User:Laxystem/Consciousness

Consciousness:Consciousness is where internal communication and thought happens within a plural system. Some systems share a consciousness while others may have multiple.

Consciousness is a complex yet fundamental topic, and it may hard for one to fully understand it, especially if the body they reside in only has one consciousness.

Consciousnesses can be thought of as similar to computer threads - that is, a sequence of instructions (with access to the computer's storage, memory, display, etc.), multiple of which can be executed at a time. Programs (in this case, headmates) can send instructions (thoughts) to a thread (consciousness) to perform.

Headmates can be a part of (that is, can send instructions to) any number of consciousnesses. headmate that isn't a part of any consciousness may be considered dormant, as they're unable to send instructions - that is, think.

Each consciousness has a limited amount of awareness, that headmates that are a part of it are able to invest in different tasks and thoughts. When there's not enough awareness available to support all co-conscious headmates, the system may dissociate. Choosing which consciousness's awareness to use is often intuitive, but it is a skill that can be trained with experience and time.

Consciousnesses within a system are usually structured in a consistent way. Monoconscious systems have a single consciousness everyone is a part of, and in polyconscious systems, each headmate has their own consciousness. There are many more consciousness structures - those are merely the most commonly known ones. Some systems have subsystems, that may have a different consciousness structure to the rest of the system.

Headmates in the same consciousness can usually communicate with each other easily, being able to hear and feel each other's thoughts and feelings. It's much harder to communicate cross-consciousnesses than within one, as it is often easier to know in what consciousness something was thought than to know who said it. This sometimes causes subsystems to form around consciousnesses that find it harder to communicate.

To Do
Before this page can be published, the following must be done:


 * Rename Category:-conscious Terms to "Terms that describe consciousnesses", and potentially add it to Template:Term.
 * Make sure the information in this page is true for median systems.
 * Replace all references to Wikipedia with Wikipedia's sources.
 * Define awareness and investing.

Related Terms

 * Terms with the -conscious suffix describe the varius consciousness structures.
 * Memory management types commonly overlap with consciousness structures, making both hard to define individually.
 * Headmates can intentionally and unintentionally leave, move, and join different consciousnesses.
 * Fronting can be affected by consciousnesses.
 * Fixumconscious and raconscious describe various ways consciousnesses can do so.
 * Paraconsciousnesses have more awareness, while unuconsciousnesses have less.

History
The term consciousness first showed up in plural context as a medical term, meaning a fully formed headmate.

With time, it was adapted by the community into a different meaning, first appearing in the terms monoconscious and polyconscious.

Consciousness has had multiple definitions over the years.