Metaphysics Essay: Exploring Consciousness and the Self in Philosophy

This essay delves into the philosophical exploration of consciousness and the self, examining the perspectives of prominent thinkers such as Damasio and Nagel. The essay highlights Damasio's "stepping into light" theory, emphasizing the transformation from ignorance to self-awareness and the importance of understanding one's inner self and the external environment. It also explores Nagel's view on the subjective nature of consciousness, rejecting materialism in favor of experiential journeys. The essay further discusses the mind-body problem and the impact of neurophysiological and neuropsychological conditions on consciousness. It emphasizes the importance of knowledge, wisdom, and mindfulness in achieving harmony within oneself and with the world. The essay references the works of Luiz Augusto Rosa and Hugh LaFollette to support the arguments presented.

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The coherent view of consciousness is about awakening the conscious being
that inhabit the internal of every human body1. As the coherent view of conscious
focuses to understand and decipher the mind – body problem through an inherent
conscious – it is very obvious that the questions, the vast unsolved questions about
self, mind and consciousness come to play. The major social psychology, cognitive
psychology plus the metaphysical theories intends to work out the complexity to the
problem relating to body and mind and these theories actually based themselves on
interactionism that how a human being interacts with himself, his own self, his own
internal being and with the environment around – to become more aware, more
mindful, more knowledge about one’s own self and about the state of the world and
nature of the reality plus the other realities that inhabits the metaphysical plane.
According to Damasio, what he calls the ‘stepping into light’ is the act of a
transformation from being a state of ignorance, innocence where an individual is
unaware of himself, of his potential, of his powers and of his inner strengths to a full
developed individual who has found a way to grow holistically, becoming more aware
of his full inner self, of the outer environment and has grown to a point where he is or
rather can be considered as a knowledgeable human being. The very important factors
driving the theory of Damasio is that he continuously keep describing the state of an
individual who wait and awaits on the stage waiting for the curtains to go off, first in
the semi darkness then towards more light and finally he or she stands in the center of
the stage knowing himself – he becomes cognizant of himself, he perceives a knowing
mind that exists within him and he only embodies it which as a matter of fact has
awakened from the moment he has stepped onto to the light and from the point he
starts to interact with the audiences, show his skills and the audience interacts back –
1 Rosa, Luiz Augusto. "The Theoretical and Scientific Problems of Damasio’s Conceptual Model of
Consciousness." Kriterion 32, no. 2 (2018): 83-100.

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has referred to the act of completion known to a knowing being where he urges to
know, to understand, to explore and comprehend the ineffable, the subtle nature of his
spiritual being and the shifting nature of the world. The same way an all knowing
being with his growing consciousness interacts with the religions, political and
environmental facets of the society and culture and this is how, Damasio holds the
inherent view of consciousness1. In a way to understand ‘the self’, the mind body
duality, the questions about mindfulness, he also explores the neurophysiological and
the neuropsychological conditions that impairs not only the physical biological
processes of the body but also the dynamics of how the mind works, of how the
consciousness works under such pathological circumstances and he refers to the act of
being ‘knowing’ about one’s own self, about one’s own body and being able to
control his thoughts from being distorted and having a knowledge seeking approach
about the changing state of things and being – can help him or her get well in a better
cognizant even with the circumstances so adverse and agonizing to a being, but as
referred by the researchers and theorist, the process of expanding the consciousness
by knowing about one’s own self and about the surrounding of an individual would
help a person, step into light and become wiser, with growing expanding horizons of
knowledge, wisdom, mindfulness, selfness, totality, completeness, morality. The most
important facet though, as hinted by Damasio, with understanding comes knowledge
and with knowledge, comes light and all these chain of events helps to bring a
person’s being to state of harmony with himself and with the world as well.
The coherence view as put forward by Nagel is the fact that consciousness is
very individualistic and it cannot be only described by functionalism or structuralism
as the consciousness is always changing form based on the experiences of an

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individual2. This experiences, according to Nagel, are very subjective in nature which
is a matter of fact, two individuals or say two organisms never experience the same
things or the same place so say suppose the same stimuli – in the exact same way.
There are always differences, there are always subjectivity to the nature of these
experiences and as these are the very things, that gives meaningfulness to the
consciousness or rather the growing, interacting consciousness of an individual –
Nagel rejects the idea of materialism to have much impact on consciousness but the
experiential journey of life and being to the most important aspects of consciousness,
in every possible manner and way.
2 LaFollette, Hugh. "Nagel-ing worries about fish sentience." Animal Sentience: An Interdisciplinary Journal on
Animal Feeling 2, no. 13 (2017): 6.

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Bibliography
Rosa, Luiz Augusto. "The Theoretical and Scientific Problems of Damasio’s Conceptual
Model of Consciousness." Kriterion 32, no. 2 (2018): 83-100.
LaFollette, Hugh. "Nagel-ing worries about fish sentience." Animal Sentience: An
Interdisciplinary Journal on Animal Feeling 2, no. 13 (2017): 6.