Masks of Mind
135
enhancing the integrity of life. The power of consciousness is one rising power of integration in life; its falling is into disintegration.Traits of Consciousness: Qualia, Inwardness, Otherness
Crucial traits of consciousness show themselves in all forms. First, conscious-ness has a a painting in general; one is conscious of unique quality, and hence its own unique meaning and value. This immediate qualitative dimension. In immediate consciousness, one does not see this particular painting, with its own
sense of quality is prior to any inferences that one may make or additional knowledge that one may invoke. The mysteriousness of immediate conscious-ness has to do with the fact that when we bend back on it in order to reflect what it is, we lose its immediacy. The immediacy of consciousness moves from
the initial state of consciousness, on which I am now reflecting, to that very act of reflecting. Reflection transforms the initial immediate state of consciousness into a mediated object of inquiry.quality extends into the other forms of reflective and reflexive consciousness. (^18) This trait of being conscious of a unique
In reflection, one is aware not only of the quality of the painting, but also of the singular feeling of what it is like to be judging the experience of the paintiwhat it is like to be free to weigh and assess the value and worth of many ng as beautiful. In reflexive consciousness, one is additionally aware of
competing feelings and thoughts in the give-and-take of responsive thinking.by otherness. In being conscious of something, one is also immediately aware that this act is “mine,” that “I” am conscious of it. Immediate consciousness Consciousness also has a deeply intertwined subjective dimension marked
per seit would not be immediate. Nonetheless, a pre-reflective sense of “mineness” amid otherness accompanies the spontaneous act of selecting something to see or to feel. At the reflective level, one is conscious of self-relatedness: “I” am , of course, is not reflectively aware of the “I” as its source and origin, else
seeinghave meaning. At the reflexive level, the “I” of consciousness appears in free-it dom and responsiveness to others and its world. As we said earlier, what is means; indeed, “I” am to me. But there is something there to be seen, to decide about, to choosing to see; “I” am deciding what it is I see and what
remarkable about ascending levels of self-consciousness is that the more “I” become self-conscious, the more “I” understand my profound embeddedness in a complex world of multiple goods, a world, and other human beings and non-human life. I understand myself, in my inner life of subjectivity, as
enmeshed and embodied in a matrix of competing forces and desires – free to assume responsibility to respect and enhance the integrity of life.