Consciousness is a word to describe the capacity for awareness that the animal kingdom has in varying degrees. Humans have demonstrated the highest level of awareness capabilities. Part of the capacity for awareness includes knowledge which is at the root of the word consciousness. The etymology for consciousness is Latin con ‘with’ + scio ‘knowledge’ + ness ‘action, quality, state’, which goes back to PIE *skei/y- ‘to cut, split, dissect’. The word science has the same Latin root. Consciousness is to be with knowledge; to see and be aware of the variability, multiplicity and diversity (what is and is not, identity) of the universe, reality and existence.
A closely related word with consciousness is conscience. Conscience is moral knowledge, of knowing what is right, to be aware of what is wrong. Conscience comes from the Latin conscientia - knowledge-with, shared knowledge, knowing something together with another. Ultimately it has the same roots as consciousness, but instead of being with-knowledge, it’s knowledge-together. It’s the knowledge derived from having others around, from interacting with others, be they human or non-human animal others. Conscience is a capacity within consciousness.
It’s thought that the meaning originally comes from the Greek syneidesis, literally “with-knowledge”, to know along with others what’s right or wrong. There is more to say about syneidesis and the counterpart synderesis coming up.
Consciousness is like a pattern recognition engine. There is not only the contrast of the variability, multiplicity and diversity of existence, but also through time. The present contrasts with the past. We move into the future which becomes our present. Patterns of the past and present are recognized as knowledge. As the saying goes, history repeats in many cases. There are patterns in the world and within consciousness, such as habits and behaviors for instance. Meaning, value and purpose is attributed to the patterns we observe and detect.
Interactions with other animals (human or otherwise) creates patterns of behaviors and patterns of social living. Some behaviors engender reciprocity. There is a repetition of results and consequences to actions. We judge and learn from our past actions (syneidesis), using that knowledge to guard and watch over our future actions to not repeat the same mistakes (synderesis). This is how to perceive, conceive, understand and navigate reality with other consciousness beings and in doing so learn morality.
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Science as a methodology is repeatability to demonstrate knowledge. Sci-ence, con-sci-ence, con-sci-ousness. Patterns of repeatability can be recognized and demonstrated, especially those related to interaction with others. This forms the knowledge of the difference between right and wrong, otherwise known as morality, observed, recognized and understood from the faculty of conscience.
This is the true vision from within consciousness that leads to the wisdom of right-action. The ability to see reality correctly is part of higher consciousness capabilities. To have the inner-light and inner-vision from consciousness to see the outer-light with our outer-vision and develop the proper capability of conscience. The outer-light is seeing things in existence, and the inner-light is seeing things in consciousness. This comes from outer-vision and inner-vision to see that light reflected and making things observable to our vision.
The consciousness of humans is adept at recognizing patterns. This can be demonstrated with numbers. Look at these sequences of numbers that repeat a pattern. You can think of each iteration as the present, with previous numbers in the past, and those ahead as the future. You can also predict what future numbers will come even though you can’t see them below.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 …
- 2 4 6 8 10 …
- 1 3 5 7 9 …
- 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 …
- 1 5 3 7 5 9 7 11 9 13 11 …
- 1 1 2 2 3 1 1 3 3 2 2 2
2 1 2 2 1 3 2 1 2 3 3 2
1 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 3 1 2 1 1 1 2 2 3 1 2
…
Can you see all the patterns above and predict what comes next?
This pattern recognition ability can have us predict what numbers there will be in the future. Similarly, we can often more-or-less predict what can or will manifest into reality based on the current and past conditions. Learning from the past, earning from mistakes made by ourselves or others, is wisdom. Wisdom is right-action. Knowing what not to do because you learned from the mistakes you made is being wise. Learning from the mistakes of others without yourself having to make those mistakes is being even wiser. This is the power of consciousness to generate into existence.