Regarding Levels and Development of Consciousness, Confusion, and the Foundation of All
Consciousness Must Be Fundamental, But For It To Be So, It Cannot Be Apart From That Which We Are Conscious Of
👈 || UNSAYING | CONTEMPLATION | TRADITION | MEDITATION | DISCUSSIONS | BACK MATTER || 👉
The Levels and Development of Consciousness.
In regard to the various doctrines and understandings of “levels of consciousness,” there is none that I know of that doesn’t fail to confuse the contents of consciousness as a different ‘level’ of consciousness. For example, what ants are conscious of, or what an amoeba is conscious of, are seen to be different levels of consciousness from that which humans have, because of what humans are conscious of. But in these three cases, the character of being conscious is not different — only the phenomena that each of these separate forms of being are conscious of differs.
Notably, even the assertion that I have implicitly made in using an amoeba as an example of a conscious being, could be dismissed because the basal cognition1 that amoeba appear to possess is clearly different than that of the other two, and which are different from each other. An amoeba would likely be characterized as being at level zero of consciousness, that is, no consciousness — again confusing the possible contents of consciousness of each form of being with their status as conscious beings.
So from what difference in being conscious is the idea of levels derived? It seems clear (to me) that it is from the phenomena that are within each being’s perceptual, and in some cases, mental, capacity to be conscious of. Simply that. But perceptual and mental capabilities are not, as far as I know, based upon the “level of consciousness” of any particular being. For example, does a person with Asperger’s Syndrome have a different “level of consciousness” than someone with, or without, an intellectual (dis)ability? Or, do they have different capabilities to perceive and reason only? Were IQs an effort to measure the “level of consciousness,” or was it to measure someone’s abilities in relation to perception and reasoning? I struggle to find the correlation between being conscious and how acute our senses are, or how intelligent we are.