1. Inquiry should involve both the self and the external world. After all it is our mind the perceives it. Self inquiry helps as it will remove the barriers you have mentioned in point 4. What do I mean? Firstly we all develop habits and learned behaviour, scrutinising them helps us first recognise that there is a barrier and then equip us with the tools needed to overcome them. Tools mental aids whatever you want to call them.

2) Consciousness is awareness an evolved trait that allows us to observe and interact with the world

My first thought is that the inquiry itself is a helpful place to begin exploring. — Universal Student

Three key bits of advice here.

First note you need to differentiate between the neurobiological awareness of animals and the language and culture expanded conciousness of humans. Awareness is biological. Self awareness is socially constructed. Knowing that should deflate a large part of the problem as it is the neurobiology that is the complicated bit.

Second, it will help to realise that awareness is not about a passive neural display - a representation of the world - that then requires some further mysterious witness. This is the dualistic Cartesian mistake. Awareness is a pragmatic and embodied modelling relation with the world. The brain exists to predict how the world could be in the light of actions that might be taken. It is an active engagement rather than a passive contemplation.

A third thing that could be added when it comes to getting started on the neurobiology is that neuroscientists prefer to talk about awareness in terms of its two critical levels of process - habit and attention. As part of the whole prediction-based design of the brain, it is set up to learn to process the world as automatically and “unconsciously” as possible. Attention only kicks in if the world doesn’t fit the predictions and the brain has to pause to generate some new predictive state that better explains the available evidence.

Inquiry should involve both the self and the external world. After all it is our mind the perceives it. — Deus

Agreed that self inquiry is an important step for how can we recognize cognitive dissonance. To question is to open the windows to being wrong, which frees us. External can be tricky to navigate (at least, for me) but useful and probably necessary, as we do co-exist with other beings. I think that there is a bit of truth to every perspective.

And that it is important that we do not deem any reference point as superior or in-superior to another, but merely different and contrasting, revealing to us greater truths.

Firstly we all develop habits and learned behaviour, scrutinising them helps us first recognise that there is a barrier and then equip us with the tools needed to overcome them. — Deus

I appreciate what you are saying about first seeing the barrier but I do not understand how we are then equip with the tools needed to overcome them. Can you elaborate on this please?

I have been shown some tools along the way in my journey, but all of these were shown or hinted to me by external sources who they themselves have walked the path. Some a result of my own seeking and others, offered because they could see more than I. I have then sought to learn how to utilize these and adapt them to my unique needs.

The way that you phrase this brings to mind the idea that a tool could come from an internal source with merely the act of seeing the barrier as a catalyst. This is exciting but the depth of my understanding ends in this moment, at curiosity.

Three key bits of advice here. — apokrisis

This is helpful! I am spending some energy digesting all of what you have shared here before I formulate ideas about these words of advice.

I didn’t really address what seems your goal here - some kind of step towards a next level of mind.

But my points do go to this issue. You can’t do much about your neurobiology except to be in reasonably good health. So your focus would have to be on the socially constructed aspects of the human animal.

That would mean getting the best possible training in the skill of critical thinking - what philosophy is supposed to do of course. But also in a broader sense, the positive psychology movement uses social constructionist principles to help you develop the skills of self awareness and self actualisation.

Your framing of the issues could place too much emphasis on simplistic mind expansion of the kind that is like taking drugs or meditating to open the doors of perception. Some neurobiological gimmick.

Or it might over emphasise becoming super intellectual in terms of abstract thinking skills.

But if we are social creatures, then logically the mental technology that is most basic to improving our lot in life is that which allows us to understand how to construct our selfhood in relation to our social environment. Finding our place in the world.

Being in control of that would be a powerful aspiration. And quite trainable. It just doesn’t conform to the usual stereotypes folk have about the nature of “consciousness” as something highly individual and competively ranked.

Positive psychology is about recognising that reaching higher levels of mind is a collaborative enterprise. Team work. A collectively developing community of minds.

Positive psychology is about recognising that reaching higher levels of mind is a collaborative enterprise. Team work. A collectively developing community of minds — apokrisis

To what extent, if at all, can one talk about an individual way of thinking that enters into territory not trod by others in the surrounding community? This would not be to say that an individual perspective is not formed through reciprocal interaction within the community , but that it is more than a node in a reciprocal network. It can exceed to some extent the culture it is shaped by. When Peirce introduced his ideas in the mid 1800’s , were they only a variation within a larger network, or did they play a leading role in transforming the network?

You mean can paradigm shifting genius exist? Sure, why not?

But paradigm shifting means bringing the community with you. Otherwise nothing has happened.

It also helps greatly when the old paradigm had reached a tipping point. It become easy to shift.

And also there is no need just for this to be something exceptional. My systems view says a productive society produces creative leaps in scalefree fashion - large and small.

Peirce is perhaps a bad example as in his own life he signally failed to achieve the paradigm shift that I say he deserved. It was not a tippable moment, especially in his particular social location.

If he had been a professor in Germany, just imagine how the reaction might have been quite dramatic.

So Peirce dramatically changed my paradigm and that of the small community of theoretical biologists I was associated with in the late 1990s. We were all tippable in immediate fashion as we were already halfway there in looking for such a shift. There was hierarchy theory, category theory, second order cybernetics, Bertalannfy’s systems theory, dissipative structure theory, and much else all in the mix.

Peirce’s triadic semiosis and logic of vagueness then clicked everything finally into place. The last crystallising thought.

So yes, individual minds are always contributing in creative fashion. That is why the relationship can be a reciprocal one.

You can’t go beyond unless there is something already there to mark a line. And then when you step across it, it depends how many rush to join you that decides whether you were the group’s paradigm shifter or the lonely crank howling in the dark.

↪Joshs You mean can paradigm shifting genius exist? Sure, why not?

But paradigm shifting means bringing the community with you. Otherwise nothing has happened — apokrisis

I guess technically a paradigm requires a partially shared set of practices among a community, so a lone genius is not the originator of a paradigm until they are no longer alone. But what does it mean to say that nothing has happened? Certainly nothing has happened for anyone but the lone innovator. But would you agree that someone like Nietzsche or Kierkegaard , who spent their whole lives with no recognition of their ideas, benefited from the guidance of those ideas as much in isolation as they would have if the ideas had formed the basis of a community paradigm?

But would you agree that someone like Nietzsche or Kierkegaard , who spent their whole lives with no recognition of their ideas, benefited from the guidance of those ideas as much in isolation as they would have if the ideas had formed the basis of a community paradigm? — Joshs

You tell me. In what way did they benefit in their isolation? In what way would they have profited more if everyone else had joined them in applying the same existential analysis?

I have so little interest in them that I simply couldn’t even guess. I never saw anything of pragmatic use, although perhaps you mean how their writings function as romantic spectacle or popular entertainment?

How do we develop our conciousness and self-awareness? — Universal Student

I guess the most important part of self-awareness for me is the understanding that it is nothing special, nothing magic. It's something we do every day and something we can get better at. There's one rule, one practice - just pay attention. And then, pay attention to paying attention.

I'm going to punt now, which is cheating. Forgive me. This is the original post from a discussion I started more than five years ago. Still one of my favorites. Lots of smart self-aware people participated.

I’d like to talk about the experience of awareness. What it feels like from the inside. In particular what it feels like to become aware. This is probably the one philosophical/spiritual phenomenon I’ve thought the most about. I think that’s because I was deeply unaware of my feelings and internal experience when I was a teenager and I’ve been struggling for 50 years to come to terms with that.

I’d like to make a distinction here between awareness and consciousness. I’m not sure that distinction is legitimate lexicographically, but in terms of how it feels on the inside, they seem different to me. For the purpose of this discussion, by consciousness I mean the capacity for putting experiences into words. Awareness, on the other hand, is pre-verbal. It’s certainly true for me that consciousness and awareness sometimes happen at the same time. Sometimes I’m not even aware I’m aware of something until I talk about it with myself. On the other hand, I’ve had many experiences of awareness without words or concepts. I don’t want to argue about the distinction I’m making. Again, I want to talk about actual experiences.

In what ways am I aware – intellectually, emotionally, physically, perceptually, spiritually. What else?

I’m probably the most aware intellectually. I think that’s both because of my natural capacity and inclination and the fact I’ve been an engineer for 30 years. I have visual images of how the things I know and understand fit together. I can see the universe – everything, stars and electrons, love, god, macaroni and cheese, my brothers - as a cloud. When I am putting ideas together to describe what I know or make an argument, I am very aware that I am putting together a story and I see a curve, a narrative arc, that shows the sequence of facts, ideas, and conclusions I am using to make my case.

When I was a teenager, I was almost completely unaware of what I felt emotionally. Worse, it didn’t seem like I felt anything. I felt inauthentic in a fundamental way. Numb. Frozen. It made it incredibly difficult to have healthy relationships with others – family, friends, lovers. Now, I spend much of my attention on what is going on inside me. I often find myself stopping what I’m doing or thinking to figure out what I feel about something. Given where I’ve come from, it’s an incredibly freeing experience. It’s so much fun.

I could go on – but I don’t like long original posts. I have more to say, but for now I’d like to hear what others have experienced. — T Clark

Nice points

I'm often praised by others for being self-aware, I think it's something I'm pretty good at. In my view, one of the worst things you can do for self-awareness is to try to analyse yourself in a vacuum and use logic and reason to figure yourself out. We're pretty good at figuring people out, and at understanding situations socially, at least much better at doing that than figuring out ourselves. However, we're very biased when it comes to ourselves, and rightfully so, it's a good thing to view yourself in a more positive way than you actually are, generally speaking. The best way to circumvent this in so far as becoming self-aware is to use other people to understand yourself. The worst mistake is to think of yourself as an exception to how things work for every other person. Instead of trying to understand your bad habits or tendencies by thinking them through, look at other people who have those same bad habits and tendencies. When you're analysing others, things are much more simple, it removes your bias and all of the fluff that makes things more complicated. If when someone exhibits your negative tendencies, you're able to identify some intuitive explanations for why they're doing that, the chances that your reasons are the same are extremely high. Identify your attributes, characteristics, and experiences, and then analyse their nature in others and apply what you learn to yourself. It won't always be 100% accurate, not every explanation that applies to others also applies to you, you're allowed to be critical, but it's a fantastic starting point and it can help ground you. Don't feel that you need to limit yourself to your own analysis either, listen to what other people have to say, just don't think of yourself as a special case, that's the path to becoming oblivious and entirely lacking in self-awareness.

At times, you may fail to identify things about yourself or misunderstand your own qualities. In my case, I was diagnosed with ADHD and autism as an adult, I wasn't able to understand myself and so much never added up. Once I learned the truth, everything started to make sense, and by reading about the experiences of others, I saw how similar they were to mine, and that helped me to learn a lot. In that example, my blunder was accepting explanations that didn't fit, because I was out of ideas until I better understood these conditions and got myself diagnosed. So, if things don't quite add up, don't accept it, you are likely missing some piece of the puzzle. In this case, you could try to search for people with similar confusion to your own, otherwise, maybe consult others. If I had done that from the start, I would've saved myself years of confusion.

Also, consider whether your opinions about yourself are being reaffirmed by others or by the results. For example, if someone is attractive, they're likely to receive compliments about it etc. If your opinions about yourself aren't being reflected in the actions of others or in what you're able to do, chances are you've gotten it wrong. I'm not saying it's impossible that you're misunderstood but you should be highly sceptical in such cases where it appears that's the case. Because far more likely your bias has affected your self-evaluation than anything else.

I think you at least need this aforementioned mentality as a starting point, you are unique but you should at least look at how others are, and evidence your difference by the merit of your behaviour. It's always the most self-unaware that fail to understand others, and characterise others unfavourably, and then themselves in a positive way. The problem is that you're too damn smart, and it's hard to outsmart yourself. We can make compelling reasons that excuse our bad behaviour or interpret things in ways favourable to us, or the opposite if self-esteem is low. It is not only very helpful to learn about others to learn about yourself, but by listening to people you relate with and by learning from them, you might be able to overcome difficulties or challenges and gain valuable insights that would take you years of difficulty to figure out by yourself.

How do we develop our consciousness and self-awareness?

My first thought is that the inquiry itself is a helpful place to begin exploring. — Universal Student

Absolutely. Philosophical inquiry is about engaging with self and others in a hopefully constructive dialogue. As you have done by posing an eternally fascinating issue or set of questions.
My first series of thoughts: Why do you ask? Why would we want to develop? How do we know what, if anything, is wrong with our current status?

My second thought is to determine a basic foundation of what we are dealing with. What is consciousness? What is self-awareness? — Universal Student

'What is consciousness?' is a biggie with many definitions and approaches. So many theories...
So, specifically: What kind of 'consciousness' can be developed by ourselves?
I think you are talking about our individual awareness or knowledge of self, others and the world.
That seems pretty close to 'self-awareness'.
What's the difference?
I suppose it lies in the 'zoom-in'; the focus on unique, personal development.
Knowing yourself. All the better to improve practically for a greater sense of wellbeing.
Something like that.

Third; what are the barriers? — Universal Student

The barriers to developing a better understanding of self and others?

Perhaps we need to pay more or less attention; observe what is happening right now.
As you say, what is your 'base-line'?
Where are you at in your life? Think about your values regarding care of body, mind and spirit?
What are your usual habits or patterns of thought, emotions and behaviour?
Are they helping or harming you or others?

Examples can help. How do you become aware that something isn't right with yourself?
A change in mood? A lowering or darkening. What is the cause? The state of politics, people, problems.
If that Unsettling is to change, what to do? Turn to philosophy?

One barrier to reading and knowing oneself is that of Distraction.
I take leave from TPF every now and again, for various reasons. The latest:

In a recent conversation, I said I was a fan of Goethe, Italy and Marcus Aurelius.
Then I realised that if I had been asked, "Why?", I would have struggled to answer.
It's been so long since I read the Meditations, would I now feel the same way?
So, I left this place of delightful but sometimes unhelpful distractions and I picked up a few books.
Bought but never read:
Pierre Hadot's:
1. The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
2. Philosophy as a Way of Life

Fourth; the tools to break down those barriers? — Universal Student

Being curious about your own mind. How it works, effectively or not.

I have been shown some tools along the way in my journey, but all of these were shown or hinted to me by external sources who they themselves have walked the path. Some a result of my own seeking and others, offered because they could see more than I. I have then sought to learn how to utilize these and adapt them to my unique needs. — Universal Student

It would be good if you could expand on the sources you found helpful; what 'path' have they walked?
Also, what tools and how have you adapted them to suit your needs?
Perhaps, borrowing from a Stoic's perspective?

In 'Philosophy as a Way of Life', I'm reading about what Hadot has to say about Marcus and 'spiritual exercises'.
Here's a clip from p84 in the section 'Learning to Live'
'Attention (prosoche) is the fundamental Stoic spiritual attitude. It is a continuous vigilance and presence of mind, self consciousness which never sleeps...'

The benefits?
Perhaps improved moods and relationships.
Understanding the relationship between thinking and emotions. Regulation of anxiety.
Clearer thinking and decision making?
Having better dialogues with others. Listening and learning, like here, right now...
Writing in response. Carefully.

Thanks for starting this engaging discussion :sparkle:

My second thought is to determine a basic foundation of what we are dealing with. What is consciousness? What is self-awareness? — Universal Student

If you are interested in cultivating an awareness of awareness then Idealism is a logical avenue.

Currently I'm reading Fichte, whose central concept is the self-positing of the I. For me, this really seems an extension and elaboration of "cogito ergo sum," which might be called the original intellectual intuition since it incorporates Fichte's notion of an original action (of positing) which precedes the consciousness thereof.

I find that, at its best, his philosophy reads somewhat like Patanjali's yoga sutras, which are meditative reflections-cum-exercises on the nature of thought. viz: "the act of pure reflection, viewed as a concept, is thought of by the I."

Simultaneously an exploration of the relationship between acting and conceptual knowledge, and where the thought of a concept becomes the concept of thought, becomes thought.

How do we develop our conciousness and self-awareness?

My first thought... — Universal Student

Is your first thought aware of itself? Or is your second thought a reflection on your first thought (as mine is).

My feeling is that thought distracts awareness away from the present into the labyrinth of thought. Thus the suggestion is that thought and effort in this matter are counterproductive, as if one would strain to relax. the only 'how' to relaxation is to strain, and then stop straining. Think very hard about stopping thinking, and then stop.

Thank you.

This is a different way of thinking about awareness than mine, but it's interesting and well thought out. It made me go back and look closer at how I experience my own awareness.

Is your first thought aware of itself? Or is your second thought a reflection on your first thought (as mine is). — unenlightened

This is an interesting way of putting it. Now I'm trying to figure out if the first thought you're talking about is a thought at all. For me, at least, it's not in words. It's a wordless experience. I'm asking myself whether the second thought is where awareness begins.

Is your first thought aware of itself? Or is your second thought a reflection on your first thought (as mine is). — unenlightened

This stirs something in my ever-diminishing memory bank.
I seem to recall something about access consciousness...
Primary and secondary- where primary is simple perception; animals have it.
Secondary is a level up - self-reflective awareness; human animals are supposed to have it.

So, you are arguably aware of an initial thought but perhaps not as to its cause. A perception?
The cause might indeed be an increased awareness?
Particularly, if the questioner has been engrossed in topics such as:

Metacognition -

Metacognition is an awareness of one's thought processes and an understanding of the patterns behind them. The term comes from the root word meta, meaning "beyond", or "on top of".[1] Metacognition can take many forms, such as reflecting on one's ways of thinking and knowing when and how to use particular strategies for problem-solving.[1] There are generally two components of metacognition: (1) knowledge about cognition and (2) regulation of cognition.[2]
[...]
The concept of metacognition has also been applied to reader-response criticism.
Narrative works of art, including novels, movies and musical compositions, can be characterized as metacognitive artifacts which are designed by the artist to anticipate and regulate the beliefs and cognitive processes of the recipient,[78] for instance, how and in which order events and their causes and identities are revealed to the reader of a detective story. As Menakhem Perry has pointed out, mere order has profound effects on the aesthetical meaning of a text.[79] Narrative works of art contain a representation of their own ideal reception process. They are something of a tool with which the creators of the work wish to attain certain aesthetical and even moral effects.[80]
— Wiki - Metacognition

Art, then. Interaction between all kinds of consciousness and awareness.
A useful development using imagination and creativity in thought processing and product.

My feeling is that thought distracts awareness away from the present into the labyrinth of thought. Thus the suggestion is that thought and effort in this matter are counterproductive, as if one would strain to relax. the only 'how' to relaxation is to strain, and then stop straining. Think very hard about stopping thinking, and then stop. — unenlightened

I agree that thought can be labyrinthian; a complex structure of pathways which can be a confusing maze and amazing.
It is always present and will not be stopped.
The effort to do so, in my mind, would be counter-productive.
It is more about training the mind. And that takes thought. And awareness. And focus.

I disagree that the only 'how to relax' is to strain, then stop.
What did you have in mind?
The technique of physical clenching or tightening of muscles, then their release?
Yes, that's a kind of mind/body awareness that can be helpful but not all there is to relaxation.

Interesting, as always, to think a bit more...but not too much...

Thank you. — Universal Student

Curious as to what exactly you are grateful for :chin:

But would you agree that someone like Nietzsche or Kierkegaard , who spent their whole lives with no recognition of their ideas, benefited from the guidance of those ideas as much in isolation as they would have if the ideas had formed the basis of a community paradigm?
— Joshs

You tell me. In what way did they benefit in their isolation? In what way would they have profited more if everyone else had joined them in applying the same existential analysis?

I have so little interest in them that I simply couldn’t even guess. I never saw anything of pragmatic use, although perhaps you mean how their writings function as romantic spectacle or popular entertainment? — apokrisis

Substitute a thinker you find relevant and see how you might answer the question.

So, you are arguably aware of an initial thought — Amity

My main concern in such discussions is to distinguish awareness from the objects or contents of awareness.

So one can be aware of feelings, thoughts, memories, sensations, and so on - or one can have these things but be more or less unaware of them. So, if one can be self-aware, the question arises as to what is the thing that one is aware of - what is the content of that awareness? It should of course be easy and clear what the answer is, because one ought to be aware of it. The answer i give is that self-awareness is always awareness of an idea that one has identified with - the self-complex. To the extent that awareness can be aware of itself, it seems (to me) to manifest as a silence, and an emptiness. I don't know if anyone else has another experience?

Is your first thought aware of itself? Or is your second thought a reflection on your first thought (as mine is).

My feeling is that thought distracts awareness away from the present into the labyrinth of thought — unenlightened

There is an assumption common to meditative practice and cognitive science that one can make a distinction between a pre-reflective and a reflective form of awareness , and a distinction between attention and what what one attends to. But if reflecting on one’s consciousness is distorting, then so is the ‘pre-reflective’ experience of awareness. Any form of consciousness or awareness is an awareness of something other than itself. There is no self to be aware of except a self that arrives to us from the world every moment as a changed self. To turn back to oneself, to turn ‘inward’ in order to examine the being of consciousness is a being exposed to an outside. Studying consciousness is studying g self-transformation, and this means participating in the transformation rather than standing outside of it.

...It should of course be easy and clear what the answer is, because one ought to be aware of it. The answer i give is that self-awareness is always awareness of an idea that one has identified with - the self-complex. To the extent that awareness can be aware of itself, it seems (to me) to manifest as a silence, and an emptiness. I don't know if anyone else has another experience? — unenlightened

Interesting. What do you mean by the 'self-complex'?
How would that manifest as a 'silence' or an 'emptiness'?

What do you mean by the 'self-complex'? — Amity

Ideas and memories that one identifies with. Answers you might give if I asked you what you're like or who you are. I am ... 70 years old, male, a gardener, philosopher, mathematician, red hot lover, I like marmite and hill walking and I speak French and am married to... not the facts, the habitual ideas or thoughts that occur to me.

How would that manifest as a 'silence' or an 'emptiness'? — Amity

I have to say that, not because I experience something, but because in making the distinction, I have necessarily excluded every positive experience as being 'contents of awareness'. It doesn't manifest, it is the condition required for manifestation. Thus if my inner condition is a cacophony of noise, how can I hear anything? If my head is full of thoughts and anxieties about tomorrow, I cannot give attention to what you are saying. So to be aware is to be silent internally. It is to have room for something new.

My second thought is to determine a basic foundation of what we are dealing with. What is consciousness? What is self-awareness? — Universal Student

I don't understand what you mean by the question. Sure, people bark on about consciousness and awareness all the time (especially in California), but what are you specifically referring to and what are you hoping to find? Personally I don't think these sorts of questions matter very much.

Way to welcome a new member pal. Just dismiss a line of inquiry which you deem pointless whilst to others is not.

Maybe channel your personal opinions in an appropriate area.

An abusive response, Dues? You can do better.

I guess the most important part of self-awareness for me is the understanding that it is nothing special, nothing magic. It's something we do every day and something we can get better at. — T Clark

I agree with this.

Ha! Abusive he says…if you are truly struggling with the terms consciousness and self-awareness then a dictionary is your friend not your enemy.

Although the two above terms overlap consciousness extends to the other as well as to itself.

And yes we do this everyday whilst we are awake but that does not negate its value.

I am presenting some questions and my sincere view of the OP. These terms are so broad and used so differently and ubiquitously that I am curious what s/he means. I have my own thoughts based on decades of reading/living, but when we ask questions here it is not always because we don't have an answer, it is to find out more from the other person.

This OP to me is far from clear. Also, I do think setting yourself a task of self-awareness is pointless. Self-awareness, like happiness, is not something you can aim for - it happens as a result of other things. Like paying attention while you live your life.

Analysis is paralysis
- J Krishnamurti New York 1974

Consciousness is the attunement of all senses to thinking processes.

By attuned I mean the processing of sensory input for the organisms interaction with environment. But it goes beyond this to include the area of pure thought/reason as elucidated by Kant who provided more than a satisfactory answer on the matter.