Consciousness

1. Consciousness Either means Awareness or Experience itself, or Knowing of such awareness or experience (via the self)

2. Consciousness Seems to have no objective material qualities (having instead subjective “qualia”) in itself, so it either derives from the objective material (matter-energy) world – materialism – or it is already present everywhere and creates the material world – idealism – of particular brains and minds.

3. Consciousness, if materially based, derives from the brain, so it either is • unique to the biology of the brain, and thus cannot be reproduced anywhere else, or • a function of the brain’s complex processing produced by the interactions of the neurons & synapses in its wetware, so theoretically can be reproduced via microchips in computing hardware.

4. Consciousness, if not limited to the brain, is either • universal, present in some manner in all things, though particularized according to the form of its container, or • culturally constructed, an effect of symbolic interaction & intersubjectivity (though this may itself be a reflection of experience back upon itself) – thus amenable to learning.

5. Consciousness has basically been ignored by psychology since the time of William James and the psychoanalysts, so Learning Theories have followed suit & stuck to an objective materialist (hard science) viewpoint:

6. Learning, then, is objectively viewed: “Learning, in contrast with maturation, is an enduring change in a living person that is not heralded by genetic inheritance. It may be considered a change in insights, behaviors, perception, motivation, or a combination of these. It always involves a systematic change in behavior or behavioral disposition that occurs as a consequence of one’s of one’s experience in some specific situation.”

7. Bigge & Shermis (2004) add: “A learning theory … is a systematic integrated outlook in regard to the nature of the process whereby people relate to their environments in such a way as to enhance their ability to use both themselves and their environments in a most effective way.” (Quotations from Bigge & Shermis, Learning Theories for Teachers, 6th ed, Pearson Education, pp. 1, 3)

8. Learning is either an unconscious behavioural adaptation, as in training or mimesis, or an increase in conscious awareness & volition (or both, 2nd following the 1st).

9. Learning Theories are often divided into these categories: behaviourist humanist (romantic or cultivated) cognitivist social or environmental constructivist (social or cognitivist) Today we may add critical Neuroscientific (interactionist or determinist)

10. Bigge & ShermisSample Learning Theories Mental Discipline – theistic or humanistic Natural Unfoldment (romanticism) Herbartianism or Apperceptive Mass Behaviourism or stimulus-response conditioning Gestalt or insight Narrativism (cultural interaction) Linear Cognitive Interaction Cognitivism (cognitive-field situational interaction)

11. Constructivism as a Learning Theory Constructivism may be social or personal (cognitive), or both – like the hermeneutic circle, where one creates other. However, social or cultural constructivism alone is most common as a learning theory. Social constructivism is mimesis and is the basis of mythic consciousness. Individual self-construction (autopoiesis not cognitivist) cannot escape its cultural or physical roots but is the key to conscious agency.

12. Mimesis may be the original & animal form of learning to be conscious, just as accepting the beliefs of of others – mythic consciousness – may be the original human form of conscious cognition, but both of these forms of conscious experience are learned passively, that is, unconsciously.

13. Mimesis may play a necessary role in making us social beings, but its inherent ambiguity makes it unreliable as an automatic pilot. We even learn our desires and fears through mimesis and myth. Clinging to mythic beliefs in oneself or the world keeps one as dependent on others for self-identity as does the mimetic capacity. Is there a learning theory that encourages the burden of self-creation & conscious agency?

14. Robert Kegan’s “Evolving Self”: Kegan divides developmental learning into five stages, beginning when subject & object are one. In each stage, what is presumed to be subjective is creatively objectified & understood, until one’s own self-concept is seen as yet another construction and one is freed from it. Conscious volition increases at each level.

15. Kegan’s Creative Learning Stages • Stage 0: Incorporative stage • Subject: reflexes / Object: nothing • Stage 1: Impulsive stage • Subject: impulses, perceptions / Object: reflexes • Stage 2: Imperial stage • Subject: needs, interests, desires / Object: impulses, perceptions • Stage 3: Interpersonal stage • Subject: interpersonal relationships, mutuality / Object: needs, interests, desires • Stage 4: Institutional stage • Subject: authorship, identity, ideology / Object: interpersonal relationships, mutuality • Stage 5: Inter-individual stage • Subject: creative silent core self / Object: authorship, identity, ideology

16. C.G. Jung considered the first half of life to be one in which the ego (self-concept or image) is fortified & assured. During the second half of life, however, the ego may be decentered as one unites consciously with one’s source in the collective unconscious through the process he called individuation.

17. What does it matter if one learns to be more conscious or more consciously learns?

18. Beyond the fact that free and responsible individuals are the foundation of an active democracy, there might be larger purposes stirring here

19. Eugene Webb: “Evolution takes place as the impersonal effect of environmental pressures, but the development of a differentiated consciousness can only take place through an exercise of freedom, and when it does, one of its effects is to increase the degree of freedom — and hence also of responsibility — on the part of the individual who enacts it. At a certain point in development, one might say, autopoiesis is challenged to become conscious and voluntary. It is in this sort of free pursuit of rational and responsible personhood that I think we find the essential human task.”

20. Jung (among others) has suggested the purpose of life is to become conscious.

21. “The man who has attained consciousness of the present is solitary ... for every step towards fuller consciousness removes him further from his original, purely animal participation mystique with the herd, from submersion in a common unconsciousness. Every step forward means tearing oneself loose from the maternal womb of unconsciousness in which the mass of men dwells, … He has come to the very edge of the world, … he stands before the Nothing out of which all may grow.” (C.G. Jung, The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man)