@xris,
With a whirlpool of activity these past few, and up-coming days, trying to swirl me into an elongated, 'being-drug-ever-closer-into-the-black-hole' clump of biological material, I will strive to keep up. Here, please, I wish to make one last installment on my argument supporting the one new sense of conscious that I use--
after which, I simply ask that it be kept in mind, along with contextual setting, when reading me. I have thought about how to go about this for a good while, off and on, actually, because I really want to get it clearly and fully across; and am completely aware of the natural human tendency to be wary of change. I will do my best, as this will be the last of any embedding on this particular point from me.
First of all, I'd like to highlight the idea of collective, non-count nouns. I recall seeing a sticker on the back of a car here in Japan, that had the word 'I' on the top, then the big 'heart' (of I love NY, type thing) and then the singular noun, 'dog.' I got a big kick out of that. This sentence, with this form, communicates the word 'dog' as in material for cusine, beause it has become an uncountable noun by grammatical usage. To have some grapefruit in the fridge, is different from having a grapefruit in the fridge. In this way, the noun 'brain' can have the uncountable condition. Also, all processes are uncountable in English, regardless of form, so the act of 'folding' (as a noun) is uncountable, just as the noun 'thinking' is. For this reason, the noun consciousness is an uncountable noun, and conscious (as is in the sense already used) is uncountable, so, the additional sense which I am using it in, is also uncountable. This is very much due to English grammatical rules.
In the topic of this thread, we have the words
mind,
brain, and
consciousness, and in the discussion, we have been looking at them and the connections/relationships that such evidence--
in whatever degrees. I have used the word
conscious--in adjective form--in its usual sense (as found in any good dictionary), but have also used it in another, additional sense, in the noun and adjective form, that will not be found in any dictionary (that I know of). Conscious does have the noun form. Due to the etymological history of the word
conscious, the English language has recieved it in the adjective form. It is in this way comparable to the likes of
precious,
gregarious,
luscious, and so on. For this reason, in that the recieved base had been of the adjective form itself, it became necessary to add the noun forming suffix, '
~ness,' to have a noun form; thus,
consciousness (which is how all words of this class form nouns, generally).
In that the word
conscious modifies as a state or condition of '
being aware, knowing, and being aware of and knowing feelings,'
and (by rule of being an adjective form) requires the described noun (
a conscious state, he was conscious during the surgery), the noun form renders the descriptive modifier itself, a noun. It therefore makes no sense linguistically, at all, to say, 'the concious consciousness,' or 'consciousness is conscious.' What this means, then, is that the noun 'consciousness' is not a concrete noun--like flesh, brain, or water--but a condition or state (abstract noun); just as the adjective form informs us of.
'Consciousness,' in turn, has come to have a fairly set definition/description which, when checking around, will always carry the factors of having a state of conscious, a state of reportable awareness (such as in normal, undisturbed waking life) of internal sensation, emotion, volition, or thought, as well as of perception of externally sourced sensory input. (and of course some refinement is offered by the disciplines of philosophy and neuroscience) However, as is refined by present knowledge, consciousness is a 'final' result (with some gradation) of not only the processes of a single individual brain (the 'taken-as-a-whole,' single unit), brain (the separable sub-units [neurons, neuronal clusters, structures, gyri, etc.] which make up a brain), but the entire span of activity and processes which is that organ across evolutionary time and species and individuals.
Due to there having been no word, naturally, in the English language to deal with this nuerological matter fully comprehensively, as it slowly emerged into our knowledge and recognition, the negative form was put to use for any state or condition, or process, which was not full blown consciousness ('the last punch left him in a state of unconsciousness', 'she was not uncounscious during surgery'). Since the 'un' negative prefix tends to communicate absolute lack of (unknown is diametrically opposite to known), a recent occasional use of the 'non-' negative can be found. As has been pointed out by some, this whole negative thing is strange (akin to saying that my sons are 'halves' rather than a more correct term to describe being a combination of two largely different genetical family linages).
Therefore, to resolve this I have offered, and use, the word 'conscious,' in noun form, with the sense of identifying (that is pointing to a referent) a state, condition and/or process that is especially peculiar to, and is an identifying nature of, the make-up of, and the entirety of a particular organ--(the) brain. The benefits are that we no longer need to identify an existing process, state, or condition by opposing it to a certain level which same process, state, or condition results in (as understood in the seen to be highest state/process/condition of that organ across the whole sweep of its existence [H. spaien]). (the brain is in some state of conscious when we are asleep, as when we are awake, and that lazy cat, slouching around outside the kitchen door, just waiting for the next feeding time, is conscious, as my son who is slouched in front of the X-box connected TV is conscious)
The reason 'cognition' and 'cognitive' would not work as well is because of the root form's (cognition) being more deeply involved in, and dependent on, the base of knowing a matter. Not all states, processes, and conditions of (a) brain will be cognized (thus awareness to the state of consciousness so as to be reportable or more directly observed through the actions of a second or third party), thus not a matter of the cognition domain; yet a process, state, condition is there, something is being done, therefore it is a matter of a state of conscious (a member of the whole which makes consciousness).
The reason 'mind' would not work as well, is because much is happening in the organ than what makes (or determines) the general definition/description for the word mind--yet there is neuronal process, state, and condition, thus there is a state of conscious . . . which state, when fully developed and integrated, leads to that level we consider consciousness but which, alone and by itself is not a part of mind by very definition/description of that word, 'mind'.
Therefore, in summary, brain--an organ of biological systems as we see, experience, and know of in nature presently and from evidence of fossils, etc.--has/is of a condition, state, and process which is that of what can better be named as conscious. Each individual creature's brain represents a conscious state as the separable portions of brain have conscious states. The evolutionary progression which has led to the organ that the H. sapien has, has provided a development which has led to this certain level of, or degree of, conscious state which we (by definition) term consciousness. To not be in the particular state which we can name consciousness, however, is not to have no state of conscious at all, for the whole state, condition, process is one large continuum among creatures and species in time. Conscious, therefore, sufficiently addresses the knowledge of the conditions, states, and processes that has been gathered to date, of the working organ we have named the brain, and the elements of if which are identified by the uncountable noun, brain. I encourage all to consider it. (as language is fluid, and new words and/or senses come up all along [even the sense of conscious of old, is no longer used...we never hear the likes of 'To be a friend and to be conscious are terms equivalent. [South; serm. 1664; I.394]]
