Intrinsic Awareness, the Fundamental State of Consciousness

Abstract

In an effort to simplify the complexity in the studies of consciousness, the author suggests to divide the conscious experiences into a fundamental state, the intrinsic awareness (IA), and functions of this fundamental state. IA does not depend on external environment, our sense organs, and our cognitions. This ground state of consciousness is timeless and irreducible to sub-constituents; therefore reductionism can apply neither to the analysis nor to the new theory of IA. The methodology for investigating IA is proposed and the relation between IA and the hard problem in consciousness proposed by Chalmers is discussed.

arXiv commentThis paper is based on the talks given at the 9th International Conference on Computing Anticipatory Systems, Liege, Belgium, August 2009, and 18th Winter Chaos Conference, Tarpon Springs, Florida, March 2010