(Un)Know Thy “Self”: Interconnected Consciousness and Different Ways of Knowing

Abstract

This paper draws on preliminary data from a qualitative study in curriculum and pedagogy, “Stories of Teaching about Consciousness: An Inquiry into Worldviews and Wellbeing.” An emerging theme is the concept of the self and how it entwines with perspectives on consciousness. Analyzing consciousness and the self through The Five Contexts framework reveals assumptions at the heart of research and education that often go unquestioned. We wonder, what might alternative perspectives on consciousness and the self offer to researchers and educators? The study aims to inform a larger project of “consciousness education,” defined as education about perspectives on the source and nature of consciousness and their implications for ways of being, knowing, teaching, and learning. The broader inquiry uses narrative methods to collect and interpret stories of teaching experiences from eight scholars from different cultural and philosophical perspectives, including Indigenous, Eastern, and Western. This paper uses The Five Contexts (autobiographical, historical, political, postmodern, and philosophical) as an analytical framework to interpret theory and data related to the concept of the self from different perspectives. This five-context analysis reveals the modern concept of the individual, material self as a theoretical construct that emerged from the cosmological context of the European Renaissance, influenced the historical development of Western science and education, and continued to be reproduced for political purposes. Different cultural, philosophical, and scientific perspectives on consciousness, both ancient and recent, challenge this theoretical construct. Instead, they offer an understanding of consciousness and the self as interconnected and existing beyond the material. Researchers and educators may benefit by becoming aware of their assumptions about consciousness and the self, and of the different perspectives that challenge their assumptions. Such awareness may open possibilities for ways of knowing that transcend the disconnected “self” and foster a more profound sense of interconnectedness.