My point here is simply, it is to ask the question, if we did not have the term "consciousness" to describe the phenomena under discussion, what might we otherwise call it?
Additionally, the "UN-" version of the term we substitute will certainly need to be understood to mean "the reverse of" the substitute word.
un- 1
prefix
1 (added to adjectives, participles, and their derivatives) denoting the absence of a quality or state; not : unabashed | unacademic | unrepeatable.
• the reverse of (usually with an implication of approval or disapproval, or with another special connotation) : unselfish | unprepossessing | unworldly.
2 (added to nouns) a lack of : unrest | untruth.
ORIGIN Old English , of Germanic origin; from an Indo-European root shared by Latin in- and Greek a-.
USAGE The prefixes un- and non- both mean ‘lacking’ or ‘not,’ but there is a distinction in terms of perspective. The prefix un- tends to be stronger and less neutral than non-. Consider, for example, the differences between unacademic and nonacademic,as in : his language was refreshingly unacademic;: a nonacademic life suits him.
un- 2
prefix added to verbs:
1 denoting the reversal or cancellation of an action or state : untie | unsettle.
2 denoting deprivation, separation, or reduction to a lesser state : unmask | unman.
• denoting release : unburden | unhand.
ORIGIN Old English un-, on-, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch ont- and German ent-.
Currently, this is not the case with consciousness, since "unconsciousness" is problematic.
If we were to choice to stick with the current term of "consciousness", is science then willing to limit the definition of the "un-" version to mean, "the lack of" or "absence of?"
If we do, this then presents us with the issue of needing a term for "the part of the mind that is inaccessible to the conscious mind but that affects behavior and emotions
"
Might this then be considered a part of consciousness too, with simply a lesser degree of awareness?
To press the point a bit further, I can suggest that we are only focusing here on human consciousness.
Christof Koch makes the claim that "consciousness arises within any sufficiently complex, information-processing system."
Koch: There’s a theory, called Integrated Information Theory, developed by Giulio Tononi at the University of Wisconsin, that assigns to any one brain, or any complex system, a number — denoted by the Greek symbol of Φ — that tells you how integrated a system is, how much more the system is than the union of its parts. Φ gives you an information-theoretical measure of consciousness. Any system with integrated information different from zero has consciousness. Any integration feels like something
It's not that any physical system has consciousness. A black hole, a heap of sand, a bunch of isolated neurons in a dish, they're not integrated. They have no consciousness. But complex systems do. And how much consciousness they have depends on how many connections they have and how they’re wired up.
(Note that Koch does not address the part of "the system with integrated information" that is inaccessible in human minds, and how this may correspond to in other systems.)
What we can see in a human mind is that the phenomena referred to as "consciousness" does not “live” in a particular place in our brain but rather “arises from the mode in which billions of neurons communicate with one another.”
Consciousness emerges from communication between brain areas (194 regions of interest were studied) and is mainly tied to cortico-cortical (left and center) and not subcortical and cerebellar areas (right) (credit: Martin M. Monti et al./PLoS Computational Biology)
Unfortunately, I cannot locate such scans of "un-conscious" thoughts.
Martin M Monti adds "that without having a scientific definition of this phenomenon, it is extremely difficult to study,” (Monti does not address the un-state of consciousness here except to observe the "off" state)
Where does this leave use: we cannot study what we cannot define, and we cannot define what we cannot study?
