Consciousness

Consciousness is the faculty of perceiving that which exists. It is the second axiom of Objectivist metaphysics, and Objectivism holds that it is a faculty of awareness, not of creation: consciousness perceives reality, it does not constitute it.

“Consciousness is the faculty of perceiving that which exists.”
   ~ Ayn Rand, "Galt's Speech", Atlas Shrugged

Why it is an axiom

Like existence, consciousness cannot be denied without being presupposed. Someone arguing that consciousness is an illusion must be conscious to hold the position, aware of something in order to have a subject, and aware of his opponent in order to address him. The denial uses what it denies. See Fallacy of the stolen concept.

Consciousness is axiomatic but not primary. Its content comes from outside it: to be conscious is to be conscious of something. A consciousness aware of nothing but itself would be a contradiction, because there would be nothing for it to be aware of and no way for it to have become aware in the first place.

“If that which you claim to perceive does not exist, what you possess is not consciousness.”
   ~ Ayn Rand, "Galt's Speech", Atlas Shrugged

Consciousness has identity

The law of identity applies to consciousness as to everything else. To be aware is to be aware by some specific means: through particular sense organs, in a particular form, by a particular process.

This is the point on which Objectivism parts from both skepticism and intrinsicism. Both assume that a faculty with a specific nature must distort what it grasps, and so demand a form of awareness that is aware in no particular way. Since no such faculty is possible, one side concludes that knowledge is unattainable and the other that it must be direct and effortless. Objectivism denies the shared premise: having a means of awareness is the condition of awareness, not an obstacle to it. See Objectivity.

The senses are therefore valid. They do not tell us falsehoods about reality; they give us reality in the form appropriate to our organs. Error enters at the conceptual level, where volition operates, not at the perceptual level, which is automatic.

Levels of consciousness

Rand distinguished three levels of awareness:

• Sensation, an isolated stimulus not retained.
• Perception, an automatic integration of sensations into awareness of entities. This is the level at which animals operate, and for man it is the base of all knowledge.
• The conceptual level, which is volitional and specific to man. Here concepts are formed by a definite process, and here knowledge, error and morality all become possible.

Only the third level requires choice, which is why reason is not automatic and why ethics applies to man and not to animals.

The primacy of existence

That consciousness perceives rather than creates is the primacy of existence. The opposite, the primacy of consciousness, holds that some consciousness determines what is real: a god's in religion, society's in collectivism, one's own in subjectivism. Rand regarded this as the root error beneath mysticism in all its forms.

Consciousness and the body

Objectivism rejects the mind-body dichotomy, holding that mind and body are aspects of a single living entity rather than warring opposites. It does not, however, offer a scientific account of how consciousness relates to the brain. That is a question for the special sciences, and Objectivists have disagreed about it.

Common misunderstandings

• That calling consciousness axiomatic settles the mind-body problem. It does not. The axiom says that awareness exists and has an identity; it takes no position on its physical basis.
• That "the senses are valid" means they cannot be fooled. Optical illusions and refracted sticks are the senses reporting accurately on the actual conditions, including the medium. The interpretation is where error can enter.
• That consciousness being axiomatic implies it is immaterial or immortal. Objectivism draws no such conclusion, and treats consciousness as an attribute of a living organism.

See also

• Axioms · Existence · Identity
• Senses · Volition · Reason · Concept formation
• Primacy of Existence · Primacy of Consciousness
• Objectivity · Skepticism · Mind-Body Dichotomy
• Axiom of Consciousness · Emotions

Discussion

• Human vs animal consciousness
• Do humans have instincts?
• Is direct realism tenable?

References

• Rand, Ayn. "Galt's Speech", Atlas Shrugged. Random House, 1957.
• Rand, Ayn. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. The Objectivist, 1967.
• Peikoff, Leonard. Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, chapters 1 and 2.

External links

• Consciousness at the Ayn Rand Lexicon

Metaphysics Topics
Axioms: Existence, Consciousness, Identity • Corollary: Causality, Primacy of Existence
Reality: Primacy of Existence, Existents, the Metaphysically Given versus the Man Made