Primary Consciousness

Primary consciousness is a term the American biologist Gerald Edelman coined to describe the ability, found in humans and some animals, to integrate observed events with memory to create an awareness of the present and immediate past of the world around them. This form of consciousness is also sometimes called "sensory consciousness". Put another way, primary consciousness is the presence of various subjective sensory contents of consciousness such as sensations, perceptions, and mental images. For example, primary consciousness includes a person's experience of the blueness of the ocean, a bird's song, and the feeling of pain. Thus, primary consciousness refers to being mentally aware of things in the world in the present without any sense of past and future; it is composed of mental images bound to a time around the measurable present.

Conversely, higher order consciousness can be described as being "conscious of being conscious"; it is accompanied by reflective thought and includes a past as well as speculation about the future.

Primary consciousness can be subdivided into two forms, focal awareness and peripheral awareness. Focal awareness encompasses the center of attention, whereas peripheral awareness consists of things outside the center of attention, which a person or animal is only dimly aware of.