Abstract

The mystery surrounding consciousness as subjectivity dissipates dramatically when understood in its biological context. The core characteristics of consciousness can be seen to derive from its functionality, and the fundamental function of cognition, given the equivalence of mental activity and brain process, is to advance the survival and thus the self-regulative capacity of the organism of which the brain is a part. These core elements of consciousness are comprised of a self-locational data structure which serves to configure ongoing experience in terms of controllable spatial and temporal parameters, and a processing regime for this orientational schema which has evolved from the feedback architecture necessary for regulating behavior in relation to homeostatic needs. These two self-regulative constituents yield a primitive form of consciousness as subjectivity — simple reflexive awareness — which provides the basis for the subsequent development of metacognitive mechanisms which monitor and control the cognitive processes which regulate behavior in relation to metabolic requirements