Conscience

From the preceding, it can be demonstrated how embodied, or otherwise, Consciousness is identical to Conscience. While the homeostatic functioning of Consciousness is similar to the typical experience of Conscience, that the latter involves a correction of personal behavior towards others, would seem contrary to the intrapersonal nature of the former. But, as Heidegger has argued, the essence of Conscience is its intrapersonal structure, a 'call' from within, not whatever value system the call happens to serve as a surrogate. Less obviously homeostatic is the concept of Consciousness as a disembodied observer. But Kant's demonstration of how Reason is implicity Practical analogously applies to Consciousness. For, as disembodied, Consciousness is also impersonal, and as an impersonal visitor to a personal Body, it, in itself, constrains corporeal behavior, that is, serves as its Conscience, which is brought out much more plainly when Consciousness and Soul are presented as identical. Even when Aristotle distinguished Practical Intellect from Theoretical, and subordinated it to the latter, he did not mean to distinguish Conscience from Consciousness. For, in his system, thought-thinking-itself is a higher Good than thought-influencing-conduct, and, hence, a more fundamental source of Conscience, not an intellectual process of a different type. Here is exposed Aristotle's allegiance to Plato's doctrine that Contemplation of the Form of the Good is a higher Good than conduct in accordance with the latter. What the Individualistic concept of Conscience primarily rejects in the Platonic tradition is that the 'recollection' of Form is more important than the original collection of localized corporeal movements that first constitute their Form.

An Alternative Derivation of Self-Consciousness

One standard theory of human experience begins with the awareness of either an object, such as a ball, or a quality, such as roundness, proceeds to discuss the accumulation of the data of consciousness, and, often, somewhere along the way, examines the awareness of that original awareness. Wittingly or otherwise, it is difficult for such a methodology to avoid arriving at the thesis that Consciousness is essentially a disembodied information-processor. A different starting point is the awareness of walking along and noticing a ball close ahead, a basic experience that might be familiar to any young child. Furthermore, the combination in awareness of leg motions and of visual operations can lead to either walking around the ball, or to kicking it. So, this methodology very easily helps establish that Consciousness is essentially embodied and homeostatic. The example also demonstrates how 'information' about the outer world has an essentially homeostatic meaning. For, it is not the case that we first are aware of something, and then incorporate it into our movements. Rather, that awareness is itself the incorporation, an integration into experience that is itself homeostatic, is itself as much the organism's adjustment to a novel stimulus as is its attempt to regain balance after having tripped over a ball. That some information might be categorized as 'useless' only confirms the primacy of 'usefulness', just as for Heidegger, 'Ready-to-Hand' is more fundamental than 'Present-at-Hand'. So, Synkinesis is the feeling of bodily movements as a whole that any introspection can reveal. An explicit bodily 'image' is a further refinement of that feeling. And, as Mead has shown, a lot of what we internalize, from the earliest age, are our images of others, which quite plainly has a homeostatic influence on our behavior. Reflection, that is, explicit Self-Consciousness, is arrived at when one internalizes an image of how one appears to others in general, that is, one self-objectifies, or, as Sartre puts it, one 'assumes' one's 'Being-for-Others'. In the Evolvemental scheme, this is the achievement of the awareness of one's particularity qua particularity, namely the emergence of one's Individuality.

The Traditional Conception of Consciousness

If a homeostatic conception of Consciousness seems unfamiliar, it is due in part to its notable ancestor having been pre-empted by its author himself. In Aristotle's notion of Practical Wisdom, i. e. his theory of 'Moderation', the Intellect serves the homeostatic function of introducing balance into behavior. However, he goes on to propose that in this capacity, the Intellect is only imperfect, for, its ideal, the apex of human fulfillment, is Theoretical Wisdom, 'thought thinking itself', the self-sufficient Intellect. Thus, despite Aristotle's continued rejection of Plato's separation of Soul and Body, he himself arrives at a notion of an essentially incorporeal Intellect. So, Aristotle's legacy in this area is that the Intellect is essentially not the coordinator of physical behavior, but incorporeal, contemplative, and self-related. The main heir of this legacy is the standard Modern notion of the 'ghost in the machine' theory of Consciousness, which even when incarnated, is an observer, operating independently of its host body, of the outer world and of itself. Even Spinoza strays from his conviction that Mind and Body are correlates, when he proposes the existence of a reflective mental relation, the 'Idea of an Idea', without even mentioning the existence of any physical parallel, which is otherwise demanded by his system. The endurance of Aristotelianism even two millennia later is perhaps best summed up by the usual technical meaning of the expression 'self-consciousness'--'the consciousness of consciousness'--as if Selfhood, too, were essentially disembodied.

Synkinesis

I have previously been suggesting that Reflection is essentially kinaesthetic. A more accurate term is 'synkinetic', from my neologic 'synkinesis', meaning 'unity of motions'. That any human is naturally synkinetic is obvious from its equilibral system, e. g. of the inner ear, as well as from its native ability to coordinate its motions. As a human develops, so to does its synkinetic capacitites. So, for example, in a simple experience of avoiding a puddle while walking, visual processes are plainly coordinated with ambulatory ones. Thus, in general, perceptual processes are primarily components of synkinesis, a point which has traditionally eluded philosophers who have ignored 'looking at', 'listening to', and 'touching', in favor of 'seeing', 'hearing', and 'feeling', in classifying the 'senses' as merely receptive, and even incorporeal, functions. (If Kant had lived long enough, he might have overridden his 'Transcendental Unity of Apperception' with a 'Synthetic Unity of Kinesis', as the true character of 'a priori' corporeal experience.) Furthermore, our synkinetic processes have a palpable effect on physical activity, as for example, when we recover balance. Thus, synkinesis functions fundamentally as a homeostatic process, again, a point easily missed by theories that construe the senses as mere receivers of information. So, anyone having to pause to consider this assertion is thereby also exemplifying it. Accordingly, Reflection, and Propriation, in general, serves a homeostatic function in the Individual.

Motility and Reflection

The basic manifestations of Exposition and Propriation are Motility and Reflection, respectively. 'Motility' means 'self-moving', in contrast with mobility, which pertains to any kind of movement. Or, to put it another way, Motility is Idionomic mobility. Animals, in general, and particular humans, of course, are mobile, but such mobility is heteronomic. The two main types of heteronomic mobility are what are Aristotle would call the Final Cause and the Efficient Cause. More familiarly, any goal that is being pursued is a Final Cause, while any environmental stimulus is an Efficient Cause. A more subtle type of Efficient Cause is any Systemic law to which an entity is subject qua sub-System, e. g. a procreative urge. 'Reflection' means 'self-consciousness', and is, analogous to the relation between Motility and mobility, Idionomic awareness, (a distinction that Sartre draws between 'thetic' and 'non-thetic' consciousness). The most fundamental type of awareness, present in any animal, is kinaesthesia--the feeling of bodily movement. So, the Motility-Reflection combination is a development of the mobility-kinaesthesia combination.

Propriation

To more sharply distinguish the Formal Principle from the ordinary meaning of 'appropriation', I am modifying the latter to one of its obsolete ancestors, 'Propriation'. Likewise, the definition of 'Propriation' is the more precise 'making one's own'. The distinction that I want to draw can be observed in two examples of the process of internalization. In one, which qualifies as 'appropriation', some household items are moved inside a room. In contrast, an example of Propriation, a structure is built around the items. In both examples, internalization is achieved, but in Propriation the enclosing structure emerges at the end of the process, whereas in appropriation, it is generally taken to precede the process. (This former is also Whitehead's notion of Unity 'emerging' from Concrescence.) Also, the enclosing structure imposes organization on what had originally been a random aggregation of items. (In Kantian language, a Category is an expression of the Transcendental Unity of Apperception.) Furthermore, the room can be expanded to accommodate additional items, in which case, once again, Unity is produced by Propriation. Now, to begin to relate Propriation and Exposition, what Propriation internalizes are Expositions, e. g. goings outside to create new items. (While Propriation is analogous to his Concrescence, Whitehead's system is completely lacking in any process that corresponds to Exposition.)

Appropriation

I am calling the Formal Principle, the Becoming-the-Same, of the Individual human, 'Appropriation'. Here 'Appropriation' means 'taking possession of', much as is with the common usage, but with some subtle but important differences. In its ordinary sense, it implies a process of internalization that relates two items that are distinct at the outset, and and are still distinct at the completion. e. g. any purchase of an use item. In contrast, in the technical notion, 'something becoming mine' is more accurately 'an indefinite something becoming me', as in fact can be appreciated even in ordinary cases, e. g. the tool that I use becomes no longer just that but an 'extension' of me. Furthermore, the 'me' that has become is a product of the process, as it is in Whitehead's 'Concrescence'. For example, the tree that results from the addition of a new ring did not, strictly speaking, exist prior to that addition, and the ring is part of the tree, not a distinct but related entity. In other words, both the 'subject' and the 'object' of Appropriation are internal phases of the process, which get distinguished as a matter of analytic interest or linguistic convenience. So, in contrast with Exposition, Appropriation is a transition from indeterminacy to determinacy.