The surrounding world is perceived by a person through his psyche, which forms an individual consciousness. It includes the totality of all knowledge of the individual about the reality surrounding him. It is formed due to the process of knowing the world through its perception with the help of 5 senses.
Receiving information from the outside, the human brain remembers it and subsequently uses it to recreate a picture of the world. This happens when an individual, based on the information received, uses thinking, memory or imagination.
The concept of consciousness
With the help of consciousness, a person not only opposes his "I" to what surrounds him, but is also able to restore pictures of the past with the help of memory, and imagination helps him create what is not yet in his life. At the same time, thinking contributes to solving the tasks that reality poses to the individual on the basis of the knowledge gained during its perception. If any of these elements of consciousness are disturbed, the psyche will be seriously injured.
Thus, individual consciousness is the highest degree of mental perception by a person of the reality around him, in which his subjective picture of the world is formed.
In philosophy, consciousness is always opposed to matter. In ancient times, this was the name of a substance capable of creating reality. For the first time this concept in this sense was introduced by Plato in his treatises, and then it formed the basis of the Christian religion and philosophy of the Middle Ages.
Consciousness and matter
Materialists have narrowed down the functions of consciousness to the property of the essence, which cannot exist outside the human body, thereby putting forward matter in the first place. Their theory that individual consciousness is matter generated exclusively by the human brain has no basis. This is seen in the contrast of their qualities. Consciousness has no taste, no color, no smell, it cannot be touched or given any form.
But it is also impossible to accept the theory of idealists that consciousness is an independent substance in relation to a person. This is refuted by the chemical and physical processes that occur in the brain when an individual perceives the surrounding reality.
Thus, scientists came to the conclusion that consciousness is the highest form of the psyche, reflectingbeing, which has the ability to influence and transform reality.
Components of consciousness
Describing its structure, it should be taken into account that it is two-dimensional:
- On the one hand, it contains all the collected information about the external reality and the objects that fill it.
- On the other hand, it also contains information about the individual himself, who is the carrier of consciousness, which, during development, passes into the category of self-consciousness.
Individual consciousness forms a picture of the world, which includes not only external objects, but also the person himself with his thoughts, feelings, needs and actions to implement them.
Without the process of self-knowledge, there would be no development of a person in the social, professional, moral and physical sphere, which would not lead to an awareness of the meaning of one's own life.
Consciousness consists of several blocks, the main ones are:
- Processes of knowing the world through the senses, as well as its perception through sensations, thinking, speech, language and memory.
- Emotions that convey a positive, neutral or negative attitude of the subject to reality.
- Processes associated with the adoption and execution of decisions, volitional efforts.
All the blocks together provide both the formation of certain knowledge about reality in a person and satisfy all his urgent needs.
Public consciousness
In philosophy and psychology there is such a thing asinterrelation of public and individual consciousness. At the same time, it should be taken into account that the social is a product of individual or collective concepts that have been formed over a long period of observation of reality, its objects and occurring phenomena.
The very first in human society formed such forms of social consciousness as religion, morality, art, philosophy, science and others. For example, observing natural elements, people attributed their manifestations to the will of the gods, creating public knowledge about these phenomena through individual conclusions and fears. Collected together, they were passed on to the next generations as the only truth about the surrounding world inherent in this society. This is how religion was born. People belonging to other peoples with the opposite social consciousness were considered non-believers.
Thus, societies were formed, the majority of whose members adhered to generally accepted principles. People in such an organization are united by common traditions, language, religion, legal and ethical norms, and much more.
To understand how social and individual consciousness are interconnected, one should know that it is the latter that is primary. The consciousness of one member of society can influence the formation or change of the public, for example, as was the case with the ideas of Galileo, Giordano Bruno and Copernicus.
Individual consciousness
Features of individual consciousness is that they can be inherent in one person, buttotally inconsistent with the perception of reality by others. The assessment of the surrounding world by each individual is unique and constitutes his concrete picture of reality. People who have the same opinion on any phenomena form organizations of like-minded people. This is how scientific, political, religious and other circles and parties are formed.
Individual consciousness is a relative concept, as it is influenced by social, family, religious and other traditions. For example, a child born into a Catholic family receives information from childhood about the dogmas inherent in this particular religion, which become natural and indestructible for him as he grows up.
On the other hand, each person manifests his intellect, passing through the stages of development of consciousness, both in creativity and in cognition of the surrounding reality. The inner world of each individual is unique and not like the others. Scientists still do not know where individual consciousness originates from, since in its “pure form” it does not exist in nature outside a specific carrier.
Connection of individual consciousness with the public
Each person, as he grows up and develops, faces the influence of social consciousness. This happens through relationships with other people - in childhood with relatives and teachers, then with representatives of various organizations. This is done through the language and traditions inherent in this society. According to how the social and individual consciousness are interconnected, it is determinedhow devoted and important each individual will be to it.
There are many examples in history when people, having got from their usual environment, into a society with other religious values and traditions, became a part of it, adopting the lifestyle of its members.
By the way the social and individual consciousness are connected, it is clear that they mutually influence each other throughout a person's life. During this period, he may change religious, cultural, scientific, philosophical and other concepts previously imposed by society. Just as, for example, the scientific discovery of one scientist can change the perception of all mankind about things familiar to him.
Structure of individual consciousness
The essence of individual consciousness lies in the way and perception of the properties of reality:
- During evolution, humans have developed a genetic memory that helps them adapt to the environment. Thanks to it, programs are recorded in every person - from complex metabolic processes in the body to sexual relationships between the sexes and the upbringing of offspring. This part of the individual consciousness programs the behavior of the subject and his emotional assessment of events familiar to him from past experience.
- The other part analyzes the environment through the senses and forms new knowledge based on the information received. At the same time, consciousness is in constant development, creating an inner world that is unique to this individual.
The highest form of consciousness is self-consciousness, without which a person would not be a person.
Self-Consciousness
Awareness of one's own "I" on the physical and spiritual level makes a person an individuality. All internal values, ideas about reality, comprehension of what is happening with him and around him, all this forms a person's self-consciousness.
It is its development that helps people understand the reason for their actions, their value in society and gives an awareness of who they really are.
Conscious and unconscious
As Jung argued, individual consciousness can only exist in conjunction with the collective unconscious. This is the spiritual experience of thousands of generations of people, which every individual inherits on an unconscious level.
These include:
- sensations of muscles, balance and other physical manifestations that are not recognized by consciousness;
- images arising from the perception of reality and defined as familiar;
- memory that manages the past and creates the future through imagination;
- inner speech and more.
In addition to the development of consciousness, self-improvement is characteristic of a person, during which he changes his negative qualities to positive ones.
