Abstract
A synthetic discourse on securing
consciousness upon the ground of self-consciousness is developed,
though linguistic exposition of consciousness upon self-consciousness
remains necessarily under-complete analytically. The self-as-the-author
is generative but local in its perspective, while the accompanied
self-as-the-reader that can comprehend what the former self has
produced is global but merely contemplative in accepting a completed
discourse and not pragmatic any more. The self-as-the-author is
conscious of itself by letting the self-as-the-reader, who happens
to be a derivative of the former self, be aware of what the self
has produced. Self-consciousness precedes consciousness. Consciousness
can be vindicated only by securing the occurrence of the self-as-the-author
in the perspective from the inside of a linguistic institution.
1 Introduction
Consciousness is about the act of being aware of events emerging from inside. Nonetheless, talking and writing about consciousness is an activity of being aware of what is being conscious, or awareness of an awareness in short. The distinction between consciousness and being conscious of consciousness is subtle, but is evident when one addresses the issue of consciousness. What concerns us most at this point is the nature of descriptive stance we take as facing the task of describing consciousness. Consciousness is intimately related to self-consciousness.
In this article, I shall develop a constructive strategy for approaching consciousness from self-consciousness. The main motivation for the present endeavor of constructing, instead of analyzing, consciousness rests upon the observation that whatever consciousness may look like, our effort for elucidating the nature of consciousness has to have recourse to a language that presumes the capacity of being conscious on the part of its speakers. We are already conscious beings in that practicing any languages is a conscious activity on the part of its users. Even if someone raises a question of what consciousness looks like, such question cannot be formulated unless a conscious being like we human being is taken for granted in the first place.
Consciousness could be dealt with
only to the extent that we can reach consciousness from self-consciousness
with the use of a linguistic vehicle. Even an experimental endeavor
for neurophysiological understanding of consciousness presumes
the presence of a linguistic means for its description. Primary
significance of a language for the matter of consciousness is
the occurrence of an author for any type of linguistic discourse.
2 The Self-as-the-Author
The present author who happens to be myself does not differ from any other authors in two respects. One is to wish to write something (Barthes, 1989), and the other is to rely upon a language for the purpose. The objective of this writing that has just been started is to construct a message that is both unique and specific to the present author but at the same time is intended to be comprehensible to many a reader. Underlying this enterprise is the interplay between the self-as-the-author and the self-as-the-reader (Gergen, 1984). The contrast between the two selves will become more pronounced if one more self to be described is introduced. For instance, that the presence of the self doubting everything else is irrefutable and doubtless is a statement intended to justify the self-as-being-described in view of the fact that if the self as a subject of doubting is doubted, the very deed of doubting would become no more tenable.
The doubtless certitude of the self doubting everything else that was first perceived by Rene Descartes is in its essence the statement authored by Descartes. The reader who can comprehend the self-as-being-described thus predicated turns out to be the self-as-the-reader whom Descartes originally intended to find in the audience. The self-as-the-reader assumes its own set of irreducible predicates to which every comprehensible statement can be reduced. If the self-as-the-reader takes the act of doubting everything else as the irreducible predicate of the self, the original intention of Descartes as the author would be met (Husserl, 1954). Descartes as the author claiming the self doubting everything else can reach any self-as-the-reader who happens to have the same set of irreducible predicates as Descartes has. Descartes as the author is of course legitimately followed by Descartes as the reader who maintains the same set of irreducible predicates as the author takes for granted.
However, it is by no means evident that every self-as-the-reader could share the same set of irreducible predicates. Descartes as the author of the statement claiming the self doubting everything else, for instance, cannot find in the sympathetic audience Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche who takes the will to power to be a most fundamental predicate of the self (Smith, 1992). The self-as-the-author can choose an arbitrary set of irreducible predicates in order to implement its own will to writing, but there is no guarantee that the resulting writing may reach many a self-as-the-reader because of the absence of the commonality of irreducible predicates to be shared among themselves. The inescapable problem with any self-as-the-author is how to construct a writing on a possibly shared common set of irreducible predicates.
The self-as-the-reader serves as a subject of pure reasoning in the sense that the set of irreducible predicates or categories is a priori given and that every descriptive object may be analyzed by the subject accordingly (Primas, 1993; Atmanspacher, 1994). Once such an a priori set of irreducible predicates is observed by the self-as-the-reader, it will be straightforward to analyze the self-as-being-described in terms of those pre-given categories. In particular, the self-as-the-reader can happen to be identical to the self-as-being-described if the self is described in terms of those irreducible predicates that the self-as-the-reader takes for granted. This assimilation of the self, however, does not apply to the self-as-the-author who has the capacity of both generating and varying the fundamental set of irreducible predicates. Descartes as the author is simply incommensurable with Nietzsche as the author in that each employs a different set of predicates for describing the self. Still, the self-as-the-author, whether that may be Descartes or Nietzsche, or anyone else, has already been described as such. It is both ironical and self-contradictory to see that the self-as-the-author being responsible for generating and varying the fundamental predicates has let itself be subject to an arbitrary set of predicates that has been prepared by whatever means.
The modest way to eliminate the formidable problem of this sort would be to abandon the problem itself altogether by stating that the self-as-the-author as a subject of practice goes beyond the subject of pure reasoning as championed by Immanuel Kant (Husserl, 1954). One is not allowed to ask and to predicate what the self-as-the-author is all about, because answering this question does require a trustworthy set of predicates in one form or another. Nonetheless, once the self-as-the-author or the subject of practice has been referred to, it would become inevitable to ask how in the world such a self could come into existence. Referring to the self-as-the-author is an act of calling the self into existence. The self-as-the-author is necessarily in the process of becoming just in the respect that the self has happened to refer to itself as the self-as-the-author, though what the self is all about remains private, local and indefinite (Rössler, 1996).
The burden upon answering the question of how the self-as-the-author could come into existence is, however, less stringent than that for predicating what in the world the self looks like. Historical presence of both Descartes and Nietzsche as authors is incontestable, but the extent to which their writings could be legitimate remain controversial. At issue is how could one, including the present author too, justify the coming-into-being of the self-as-the-author, or the subject of practice, through a descriptive enterprise. Unless founding the self-as-the-author upon a firm descriptive ground is available, it would be of no use to refer to the self-as-the-author itself in writing. Although the self-as-the-author may seem to stand alone once referred to, its legitimacy cannot be found within the description in terms of any pre-given set of irreducible predicates. What is required to do is to justify the self-as-the-author as a class without relying upon any of definite sets of irreducible predicates, though each author like Descartes or Nietzsche may be entitled to have his own choice of a definite set of irreducible predicates arbitrarily within the allowable class. Only when the self-as-the-author may be guaranteed as a class, could one, the present author included, expect to proceed further in making a choice of an appropriate set of irreducible predicates.
The task of the present author as a self-as-the-author is accordingly somewhat convoluted in that it is required to generate or construct the self-as-the-author as a class through a descriptive discourse. The present author wishing to underwrite its own coming-into-being as an author to be found in the class has just started to complete its objective. Until such an objective of underwriting is met, the present author as well as any other author for this matter cannot claim its own birthright. Although it may seem all too obvious that the self-as-the-author can claim the legitimacy of its own presence once the writing project gets started, the fragility of the self would soon come to the surface once someone is allowed to ask the question of how could the author legitimately claim its choice of irreducible predicates over the other alternatives. Nietzsche may dismiss the Cartesian self of doubting everything else from the perspective of the will to power, but did not provide the impartial third party that could decide for the will to power against the Cartesian self. If the self-as-the-author is equated to a being carrying a particular choice of irreducible predicates, the charge against the lack of the uniqueness in the choice would necessarily dismiss the presence of such self as being contingent upon frivolity. In order to secure the self-as-the-author who is in turn responsible for giving birth to both the self-as-being-described and the self-as-the-reader, it would be absolutely required to descriptively construct the self-as-the-author as a class that has the capacity of choosing a definite set of irreducible predicates.
Descartes, Nietzsche and even
the present author have one thing in common. All of them have
something to say by employing languages as a vehicle. Once the
self-as-the-author has been justified, the remaining problem would
be which predicates to choose. Having something to say clearly
differs from having already said. What is intended to do in the
remaining part of this article is to linguistically justify the
intention of having something to say on the part of the self-as-the-author
from the perspective that neither the self-as-being-described
nor the self-as-the-reader could follow unless the self-as-the-author
may be guaranteed.
3 Transient Formal Language
The self-as-the-author takes intentionality toward writing something for granted. However, the self cannot regard intentionality per se as being an irreducibly fundamental predicate (Bechtel, 1985) because no one has the prerogative of prohibiting the question of what intentionality looks like from being asked. Once such a question is asked, the reducibility of intentionality to something else would indiscriminately be forced irrespective of whether it may be possible in the first place. Unless equipped with a trustworthy set of irreducible predicates, the only alternative would be to construct the will to writing upon the least set of premises that any of the self-as-the-author is going to agree to share. What will be intended in the following is to linguistically construct the self-as-the-author as a class based upon the common denominator among any of the selves-as-the-authors.
Before entering the construction, two remarks are in order. One is that the present construction, if ever succeeded, would turn out to be no more than a form of circular argument though, hopefully, not a type of vicious circle. One more remark is that even if it is a circular argument, the possible construction of the self-as-the-author could enjoy the privilege of supporting intentionality or the will to writing linguistically without confusing the will to writing with what has been written.
First of all, we as the editorial author start from the premise that the self-as-the-author is provided with a kind of formal language equipped with a definite set of irreducible predicates. A language for practicing sciences is necessarily formal. Any statement, once constructed by the self-as-the-author, turns out to be the one to be comprehended by the same self-as-the- reader. What is basic to any self-as-the-reader is to reduce whatever statement into its irreducible predicates that have already been given. The self-as-the-reader, that is a necessary outcome from the act on the part of the self-as-the-author, is involved exclusively in contemplating on any form of descriptive analysis in terms of a definite set of irreducible predicates, while the self-as-the-author utilizes the formal language in order to establish a bridge with its external referents. That the self-as-the-author is concerned with establishing a de novo relationship between a kind of formal language and its external referents is perceived by the self-as-the-reader as varying and disturbing the choice of a formal language to be utilized.
A formal language prepared by the self-as-the-author for the sake of the effecting self-as-the-reader is not strictly formal because of its reference to its external referents. Accordingly, a formal language with which any self-as-the-reader is concerned is at most transient in the sense that it is subject to disturbances of exogenous origin through referring to its external referents that remain contingent. The self-as-the-author thus categorically comes to provide the self-as-the-reader with a type of transient formal language to be influenced by disturbances of exogenous origin. The role of disturbances of exogenous origin is to exert a form of perturbations upon the set of irreducible predicates as met in a forced association of more than two different predicates. These perturbations upon the set of irreducible predicates are simply a way and means of describing what is going on within the external referents.
Transient formal language under the influence of disturbances of exogenous origin is thus seen to be a common denominator applicable to any of the self-as-the-author. The goal of our endeavor is to generate intentionality or the will to writing from the transient formal language in the manner that the self-as-the-reader may be able to perceive it. We shall first see what kind of structure the transient formal language could maintain in itself as a preliminary step toward the stated goal.
One of the fundamental attributes associated with transient formal language thus introduced is that the language itself is a structured organization, though of course variable, that can be caused and maintained by disturbances of exogenous origin. The structured organization that the self-as-the-reader or equivalently, the self-as-the-observer, can perceive as such is more than just an invariant set of irreducible predicates. When the self-as-the-author tries to construct whatever statement by employing a set of supposedly irreducible predicates, there should potentially be an indefinitely wide variety of statements each of which could constitute a structured organization in terms of those predicates. A superb example of the structured organization of predicates is a monolingual dictionary, in which every predicate is associated with others in its own way. Such an association among different predicates can be established through the process of relating an arbitrary linguistic expression to its external referents under the control of the self-as-the-author.
In principle, the association can maintain in itself unfathomable immense possibilities simply due to the fact that any external referent could look differently depending upon the viewpoint that the concerned self-as-the-author may take. The self-as-the-author constantly perturbs the structured organization of predicates by generating de novo association of these predicates.
The self-as-the-reader views the emergence of such a new association as disturbances acting upon the structured organization that can be equated to the structure that the transient formal language could have come to maintain within itself. Although the self-as-the-author may have a good reason to come up with a new association of predicates like Descartes and Nietzsche have done, what the self-as-the-reader can appreciate at least minimally is a spontaneous occurrence of perturbations upon the then available structured organization of predicates. When these structural perturbations are absent, the transient formal language would literally reduce to a type of formal language in which the set of irreducible predicates remains invariant without allowing any further association among themselves.
Transient formal language supplemented by disturbances of exogenous origin is the self-as-the-reader's way of looking at what the self-as-the-author is doing. Since the self-as-the-author as the subject of practice commits itself to behaving and making choices in temporal domain, those disturbances acting upon the transient formal language are temporally variable. As a matter of fact, transient formal language supplemented by temporal disturbances of exogenous origin is an expression of the structure of a natural language. The emphasis is on the fact that a natural language would reduce to a formal language equipped with a fixed set of irreducible predicates at the vanishing limit of those temporal disturbances causing new associations of predicates. The dynamics of transient formal language in the presence of disturbances of exogenous origin is simply a crude form of describing how a natural language would evolve, with the consequence of revising its dictionary constantly.
The structured organization of transient formal language as exemplified in a dictionary of a natural language compiled at a certain historical period has been realized through the mutual compensation between two opposing movements, one is enhancing and the other is deteriorating the extent of organization. Enhancement of the structured organization would proceed through increasing the frequency of referring to a particular pattern of association among available predicates, while deterioration of the organization would follow less frequent reference to its pattern. The self-as-the-reader comes to see that the structured organization of exogenous origin, can be maintained as being driven by associative disturbances. The structured organization of transient formal language perceived by the self-as-the-reader now reduces to a disturbance-driven organization. As a matter of fact, disturbance-driven organizations are ubiquitous in evolution. Further elucidation of the structured organization of transient formal language will become available by uncovering the characteristics latent in disturbance-driven organizations.
What is common to any disturbance-driven organization is that the most likely organization to be realized is the one that can minimize the rate of its deterioration measured when left alone in the absence of any disturbances (Matsuno, 1978, 1995). In view of the fact that disturbances of exogenous origin serve as a factor of association among available components, the absence of such disturbances would as a matter of course mean deterioration of the once established association or organization. Consequently, granted that those disturbances occur at most intermittently, the realized organization is to maintain its own structure of association to the extent that the deterioration expected during the absence of associative disturbances may just be compensated by the disturbance-driven association. Any organization having the greater rate of deterioration would have no chance of survival compared to the one compensating its inevitable deterioration by the counterpart of new associations.
The principle of least deterioration
rate thus formulated, when applied to transient formal language
supplemented by disturbances of exogenous origin, serves as a
selection sieve for the structured organization to be realized.
At this point, however, it should be emphasized that the selective
sieve characterized by the least deterioration rate is exclusively
passive in its operation, whereas all the active attributes are
sought in the associative disturbances. Insofar as the structured
organization of transient formal language remains passive toward
disturbances of exogenous origin, the self-as-the-reader cannot
find any symptom of intentionality or the will to doing something
in the very structured organization. The structured passive organization
cannot deal with the origin of intentionality or activity. In
order to generate the self-as-the-author or the subject of practice
through a linguistic means, it is required to incorporate some
of the active attributes into the structured organization explicitly.
What must be sought at this point is the structured active organization
of transient formal language.
4 Structured Active Organization
Arbitrary association of pre-existing predicates is unquestionably a source of disturbances acting upon the then available transient formal language. However, such an association is not the only source of disturbances. Unless it is prohibited to ask the question of how to paraphrase and decipher those predicates that cannot be found in possible associations of pre-existing predicates, the concerned transient formal language has to have the endogenous capacity of fixing such a linguistic incompleteness. There is in fact no authority prohibiting the self-as-the-reader from asking the definitive content of a predicate's predicate, a predicate's predicate's predicate, and so on. Incompleteness internal to any transient formal language is seen in the fact that there can be no forcible means for prohibiting the questions of an infinite regression type from being asked. Conversely, such an incompleteness has to be compensated internally in order to maintain the organizational integrity of the language or its structural organization.
This process of compensation is internal or endogenous to the transient formal language concerned in the sense that the organizational activity for eliminating the incompleteness in the preceding causes further incompleteness to be eliminated subsequently (Derrida, 1973; Salthe, 1993). This corresponds equivalently to raising and then answering the questions of an infinite regression type. The structured organization of transient formal language thus turns out to be equipped with the endogenous capacity of seeking its own organization (Shotter, 1983). The self-as-the-reader can view it as the structured organization supplemented by disturbances of endogenous origin. Because of the endogeneity, the organization naturally becomes active on its own.
The structured organization of transient formal language supplemented by disturbances of endogenous origin is always in the process of being organized in the sense that the preceding organization constantly serves as the cause for the subsequent organization to follow (Matsuno, 1989, 1996). The Cartesian self, for instance, could survive as a fundamental predicate until what it should be all about comes to finally be asked. Nietzsche who raised this devastating question eventually came up with Zarathustra's ego grounded upon the will to power (Smith, 1992). And again, Sigmund Freud who critically examined whether each of the Cartesian self and Zarathustra's ego could really be irreducible came to create the Freudian ego imputed to unconsciousness to break the impasse (Yearley, 1985).
The sequence from the Cartesian self through Zarathustra's to the Freudian ego that is conscious of unconsciousness is an instance of reducing everything to everything else (Van de Vijver, 1995). Unless such a reducibility is arbitrarily curtailed, the structured organization of transient formal language is necessarily in the process of being organized while constantly being subject to disturbances of endogenous origin. The structured organization supplemented by disturbances of exogenous origin is just an extreme case in which irreducibility of fundamental predicates is forcibly imposed.
The structured organization of transient formal language not constrained by irreducibility of an imposed character, when perceived by the self-as-the-reader, turns out to be active by itself. For progression of its organization is internally activated in a continual fashion. This activity is synonymous with self-referentiality in the sense that answering a possibility of reducing something to something else never fails to invite questions asking its further reducibility. The self-as-the-author is certainly self-referential in keeping writing as referring to what it has written. The self-as-the-reader now perceives this self-referentiality within the structured active organization of transient formal language that is entailed and constrained by disturbances of endogenous origin. The generative self-referentiality latent in the structured active organization is now found to be a class-property common to any self-as-the-author that the self-as-the-reader can comprehend as such.
The self-as-the-reader can equate the self-as-the-author to the generative self-referentiality latent in the structured active organization as a class even though the reader may not be knowledgeable about what the author is going to write. Conversely, generative self-referentiality intrinsic to the self-as-the-author gives birth to the similar generative self-referentiality in terms of transient formal language unless stipulated by imposed irreducibility of underlying predicates.
This recursiveness in turn provides the self-as-the-reader as a protege of the self-as-the-author with a legitimate opportunity for the genesis of another self-as-the-author. That is to say, the primary self-as-the-reader as a protege of the primary self-as-the-author can see the birth of the secondary self-as-the-author with the aid of generative self-referentiality of the transient formal language to rely upon. The present convoluted interrelationship among selves of different origin now paves the way for the secondary self-as-the-reader as the protege of the secondary self-as-the-author to prove and justify the primary self-as-the-author by following the similar logic in the reversed direction.
The primary subject of practice
as the self-as-the-author can generate a secondary subject of
practice in the manner that the primary subject of recognition
and contemplation can comprehend. Likewise, the secondary subject
of practice can generate the primary subject of practice in the
manner that the accompanying secondary subject of recognition
and contemplation can comprehend. This circularity in fact constitutes
a scheme of grounding subjectivity upon symmetric intersubjectivity.
An essence of the proclaimed subjectivity upon symmetric intersubjectivity
is in the circularity that if you prove me, then I can prove you.
5 Symmetric Intersubjectivity
Any subject of recognition and contemplation, whether it may be either the subject of observation or of reading, tries to decipher whatever object in terms of fundamental predicates that would remain invariant. Whether there should be any invariant characteristic at all can be examined by checking the symmetric operations preserving the set of irreducible predicates invariant. For instance, a dictionary might become a representation of such an invariance if the manner of relating each predicate to others were symmetric among themselves in the sense that the entry of the dictionary remains fixed. There is, however, no guarantee that the set of fundamental predicates to be found in a dictionary would remain invariant against the operation of predication among themselves. On the contrary, the self-as-the-author takes it for granted that no imposed irreducibility may apply to the set of predicates. The present lack of both an invariant set of predicates and the associated symmetric operations urges us to look for a different type of symmetric operations in order to secure the subject of practice as an actor.
We have already seen that the primary self-as-the-author generates the secondary self-as-the-author in the manner that the accompanying primary self-as-the-reader can comprehend. Interchange of the role between the primary and the secondary self in turn generates the primary self-as-the-author. This relationship is symmetric in generating the generator, but not in what the generator generates in an exhaustive manner. The symmetry in generating the generator refers to a hyperspace in which both the generator and what is to be generated are included altogether. Neither the primary nor the secondary self can claim to globally grasp such a hyperspace in its every definite detail because each of them is a member constituting the hyperspace from the inside. There is necessarily required an involvement of the third-party self-as-the-author that can grasp what is going on in the interplay between the primary and the secondary self, even though the third-party self is a protege of the secondary self.
The primary self-as-the-author just like the present author is constantly concerned with the process of symmetry breaking by defying an imposed irreducibility of fundamental predicates. This process of symmetry breaking can be stopped only in the exceptional case such that there should be a set of symmetric operations and the associated invariants in the manner being independent of any self-as-the-observer.
The presence of symmetries and the associated invariants that could exist independently of the observer is the ones met in physics (Ne'eman, 1990). Precisely for this reason, the primary self-as-the-observer accompanied by the primary self-as-the-author can identify the symmetries and the invariants by employing an appropriate symmetric association of irreducible predicates. The presence of something invariant that remains as such independently of how it may be observed and described provides itself with an opportunity of being properly represented by describable operations of symmetry and the associated invariants, because the objective symmetry and invariants are guaranteed to remain unaffected even if their description is attempted.
Once it is admitted that there should be no symmetries and invariants to be found out there, what is left to the self-as-the-author is to constantly concern itself with the deed of writing. Still, the self-as-the-reader as the protege of the self-as-the-author incessantly commits itself to figuring out the underlying symmetry and the associated invariants, since the objective of recognition and contemplation is to reach an invariant association of irreducible predicates. This internal conflict between the author as an agent of symmetry-breaking and the reader as an observer of symmetry and invariants is intrinsic and ubiquitous (Gunji, 1995; Conrad, 1996). Although insistence on physical symmetries and invariants is certainly one attempt to mitigate the internal conflict, this resolution that is common in physics is still domain-specific.
One more resolution which we have tried is to look for a form of symmetric operations available in the hyperspace in which the original internal conflict between the author and the reader as the protege of the former can be avoided. If there is guaranteed a third-party subject observing that there are two subjects each of which is involved in proving the other, the third-party subject can recognize how each subject comes into existence by referring to the underlying symmetric operation of generation. This observation remains unaffected even if the third-party subject is given its own birth by one of the two subjects on the scene. In addition, exhaustive description of each subject is not attempted beyond bilateral proving of each other. The present tripartite relationship is summarized as saying that I can see that both of you prove each other, though I don't know who and what each of you are at all.
Subjectivity grounded upon symmetric intersubjectivity is a class-property common to any subjects. Because of this commonality, it is conceivable that each subject may have more specific capacities other than proving other subjects without being acquainted with who they are.
Any organism that experiences its outer world deciphers whatever input from the outside in terms of fundamental predicates unique to the experiencing organism. Examples of such predicates are attractants and repellents to protozoa such as paramecium, and predator and mate to an animal (Dewsbury, 1989). If those fundamental predicates remain irreducible to the experiencing organism, the predication is simply an awareness of the input from the outside, and not a mode of self-awareness. For the irreducibility of the predicates, instead of the organism itself, is responsible for being aware of the outside world. If the irreducibility of predicates is given, the predicated outside world would accordingly also be regarded as being given while prohibiting the organism from actively participating in forming and constructing the outside world.
On the other hand, however, once the condition of imposed irreducibility is removed, the preceding predication of the outside world is constantly modified by the succeeding predication. That an organism can modify the predication made by itself previously is to become aware of what the self has done (Ulanowicz, 1996). Self-awareness is characteristic to the subject of practice who can alter whatever predications made by the same subject previously. Self-referentiality not conditioned by imposed irreducibility of predicates underlies the capacity of self-awareness. For instance, the Cartesian self is not by itself irreducible, otherwise the self would loose its self-awareness. The self-as-the-author is constantly involved in the self-awareness activity by answering the questions of an infinite regression type which the self frames by itself, while the self-as-the-reader tries to do every effort to decipher whatever object in terms of the then available fundamental predicates. Self-awareness inherent to the self-as-the-author is within its dissatisfaction with any one of the Cartesian self, Zarathustra's or the Freudian ego as a fundamental predicate of the self.
A subject having self-awareness capability invariably carries an internal conflict in itself. If the activity of self-awareness is carried into its extremity such that the questions of an infinite regression are literally pursued by the self, it would become untenable that the self-as-the-reader claims itself for sure. For the self-as-the-author as the cause of the self-as-the-reader would make itself unsettled by stepping down the devastating ladder of an infinite regression, while the self-as-the-reader pretends to address itself toward what is persistent and invariant. In spite of this inevitable internal conflict of the divided selves between the author and the reader, it is still possible to justify the occurrence of subjectivity based upon symmetric intersubjectivity.
Clue to the justification of subjectivity
is to refer to the symmetric operation that can keep the generation
process of whatever kind going on. Even if individual operations
are asymmetric or symmetry-breaking, there may be the case that
the group of operations of the original individual operations
could maintain a symmetry property. Grounding subjectivity upon
symmetric intersubjectivity just happens to be the instance that
the group of operations at an aggregated higher level can maintain
a certain symmetry while the constituent individual operations
at the lower level lacks the symmetry property found at the higher
level.
6 Concluding Remarks
Any discourse on consciousness requires self-consciousness because the discourse necessitates involvement of the self-as-the-author who is aware of talking about the issue of consciousness. Linguistic exposition of consciousness upon self-consciousness thus conceived remains necessarily under-complete analytically. Precisely for this reason, the primary self-as-the-author is generative and competent in generating the secondary self-as-the-author that could be recognized as an active agent by the self-as-the-reader owing its birth to the primary self.
Consciousness viewed as a generative capacity latent in any of the self-as-the-author is intrinsic to the institution of a language. The linguistic institution is conscious of itself in keeping an arbitrary self-as-the-author involved there constantly modifying and adding to what the institution has accomplished.
One of the possibilities for approaching the issue of consciousness on experimentally material grounds may be to have recourse to the occurrence of a linguistic institution. If one can find an analogue of linguistic institution in a material body, the likelihood of securing the occurrence of consciousness on a physical ground could be expected. Prerequisite to such an enterprise, if ever possible, could be a viewpoint of the self-as-the-author who is generative but necessarily local, compared to the self-as-the-reader who is global in its perspective but merely contemplative and not pragmatic. That is a view from the inside. Material underpinning of consciousness should be upon appraisal of material interactions that are strictly local. Material manifestation of signal and communication of a local character is in order for addressing the issue of consciousness.
References