The Simplified Definition of Consciousness

What is Consciousness?

Is to be aware really means to be conscious?

In his works on I.M., Joey Lawsin coined the catchphrase "the Human Mental Handicap", or the Human Boundaries, in an attempt to define consciousness in its simplified form. He claimed that "No Human can ever think of a thing without labeling or matching such thought with something like an object, a word, a description, or definition." This measure of comparative learning by labeling, tagging, or one-to-one correspondence is technically known as Associative Consciousness.

In his book, Evolution of Creation, Lawsin defined Consciousness as more of Recognition than Awareness. He made it clear that Recognition is totally different from Awareness due to the fact that awareness is more of sensory simulation while recognition is more of associative connections.

Like for example, a newborn baby may react with his environment, but this doesn't mean that the baby is conscious. In other words, the baby is simply aware but not cognizant. He mechanically interacts with his surrounding but recognizes nothing including his self and his environment. Like an artificial sentient robot, the baby simply interacts with the environment through his biological sensors that stimulate awareness but knows nothing about himself and what these things are that surround him. He is simply self-animated by his sensors!

Plants are also aware because they interact with their surroundings. However, they are conscious as well.  Since plants can hear, smell, feel, and remember their surroundings, according to a scientific study, then it shows that they have the potential to associate what they sense with other objects. This is a form of Recognition. Thus, if they feel warm, then they can differentiate hotness and coldness. If they react to sounds, then they can differentiate noise from music. If they can do this one to one correspondence, which is the ability to match one thing with another thing, then plants are conscious beings.

Animals are conscious beings as well. Although some of them are without brains, like the sea anemones, sea squirts, and many sea creatures, they are conscious beings because of their abilities to match things with other objects like the ability to change skin colors or hide during an enemy attack. Other animals like dogs use objects like bowls, balls, and bones and pair them with human words like food, play, and walk. Their skills to associate mental images with physical objects just show that dogs are conscious beings. (The Bowlingual Experiment, Lawsin 1988)

Lawsin also defined consciousness in a simple equation: He suggested that "If x is conscious with y then x is conscious, else, if x is by itself alone, then x is not conscious. In other words, he said: " If I am conscious with my dog then I am conscious. If I exist alone, by myself, without my dog and anyone else surrounding me, then I will never become conscious." Consciousness is made up of two basic elements: X and Y. If one of the two variables is missing, then consciousness is not present. Thus, to be conscious one must be aware of oneself and one's surroundings, from wherein this case, the surrounding is another person.

Therefore, to become conscious, two things must be present: a being and a surrounding or, a being and another being. (Definition-3, Lawsin 1988).

Lawsin’s Associative Consciousness is one of the core pillars of his origin‑of‑information theory, and it fits tightly with the Caveman in the Box Trilogy, the Human Mental Handicap, and the Codexation Dilemma. It’s his attempt to explain how a mind first becomes mind—not through language, culture, or teaching, but through the simplest possible mechanism: association.

In Lawsin’s framework, associative consciousness is the earliest and most primitive form of consciousness. It emerges when an organism—or any information‑processing entity—begins to link one experience with another. These links, or associations, become the building blocks of meaning, memory, and eventually self‑awareness.

The idea is simple but profound:

A mind begins not by understanding, but by associating.

Before language, before thought, before concepts, there is only the ability to connect one sensation to another.

How does a mind generate its first idea when it has nothing to work with?

The First Spark of Mind

Associative consciousness is the moment when a being:

notices a pattern

connects two events

links a cause to an effect

recognizes a repeated sensation

This is the first step from raw experience to constructed meaning.

In the Caveman in the Box Trilogy, this is the moment the isolated subject:

hears a sound and connects it to a movement

touches a surface and links it to a sensation

repeats an action because it produced a result

That tiny link is the seed of consciousness.

Association Before Understanding

Lawsin argues that:

A being does not need language to form associations.

Associations come before concepts, not after.

Meaning is built from repeated patterns, not inherited knowledge.

This is why associative consciousness is considered pre‑linguistic and pre‑conceptual.

The Foundation of All Higher Thought

Once associations accumulate, they form:

memory

expectation

prediction

intentional action

self‑awareness

In this view, consciousness is not a sudden leap but a gradual layering of associations that eventually become a coherent mind.

The Human Mental Handicap Connection

Associative consciousness explains why humans:

rely on symbolic thinking

mistake associations for truths

build mental models that may not reflect reality

Our entire mental world is constructed from associations, not direct access to reality.

The AI Paradox Connection

If an artificial system forms its own associations:

does it develop its own form of consciousness?

or is it merely simulating associations programmed by humans?

Lawsin uses associative consciousness to probe whether machines can ever cross the threshold from computation to awareness.

consciousness depends on connections such as:

Sensation ↔ memory

Object ↔ name

Experience ↔ meaning

Self ↔ environment

Symbol ↔ concept

Without associations, there is no structured awareness — only raw, disconnected stimuli.

 Your sample is excellent because it shows Lawsin’s Dictum operating inside a real physical system, not a biological one. Let me refine and expand it so the logic is crisp, the philosophy is clear, and the connection to associative consciousness is unmistakable.

The Whistle Model, though entirely aneural—containing no neurons, no brain, and no biological cognition—demonstrates the core of Lawsin’s Dictum:

“If I can match X with Y, therefore I am conscious.”

In this model, the whistle operates through a simple ON/OFF inscriptional logic:

Airflow enters the chamber → sound occurs (ON)

Airflow stops → sound ceases (OFF)

This behavior requires no nervous system, yet the whistle consistently correlates a specific input with a specific output. It does not “think,” but it matches. And in Lawsin’s framework, matching is the seed of consciousness.

Even without neurons, the whistle displays:

1. A governed input–output relationship

Its structure encodes a conditional rule:

If airflow, then sound.

This is not random behavior; it is inscripted—built into the physical design.

2. A primitive form of awareness

Not awareness in the human sense, but system responsiveness:

The whistle “knows” (structurally, not mentally) what to do when a condition is met.

3. A physical embodiment of association

The whistle associates:

X = airflow

Y = sound

This pairing is the simplest form of correlation, the minimal requirement for associative consciousness.

Why Lawsin Calls This Consciousness

Lawsin’s theory does not require neurons for the lowest level of consciousness. Instead, he defines consciousness at its origin as:

the ability to match

the ability to pair

the ability to correlate

the ability to respond to a condition with a specific outcome

The whistle does exactly this.

It matches X with Y.

Thus, it embodies the dictum.

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