The author claims to have developed a model that may help you to manage your experience in-the-World and to manage others and organizations more effectively. Three significant assumptions underpin the SILM® model. Consciousness is an awareness that underpins the experience of 'inner and outer worlds' as different aspects of the person and situation become the focus of attention. Human Being can only be in-the-World and that Being transcends linear time. The worlds that human beings create are arbitrary therefore being open to possibilities is the door to opportunity and change. These assumptions suggest that each individual person creates his or her own inner and outer world. Through awareness it is possible to get to know oneself and understand why and how we create the worlds we do, and if desired bring about change in our self, even if we cannot change our immediate physical situation. It is also possible to be influenced by others or influence how other people perceive their worlds, define their past or future and shape their experience. Consciousness, an emergent phenomenon Only 'theories' about consciousness can be discussed because to date philosophers and scientists have been unable to agree as to what consciousness 'is' or how the physical body, which includes the brain, supports or is related to a self-reflective mind and conscious experience. Velmans (2000) provides a good historical review of studies in consciousness. Historically Dualists (substance Dualists) have argued that consciousness is something quite different to matter. It has no material properties and is often conceptualized as the 'soul' or 'spirit'.The development of psychology as the science of mental life has seen a 'refinement' of the dualist position. One view suggests consciousness to be something that emerges from the brain, a higher order property that cannot be reduced to something physical. Other philosophers and scientists, (reductionists), argue that consciousness is nothing more than a state or function of the brain and that one day we will be able to build machines sophisticated enough to behave as if they possessed some sort of machine-type consciousness or mind. The functionalist view is that years of scientific research has not revealed any 'part' or area of the brain that is the 'seat' of consciousness. Yet damage to different areas of the brain can result in different types of degradation to the 'quality' of conscious experience. Such evidence is used to support the view that consciousness 'emerges' from the many different brain functions and mental systems combining or interacting to 'create' consciousness. If different areas of the brain are associated with different aspects of conscious experience then some insight into the 'parameters' of conscious experience might be gained, even so, such insights would not explain consciousness is itself. Is consciousness mind? Well most mental processes associated with mind are unconscious, so it cannot be said that consciousness is the same thing as mind. Consciousness allows us to experience feelings of something being right or right. Yes, a deliberate mistake! You 'knew' it should have read 'right or wrong' because an unconscious knowledge of language told you that 'right or right' does not make sense, even though you have probably never studied linguistics. This example suggests that consciousness could be understood as a kind of 'virtual arena' in which novel events become the focus of attention so that another part of the brain can come into play, in this case, to clarify meaning. The next question is whether the 'feel-something-is-wrong' experience is a physical event caused by a misfit of incoming information compared to some template encoded in the brain. If it is, then from the neuroscientist's perspective it should eventually be possible to observe that physical event and template from the outside with some machine. If so, what relevance has consciousness? A machine without human consciousness could carry out the task equally as well. Conversely, from your perspective you can never be conscious of the physical process that 'informs' consciousness that something is wrong. (You would have to change your perspective and watch a video recording of what the neuroscientist expects to observe.) But the neuroscientist could never experience your 'feel-something-is-wrong' experience because it doesn't exist from his or her viewpoint. That is the impasse, your subjective viewpoint (conscious experience) appears to be irreconcilable with the objective viewpoint (observing your mental processes) of the scientist. Back to Top Humans exist in-the-World One way to tackle this impasse is to acknowledge that despite the emphasis today upon 'individuality' humans exist only 'in-the-World'. Not just a physical world, but an arbitrarily constructed social world, a scientific world, a business world, the art world and so on. And without realizing it we learn to cope with the World we are thrown into according to social rules and conventions, follow some fashion or another or succumb to peer pressure. You may have developed certain tastes in design and 'know' when a room looks right and no doubt you demonstrate some considerable understanding about the properties of the physical world. (Hanging washing on a line rather than leaving it lying in the corner of a room demonstrates an understanding of water evaporation, the nature of fabrics and ideal conditions for mould growth and so on, yet a person may know nothing of these scientific facts.) So a lot of the time we just get on with the business of living using quite sophisticated unconscious coping skills. Sometimes though, like the 'right or right' example above, we have to stop and think about the unusual or complex. It could be said that we interrupt the flow of subjective experience or coping, switch to observing and analyzing a situation like the objective scientist, then back again to subjective experience. In this way we can appreciate these different perspectives are not mutually exclusive, they compliment each other. Back to Top Transcending linear time So what then is the role of consciousness? One view, from existential philosophy, is that 'moods' show how things are going for you in-the-World as a whole. How things are going 'matters' because you are always on your way to becoming something, and you can only know how things are going through conscious experience. But 'subjective mattering', central to your existence in-the-World, is something the objective scientist cannot observe because 'it doesn't exist' anywhere in the brain. But for you, in novel situations when mood 'kicks in', you are prompted to retreat to the scientist's perspective to analyze the situation, perhaps considering different aspects in turn. Once a view on the situation is settled you can then return to everyday coping in-the-World. In this way subjective experience and objective analysis are reconciled, parallel, holistic coping, underpins deliberate serial focus of attention. Back to Top Relevance to managment psychology? If the above views are accepted then the notion of 'getting stuck' in ideas and routines is a possiblity. Developing a subtle background awareness of our everyday coping activity (or lack of it!) can increase self-knowledge, reveal insights into the way we relate to others and the World and therefore help us to understand our experience and impact in the World. Learning to change 'mental gear™', not just when the unexpected crops up, but intentionally, on a regular basis, can also help us to become more creative and innovative; able to use mental representations of the past or future to motivate us in the present and help us to achieve our goals. It can also help when emotion overwhelms the present preventing us from achiveing short-term objectives or sight of long-term goals. We can also become more sensitive to a fast changing World, ready to take advantage when opportunity arises. Applied in managment and business we can see that a lack of self-knowledge, locked into one way of seeing and doing things, can mean missing out on an opportunity that someone else will see and grasp, like IBM, the PC revolution and Microsoft. © Linton Judd 2005 Back to Top