Now consider the self-conscious level of self-regulation.
The basic function of consciousness—in animals and in man—is awareness, the maintenance of sensory and/or
conceptual contact with reality. On the plane of awareness that man shares with animals, the sensory-perceptual
plane, the integrative process is automatic, i.e., "wired in" to the nervous system. In the brain of a normal human
being, sensations (primary sensory inputs) are automatically integrated into perceptions. On the sensory-perceptual
level, awareness is the controlling and regulating goal of the integrative process—by nature's "programming."
This is not true of the conceptual level of consciousness. Here, the regulation is not automatic, not "wired in" to the
system. Conceptual awareness, as the controlling goal of man's mental activity, is necessary to his proper survival,
but it is not implanted by nature. Man has to provide it. He has to select that purpose. He has to direct his mental
effort and integrate his mental activity to the goal of conceptual awareness—by choice. The capacity of conceptual
functioning is innate; but the exercise of this capacity is volitional.
To engage in an active process of thinking—to abstract, conceptualize, relate, infer, to reason—man must focus his
mind: he must set it to the task of active integration. The choice to focus, in any given situation, is made by
choosing to make awareness one's goal—awareness of that which is relevant in the given context.
One activates and directs the thinking process by setting the goal: awareness—and that goal acts as the regulator
and integrator of one's mental activity.
The goal of awareness is set by giving oneself, in effect, the order: "Grasp this."
That this goal is not "wired in" to man's brain by nature, as the automatic regulator of mental activity, scarcely
needs to be argued. One does not need to design special laboratory experiments in order to demonstrate that
thinking is not an automatic process, that man's mind does not automatically "pump" conceptual knowledge, when
and as his life requires it, as his heart pumps blood. The mere fact of being confronted with physical objects and
events will not force man to abstract their common properties, to integrate his abstractions, to apply his knowledge
to each new particular he encounters. Man's capacity to default on the responsibility of thinking is too easily
observable. He must choose to focus his