Reflexivity gradient-Consciousness knowing itself.
Frontiers in psychology January 1, 2024 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1450553 via PubMed
Summary
Consciousness has evolved beyond mere phenomenality to a state where it recognizes itself, indicating a deeper level of awareness. This review examines the reflexivity of consciousness through the lens of non-conceptual nondual awareness, highlighting its non-representational nature. It suggests that various theories of reflexivity represent a spectrum of relationships between the knower and the known in consciousness, ranging from dualistic representations to fully nondual experiences.
Study at a glance
| Design | review |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Consciousness has achieved a state of self-recognition, which allows for a spectrum of reflexivity types from dualistic to fully nondual awareness. |
Abstract
Some consider phenomenal consciousness to be the great achievement of the evolution of life on earth, but the real achievement is much more than mere phenomenality. The real achievement is that consciousness has woken up within us and has recognized itself, that within us humans, consciousness knows that it is conscious. This short review explores the reflexivity of consciousness from the perspective of consciousness itself-a non-conceptual nondual awareness, whose main property is its non-representational reflexivity. In light of this nondual reflexivity, different types of reflexivity proposed by current theories can be seen as a gradation of relational or transitive distances between consciousness as the knower and consciousness as the known, from fully representational and dual, through various forms of qualified monism, to fully non-representational and nondual.