Consciousness

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Consciousness (Latin: conscientia "co-knowledge"; Greek: συνείδησις syneidesis "co-appearance", "co-image", "co-knowledge", συναίσθησις synaisthesis "co-perception" and φρόνησις phronesis, from φρονεῖν phronein "to be in one's senses, to think"; Early NHG: bewisst „to know, to know exactly“; Sanskrit: चित् Chit) is based, according to Rudolf Steiner, „not on the fact that a being shows a certain counter-effect to an effect, but that the being experiences something within itself which is added to the mere counter-effect as a new thing.“ (GA 13, p. 59f) According to the anthroposophical view, consciousness unfolds and develops in a sequence of seven stages of consciousness, of which our present earthly waking consciousness represents the fourth and middle stage. If consciousness sinks below the level of dream consciousness, one commonly speaks of a state of unconsciousness. Nevertheless, dull degrees of consciousness are still present.

The seven levels of consciousness

→ Main article: Stages of consciousness

From an anthroposophical point of view, consciousness unfolds in seven stages of consciousness, which are closely related to the seven stages of world evolution described by Rudolf Steiner. They differ in the degree of their brightness of consciousness and in their scope of consciousness. The narrower the consciousness becomes, the brighter it appears and the more unreal it is at the same time. The first level of consciousness, as all-consciousness, encompasses the whole world, but is correspondingly so dull that it is also called trance consciousness or death consciousness. The mineral world still has this consciousness today. Somewhat brighter and at the same time narrower is the dreamless sleep consciousness, which today is peculiar to plants. These first two levels of consciousness are today completely attributed to the unconscious. This is probably the reason why "the hard problem of consciousness"[1] confronts the neurosciences with a seemingly insoluble riddle. Only the more or less dream-like consciousness, which animals also have in varying degrees of brightness, is considered conscious or at least semi-conscious by many researchers today. But the bridge between bodily processes and consciousness phenomena is not found.

At present, we as human beings stand on the fourth level of consciousness, in which the I-consciousness is forming. It has the brightest degree of consciousness of all the stages of consciousness developed so far, but has completely lost its character of reality and has become an ineffective mirror image. Precisely because of this, however, it can also form the basis for human freedom.

„Here, you see, lies that difficulty which philosophers continually encounter, and which they cannot overcome with their philosophy, the main difficulty. Nothing else is given to these philosophers at first but that which they imagine. But remember that being is pressed out of the imagination, out of the content of consciousness. It cannot be in it, for what is in consciousness is only a reflection. Being cannot be in it. Now the philosophers seek being through consciousness, through ordinary physical consciousness. They cannot find it that way. And it is quite natural that such philosophies had to arise as Kant's, for example, which seeks being through consciousness. But because consciousness, quite naturally, can only contain images of being, one can come to nothing other than to acknowledge that one can never approach being with consciousness.“ (Lit.:GA 162, p. 31)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.

Weblinks

References

  1. ↑ David Chalmers: The Character of Consciousness. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010, ISBN 978-0195311112, p. 39
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