The Realization of Self in Everyday Life

Abstract

This article is about the role of “self” in understanding consciousness. From a symbolic interactionist perspective, we can see how qualia emerge from “frames” of experience. These frames progress from the natural frame to the social frame to the focus frame to the holographic frame. In the natural frame stimuli from external sources are reflected on the surface of our body. These stimuli are parsed and consolidated, and ultimately projected onto a holographic frame. At that point not only do we reflect the outside world, but we know we are doing so. Such knowledge comes from what philosopher Henri Bergson calls the “principle of action-relatability.” That principle relates the raw stimuli to how we might respond to them, which, in turn, tells us who we are. Consciousness is about self, and the process of self-definition underlies how we become aware.