and hypothesizing. Some animals can do this at a low level, but it takes a human mind to fully do it, and even then we make mistakes. This aspect is what is used to solve puzzles, do your homework, follow a complicated script, argue a point, work out an explanation, etc.
Analysis/Calculation:
This is perhaps a higher level of reasoning: applying learned tools to study and process received data of any sort; for example, mathematics, comparative inference, balance of probability, fitting to known facts, etc. This level requires more mental resources than mere reasoning or normal processing. Some of this is algorithmic, how to do long division, writing code, translating a foreign language, etc. We may feel these are more like "hard work" as we have to apply a lot of mental effort to get where we want to go. The more involved, or novel the task at hand, the "harder" it may seem, and the higher the probability of making a mistake.
Recall:
Now we shift into the information and memory aspects of consciousness. Recall is pulling facts out of memory: words, names, meanings, identifications, knowledge about reality, etc. all without a time stamp. Recall is one of the resources needed for almost all mental activity; putting names to perceptions: that is "snow", this is "hot", "things fall down", Joe is my friend, and so on - everything you know as simple factoids. You aren't born knowing all these, but you have learned them and your brain keeps them available to support your thinking and mind. These are memories that raise frustration when unavailable; e.g. "I know there's a word for X but I cannot think of it", or "What was the name of that person I met last week?"
Remembering/Reviewing:
This goes beyond simple recall by applying a personal time-stamp to the memory, your own life path/history, and recalling sequences of events known to you, or taken from someone else, as in remembering the plot of a story you heard, or the course of a news story you read. This aspect requires putting recalled information into some sort of temporal (or causal, logical, numeric or other) order for consideration in your mind. Psychologists differentiate between short and long term memory, but in terms of conscious activity, both are used in the same way, I think.
Narrating:
This is the next step in remembering; putting together and presenting a coherent story; e.g. of a dream, a childhood event, yesterday's meeting, or the plot of a book or TV program. The remembering is combined with processing and reasoning to make for a proper story, and then translating it into language and acting it through to actually present it, even if just in your own mind.
Planning:
If remembering looks to past reality, then planning is the opposite, preparing and putting together a sequence for possible future activity to make it become reality. Planning, of course uses recall to piece together credible possibilities, and uses time-sequencing to fit them into a causal chain of practical events. This may be brief and simple as getting up in the morning - often a repeated plan (a routine) - or it may be complex and long term as in planning your next business venture.
Learning:
This necessary aspect is the gathering of and grasping meaning from new perceptions, information, ideas or facts, and adding them into your memory. Much of this is done unconsciously, or automatically, of course. For instance when you go for a walk in a new area of town, you can easily (we hope) retrace your steps without too much thought. Some of it is straightforward, as in learning what your spouse did at work today. Some of it is abstract, as in retaining the conclusions of some task you performed in order to apply it to a different task. Some of it is slow but deep ,as in learning to ride a bicycle - almost like a subroutine that your mind assembles to store in your subconscious for almost mindless use once you've learned it well. Learning applies some of the above aspects of mental work to generate and save the results for future usage.
Modelling:
This is a key aspect of any serious mentality. This is the collecting, assembling, adjusting and maintaining your mental image and understanding of reality; integrating new data into your world-view. Much of this is done subconsciously, of course, but your mind is constantly fiddling with or applying said model as you go through your day. Your overall modelling begins at birth as you discover your hands and how to use them, and how to interpret sensations coming from your eyes as an external reality. The modelling continues through life as you learn new things about the world and fit them into your reality. There is obviously a close connection to memory, but the model is the overall structure of your reality as you experience and perceive it. You know the layout of your house, street, workplace, etc. You know - for the most part - what is in your closet, how to drive your car, what happens if you open the door, who else is around you, what politics are happening these days, and so on. Your model is used in recall, understanding, reasoning, planning, and almost everything you do in your mind. It is an active, dynamic resource for who you are and all that you do. Our models are not always self-consistent, and models can be disrupted by new facts, as when I first learned that Pi is not equal to 22/7.
Relating:
This is presumably a higher-level mental activity that uses many of the above aspects for engaging thoughts about other people or things, toward communicating, understanding, empathizing, judging, analysing and interacting with them. "Theory of mind" fits here, as does listening sympathetically, or debating someone. Even simple conversation requires relating, and this can be done socially - with other person or persons - or individually, as in your head as an imagined or remembered conversation, taken in different directions. Other forms of relating include: prayer, using your cell phone's features, interacting with a pet, talking back to TV commercials, etc.
Action:
This is just your initiating movement - any bodily actions, including speech - via your mental activity to perform the action. As an agent, your mind needs to have agency; the ability to do something physical, to make your muscles move - the reverse of sensation. The actions may be planned or intended, but are often mere reaction like a startle reflex, or perhaps unconscious, as when coughing. Some actions, such as walking, are consciously initiated and guided, but otherwise subconscious - you don't mentally control your various muscles and balance mechanisms. Indeed, most of your actions are a form of subconscious muscular "subroutine" that you have learned and call into use when needed: talking, typing, brushing your teeth, eating, riding that bike. To see how programmed these indeed are, try doing them differently: using your other hand, a different keyboard, another language, etc. I don't recommend it, but trying to ride a bike with your hands swapped on the handlebars is a great example - almost back to square one in learning.
Introspection:
This is supposedly the pinnacle of consciousness: thinking about yourself, your mind and and your own thoughts; thinking about thinking - reflection, self awareness, self-image, every thought about your own mind and the "I" doing the thinking. This is entirely internal mental activity, but of course, uses many of the above mental aspects, and may result in changes to your reality, feelings, planning or actions.
Stream of Consciousness:
This is the usually continuous, very subjective, mental flow of sensations, images, thoughts, ideas, words, feelings and qualia that we each experience inside our minds as we go about our day. It has been described as the movie of our life in which we are always the main actor as well as the audience. Most of the time we are in partial control as we go about our routines and plans, but most of the action is perception and unconscious routines that we take for granted. It is possible to lie down on the grass and look up at the sky and just let the stream flow where it will as thoughts come and go uninvoked. It is also possible to force your mind along a definitive path as when solving a math problem in your head. It is usually possible to "play back" the last few minutes of the stream by will and memory, as a form of introspection. It is difficult to have more than one stream at a time, although one can be paused in order to resume or begin another. And the stream may have multiple threads as when whistling and walking, while thinking about what to make for supper.
Verbalizing:
I wasn't sure where to fit this in, but it is another core aspect of consciousness: speaking internally to yourself, using language, as part of the stream of consciousness, or in preparation to speaking out loud (as an action). Some say that it is almost impossible for us to think without using language, although many animals appear to do so, and some people think more in images. Most people have a constant mental dialogue going on, sometimes with two or more parts when mentality thinking something through or considering alternatives - talking to yourself. When conversing with others or making an actual verbal presentation, of course, one is constantly planning or recalling (if memorized) the verbal sequence, which your subconscious then translates into actual speech.
Meditation/Quieting:
This is essentially the attempt to stop or slow down the stream of consciousness; tuning out externalities while focusing (or emptying) the mind on something singular and simple for a time. One can focus on one's breathing or heartbeat, on a mental image or a single word, rejecting other perceptions and thoughts that may try to bubble up or impinge on the mind. This takes practice, I gather, but it can be good for an individual to quiet the mind and take one's awareness away from the external world and any internal worries or concerns. In any case, it appears to be a distinct aspect of consciousness.
Aha!/Getting it:
There are some quirky aspects that come to mind for inclusion in this list. In this one, we have all had "aha!" moments when the facts and logic you have collected or worked through click into place and you feel a positive emotion of closure - usually short lived, but very satisfying. You "get it", you "grok", or suddenly understand the concept, idea or conclusion before you. This may be after a long time of concentration, or just as lart of learning as you go. It is related to but goes beyond "analysis", I think, and may be a very human thing. I wonder whether animals have Aha! experiences?
Obsessing:
This is a negative form of concentration, being absorbed by or focusing solely on one feeling, emotion or circumstance, beyond reason and (usually) to your own detriment: hatred, phobia, lust, pride, worry, narcissism, coveting - any of the seven deadly sins perhaps. We all probably do this occasionally for short periods. If it goes on too long, it may be a sign of mental illness, perhaps PTSD, or past abuse. In severe cases, it is hard to pull the mind away from the feelings and surrounding thoughts. Your mind is stuck in a rut as it were and you are just spinning your wheels to complete the metaphor.
Clearly there are a lot of different aspects to consciousness. The reader may want to suggest others in the comments. There is obviously overlap among some of these and some readers may not like my definitions or examples. Readers may also see some of this as unnecessary hair splitting, but I think that distinguishing among these helps elucidate the differing applications of mental resources. As you go through your day, you might note which aspects you are applying at any given time in your stream of conscious activity. Does this form of introspection help you better understand yourself or others?
What is missing from all this is the mind itself, the "I" agent that is using the various aspects, the "self" receiving the perceptions, processing the algorithm, paying attention, verbalizing the thoughts. Above and on top of all these aspects of consciousness is the consciousness itself! This is the mysterious "me" or the acknowledged "you" that truly exists (cogito ergo sum!) but is hard to define and nail down. Yet without the self, all the above aspects are meaningless, do nothing, and serve little purpose. The mind or self is very real, and has lots of resources at its disposal to help it perform, but those do not define who it is, nor do they determine what thoughts occur within itself.
The core of consciousness remains a "hard problem" and a huge mystery: what/who am I? really!. Yet, I hope the above list of mental aspects helps you delve into your mysterious self a little bit. In closing, there is a whole other level to the mystery; the subconscious or unconscious part of the mind or self! Some people believe that is the larger part of the mind and its activity, all the parts below our conscious awareness - some as mentioned above. But that is a deeper subject going beyond todays' post.
