Part two: The Anatomy of Consciousness

The summary tries to answer the question: how consciousness works and what it actually means to have experiences?

Consciousness as intentionally ordered information is a mirror that reflects what our senses tell us about what happens both outside our bodies and within the nervous system. It reflects those changes selectively, actively shaping events and imposing on them a reality of its own. Consciousness has developed the ability to override its genetic instructions and to set its own independent course of action. We all know individuals who can transform hopeless situations into challenges to be overcome, just through the force of their personalities. This ability to persevere despite obstacles and setbacks is the quality people most admire in others, to develop this trait, one must find ways to order consciousness so as to be in control of feelings and thoughts.

Consciousness can be ordered in terms of different goals and intentions. Here intentions is the force that keeps information in consciousness ordered and doesn’t say why a person wants to do a certain thing, but simply states that he does.

Most people fall far below the peak capacity for processing information. Since an individual can experience only so much. Therefore, the information we allow into consciousness becomes extremely important; it is,in fact, what determines the content and the quality of life. The mark of a person who is in control of consciousness is the ability to focus attention at will,to be oblivious to distractions, to concentrate for as long as it takes to achieve a goal, and not longer. And the person who can do this usually enjoys the normal course of everyday life.

We create ourselves by how we invest the attention,which is our most important tool in the task of improving the quality of experience. Each person allocates his or her limited attention either by focusing it intentionally like a beam of energy or by diffusing it in desultory, random movements. The shape and content of life depend on how attention has been used. Entirely different realities will emerge depending on how it is invested. Author takes E. for example, E. disciplines her attention and refuses to diffuse it on unproductive thoughts or activities. At this point she radiates a pure glow of energy. And despite past hardships and the intensity of her present life, she seems to relish thoroughly every minute of it.

When attention can be freely invested to achieve a person’s goals, because there is no disorder to straighten out, no threat for the self to defend against,we call this state the flow experience. When one attains it develop a stronger, more confident self, because more of their psychic energy has been invested successfully in goals they themselves had chosen to pursue. When a person is able to organize his or her consciousness so as to experience flow as often as possible, the quality of life is inevitably going to improve, even the usually boring routines of work become purposeful and enjoyable. In flow we are in control of our psychic energy, and everything we do adds order to consciousness. One of the main forces that affects consciousness adversely is psychic disorder —–that is, information that conflicts with existing intentions, or distracts us from carrying them out. Whenever information disrupts consciousness by threatening its goals we have a condition of inner disorder, or psychic entropy, a disorganization of the self that impairs its effectiveness.If you win the battles, which is against the entropy that brings disorder to consciousness. It is really a battle for the self; it is a struggle for establishing control over attention. Anyone who has experienced flow knows that the deep enjoyment it provides requires an equal degree of disciplined concentration.

The self is in many ways the most important element of consciousness, for it represents symbolically all of consciousness’s other contents. Attention shapes the self, and is in turn shaped by it. Following a flow experience, the organization of the self is more complex that it had been before. It is by becoming increasingly complex that the self might be said to grow.Complexity is the result of two broad psychological processes: differentiation and integration. Differentiation implies a movement toward uniqueness, toward separating oneself from others. The self becomes more differentiated as a result of flow because overcoming a challenge inevitably leaves a person feeling more capable,more skilled. After each episode of flow a person becomes more of a unique individual, less predictable, prossessed of rarer skills. Complexity also involves the integration of autonomous parts. Flow helps to integrate the self because in that state of deep concentration consciousness is unusually well ordered.

When the flow episode is over, one feels more together than before, not only internally but also with respect to other people and to the world in general. The self becomes complex as a result of experiencing flow. It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more that what we were. When we choose a goal and invest ourselves in it to the limits of our concentration, whatever we do will be enjoyable. And once we have tasted this joy, we will redouble our efforts to taste it again. This is the way the self grows. Flow is important both because it makes the present instant more enjoyable and because it builds the self-confidence that allows us to develop skills and make significant contributions to humankind.

The third part will explore more thoroughly what we know about optimal experiences: How optimal experiences feel and under what conditions they occur?