Consciousness is one of those subjects that is difficult to talk about. So I'm always trying to find metaphors that can help me to explain my perspective on this complex subject.
One metaphor I came up with recently involves a dance club filled with people and a DJ. When the club first opens up, the people are milling around and there is very little dancing. As time passes, people start to dance and move from partner to partner as they try to find a little spark. Then, out of the blue, a couple of people start doing the Conga (a dance where people form into a long line). People around them cheer them on and some of them join the Conga. The line gradually grows longer, from 2 to 10 to 50 people. As the line grows longer, even the DJ notices and starts to play some suitable Latin music. When a hundred people have joined the Conga, the DJ says "Hey everyone, check out the Conga line!" Finally, the music stops, the people disperse, and the Conga line disappears.
In this metaphor, the dance club is a "mind" and the people are the "active structures". The people are forming and breaking bonds, and the Conga is a structure that grows from the bonding of many people. The "mind" gradually becomes conscious of the "Conga" and starts to influence more structures around it (i.e. other people start to join the Conga line). The DJ is the "language subsystem" that translates the active structure (the Conga) to a verbal representation ("Hey everyone, check out the Conga line!"). Note that the comment by the DJ is a consequence of the mind becoming conscious of the Conga, not the cause of consciousness. After the music stops, the bond between the structures breaks and the Conga line goes away. The "mind" is no longer conscious of the Conga.
I'll continue to blog metaphors for stuff like consciousness, because they are very useful for thinking about and discussing such a complex topic.
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