Hi Joan

Main purpose of this email is to point out that "awareness of awareness" or "consciousness of consciousness" is not and has not been my concept of consciousness.

My concept is the same as that of Searle, Elk, Chalmers and others...it is awareness [provided that awareness is understood to be associated with subjective experience...there is a concept of awareness in which the organism is aware without experiencing anything either currently or potentially or indirectly], etc...

However I do think, without being certain, that there is a close connection between primitive awareness and awareness of awareness. I have found this to be a difficult issue. There are various intuitions that are at the root of the idea but I will not go into them here. One question, mentioned at your house two days ago is does awareness always involve awareness of awareness? You may recall that I identified a form of the unconscious as something that is not characterized by repression, or not being current mental content but rather the seen but not recognized e.g., the form of consciousness, or the symbolic mode...thus when one is aware in a primitive and clear manner, is there some way in which we are aware of this fact but do not recognize it. This may of course be or not be the case. It may follow logically from the conditions of awareness or, conversely, its necessity may violate the conditions of awareness. It may turn out to be empirically false, or we may never be able to empirically determine any exceptions. No doubt, it is a mix of logical condition, conceptuation and fact that will determine the outcome.