"I am for a moment transported into a different kind of consciousness"
What thoughts associate without bias the reading of that statement? Different individuals each possessing their own kind of consciousness. How can that be possible? Is consciousness not shared alike by all people? Can it not be equally possessed by everybody?
The statement above was quoted by an English traveler and described how he felt whenever he recalled the description of a steamship given by a South Sea Islander native. The South Sea Islander's concept of the steamship was different, as he surmised by his steamship description, from the English traveler's concept.
Concepts then determine consciousness. Concepts represent knowledge structures stored in our memory banks. They are the information which we learn in the course of our lives. The breadth and depth and the kind of concepts learned varies between individuals. Acquired concepts determine an individual's consciousness. Consciousness then can be seen as a deeply personal asset of an individual.
The broader and deeper the concepts, the individual possesses, the more encompassing its consciousness will be.
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