Self-Consciousness

Human beings are conscious not only of the world around them but also of themselves—their activities, their bodies, and their inner thoughts. Self-consciousness then is an awareness of one's existence, expressed in English words like 'I', 'me', 'my', etc., terms that each person uses to refer to oneself. This awareness or consciousness is sometimes referred to as the very soul of a person, manifested in real life as a personality.

Every morning as we wake up and open our eyes, everything that we see and interact with, our brain will ascertain this is the world we live in. This is self-awareness. Practically every person who is alive in this world will have his or her own autonomous awareness or consciousness of the people and things around them. Without this awareness, a person will cease to think or act independently and can only follow mechanically what has been wired or programmed into their being, just like a robot.

Since we have consciousness, our daily schedule offers us choices of many kinds, and life is filled with plenty of unpredictable elements which makes this world a much more interesting yet dangerous place to live in.

Self-consciousness, therefore, allows us to observe this world or space that we exist in, and make our own conclusions based on what we know and experience firsthand.

Cogito, ergo sum—I think; therefore I am (exist)—so asserted the French philosopher, mathematician and scientist, René Descartes. Then again, acknowledging the certainty of one's own existence on the basis of self-perception becomes questionable since we can doubt whether what we think or know to be true. If there is no self to attribute existence, then the cogito fails.