Consciousness, Subconsciousness, & Self-Consciousness

November 20, 2025; most recent update: January 25, 2026

 

Table of Contents

 

1. Consciousness

2. General Kinds of Representations

3. Subconsciousness

4. Self-Consciousness & Its Implications

5. Understanding Consciousness From a Third-Person Viewpoint

 

Consciousness is a state in which something has active representations. A representation is a subjective indicator of something real or imagined. To have representations is to have a "map of the world," whether it be the objective world or a purely subjective one.

 

The patio outside someone's window still exists even when the person turns their head away from the window and no longer has a perception of it. The perception they had of the patio was therefore a representation. A group of like things (e.g. peaches) exists even before a person has a concept of those things. The concept the person has of peaches is therefore a representation of that kind of fruit.

 

We can't properly understand this definition of consciousness without falling back on Aristotle's theory of mind. This theory, briefly, is that something has a mind when its essential activity (or activities) both originates from it and is a goal for itself. For instance, a knife doesn't have a mind since its cutting activity originates from the person wielding it. Similarly, a volcano's spewing lava originates from forces elsewhere, not from itself. But a clock doesn't have a mind either: even though its time-telling activity comes from it, the activity is a goal for humans and doesn't help the clock itself. Like the knife, the clock is just a tool. In contrast, a plant grows, repairs, etc by itself and for its own sake -- therefore it has a type of mind.

 

These same criteria for minds also apply to consciousness.

 

The self-goal quality helps eliminate absurd cases that initially might appear to fit the definition of consciousness. For example, it can seem that simply because an entity is physically connected or causally involved with a representation, it possesses the representation and is therefore conscious. When the oil in your car is low, you will usually get an indicator on your dashboard: a red symbol resembling something like a genie lamp with a droplet coming out of it. For that to happen, the car must be able to detect low oil. But does that mean the car has representations and is therefore conscious? Of course not. The dashboard alert (and the detection that precedes it) is for you: the goal of the car's warning system is to notify the driver, not the car itself. That the representation is for you is not just because of the intentionality of the car maker but also basic functionality: the car doesn't have senses and can't observe the dashboard alert, so what good does detecting the low oil do for it? The car does that for you. To say the car is conscious because it causes the "low on oil" indicator to appear is like saying that a sundial is conscious because it helps produce the shadows necessary for telling the time of day. Thus something has a representation, and is therefore conscious, when the representation is for it.

 

Moreover, the "low on oil" representation isn't just for you, but originates within you. The car simply causes the sensations necessary for your perceptual faculty to process and turn them into a percept in the form of a red "genie lamp" image, thus beginning your consciousness of the warning.

 

Of course, indicators can be false and thus one's map of the objective world incorrect. Optical illusions and other sensory falsehoods, logical mistakes, etc can occur in the real world. But, as representations, no imaginary representations are false: they exist. Something imaginary becomes false only if it is not true in the real world, but not simply as something that is.

 

There are four general kinds of representations: percepts, concepts, propositions, and symbols.

 

Percepts are perceptual units and refer to an individual thing, quality, or action. Some examples are an image of a tree, its colors and other visual qualities, a branch blowing in the wind, the sound of its leaves hitting each other in the wind, etc. And as indicated earlier, some percepts can refer to imaginary things. Dealing with individuals and their individual states, percepts are transitory in nature compared to other representations. For all beings, consciousness begins with percepts.

 

Concepts are universals representing percepts: the general idea of what a tree is, etc. Concepts are necessary for propositions.

 

Propositions are statements that are true or false; they represent a certain state of affairs in the world, whether a temporary state of affairs or a more permanent one. Psychologically, they are known as thoughts. Propositions can be linguistic, logical, or mathematical:

"Two units when added to another two units equals four units."

"(2 ^ 2) --> 4" (If 2 and 2, then 4)

"2+2 = 4"

 

Not all sentences come in the form of a proposition, but there is still an implied proposition behind them. The question "Is it raining?," implies "It is raining or not raining." Likewise, hypotheses are used in the context of testing and the implied proposition is that "X is true or not true."

 

Symbols are percepts that represent concepts for the purpose of communication or as a visual aid in viewing a concept or proposition. In language, each word has a certain sound and a certain look. Like two sides of the same coin, the two percepts represent at least one concept, but in many cases more than one. Symbols aren't just for verbal or written speech, but also used as to communicate distinctions and boundaries in games. Chess has different looking piece types and colors to designate their opposition and separate powers; each sports team has a unique uniform and the areas of play have lines that keep play within the rules of the game.

In contrast to consciousness, subconsciousness is a state in which something has inactive representations. Just as it sounds, when representations are inactive, they exist in the entity's mind but they aren't currently in an actualized or active state. Such representations are stored in the mind and available for use if necessary. Memories, instincts, and intuitions are some examples.

 

Just because something is in a subconscious state doesn't mean it can't at the same time also be in a conscious state. Inactive representations can exist alongside active ones. This is how known minds with both consciousness and subconsciousness usually work, although it's at least theoretically possible that something could for a time have nothing but inactive representations.

 

Self-consciousness is a state in which something has active representations of its own active representations -- i.e., second-order active representations. For example, it's one thing to have an image of the tree outside that you see; it's another to be aware of that image as an image. In the same way, when you share your beliefs, you demonstrate an awareness of certain representations you have.

 

The ability to examine the contents of one's mind, rather than just simply having mental contents, is what makes free will possible. By examining the contents of their mind, an individual can see which options are available in the realm of beliefs, opportunities, etc, when the faculty of reason does its natural work of showing consistencies and inconsistencies by revealing similarities and distinctions. Without self-consciousness, reason would do its work -- at  least, for beings with reason -- but the results would be unavailable to see. Therefore, which direction one went on a given issue wouldn't be driven by awareness of what options were available and the most rational, but whether that option lined up best with forces such as mere instinct or desire. At an intuitive level, reason would help guide the individual away from options that conflicted with whatever path they went, but the individual wouldn't ever be free to really know those options and evaluate them.

 

Without free will, morality would also be impossible. 

 

Questions surrounding consciousness have interested people in many fields for a long time. Today, with the growing presence of AI and as various kinds of plant life seem to show a greater level of intelligence than we once thought, there is much speculation on whether or not at least some of those things are conscious. Understandably, there's much skepticism.

 

So, how can you know whether or not a non-human entity has consciousness? There are basically three routes. First, we can look at the concept of consciousness (or a type of consciousness) and the implications connected to it, which gives us guidelines for when something is conscious as well as indirect knowledge of any other type of awareness something may have. Secondly, behavioral indications gives us direct knowledge -- ultimately those observations will be shaped by our definition of consciousness. Finally, behavioral observations let us know if there are any structures corresponding to consciousness (e.g. eyes for visual consciousness), which can later give us indirect knowledge of consciousness in other individuals or types of beings with those same structures, even without observing their behavior. Of course, there can be exceptions and the structures may not guarantee consciousness in every case, but it's still a reasonable assumption if the association is a strong.

 

For the most part, these paths require looking at consciousness from a third-person viewpoint: looking at the subject, or consciousness itself, as an object. The exception is when we look at something's behavior (in action, text, etc) and try to understand its thinking. A thing's reasoning can  be understood only from a first-person viewpoint; to understand its reasoning, we must reason ourselves. This is why when someone's reasoning doesn't appear to make sense, especially if it involves what should be an uncomplicated issue for the person, we say to ourselves "I don't get it" or something similar. It can sometimes make us wonder if we do understand their reasoning. Still, we need the behavioral observations to establish the facts from which we can piece together its reasoning.

 

Keeping in mind the third-person approach can help us avoid a first-person mistake that can lead us off track. The mistake involves comparing a description of a thing's consciousness to our own experience of consciousness, to see if the description is actually true. For instance, we might learn that some kind of AI has only a one-dimensional awareness of space and naturally wonder: what would that be like? We would try to put ourselves "in the shoes" of the AI. But that's impossible, since our own spatial consciousness is radically different. We simply are unable to take a first-person viewpoint of their spatial mind. From that inability to personally relate, we might conclude that 1D spatial consciousness is inadequate for having true spatial consciousness and therefore 1D-only spatial consciousness is impossible: to have spatial consciousness is to necessarily have 3D consciousness.

 

The mistake is to assume that what is true of our first-person consciousness is true of all conscious beings. It's similar to assuming that our personal preferences apply to all humans as well. Now, it might be true that something with 1D spatial consciousness couldn't really have spatial consciousness: perhaps 1D consciousness wouldn't be functional enough to really be called "conscious." But that would have to be shown from some type of third-person argument -- maybe one about spatial consciousness itself -- not simply "I can't personally relate, so that must be false." Again, the exception is with rational consciousness. We can't know if something is being rational, or even has rationality, except through a first-person lense. But we can understand that point not just from a first-person view but also from the third-person: the principles of logic don't change across different beings with the faculty of reason; reasoning couldn't exist without them.

 

That's not to say that we can totally divorce ourselves from our first-person experience. It provides clues for whether or not something is possible or applies to all beings. For example, could something with 1D consciousness really have just 1D awareness? Take a line, for instance -- a supposedly "1D object." When we think of the image we get of, say, a horizontal line, we see that it must have some vertical dimension as well, in order for it to separate the empty space above it and below it. Without the vertical dimension, the empty spaces adjacent to it would simply merge and no line would be between them. So, we can at least question whether conceptually (and not just psychologically), a line being one dimensional really makes any sense. Is a 1D line  really possible? From there, it seems that something with 1D consciousness must at least have 2D consciousness as well. Here, we would be using our 1D experience to assist our analysis of 1D consciousness itself. Still, it wouldn't be the basis of whatever conclusion we reach.