Freud has named the key elements of consciousness: ego, superego and id. This is still a valid presentation.

A few key elements that I think are important to consider when trying to understand consciousness:

- Selective attention

- Working memory

- Emotion regulation

They are all playing a role in psycholinguistics too.

Thank you for your responses. Yes, the Freudian theory encompasses some of the key layers of consciousness, highlighting their interconnectedness and mutual influence. Both selective and spontaneous attention, as well as emotional regulation, memory, imagination, thoughts, and perceptions, are essential when defining the units of consciousness.

Knowledge as a path to self-improvement has inspired me to start a collaborative project exploring its essence and impact. If this resonates with you or if you'd like to contribute to coauthoring a paper, feel free to check out the details and join: https://www.researchgate.net/post/The_Essence_of_Knowledge_Initiative_An_Independent_Research_Project_with_Collaborative_Contributions

I don't understand the notion of a unit of consciousness in this context. A quale would've been my first thought as a possible candidate but the responses so far are far away from that sort of thing.

Thank you for your perspective. In this context, the units of consciousness refer to the key elements that it consists of, such as memory, imagination, thoughts, judgments, and so on. A related perspective is Integrated Information Theory (IIT), which views consciousness as arising from the integration of information in a system. Each informational structure or pattern contributing to conscious experience could also be seen as a "unit," aligning with concepts like memory and imagination.

The "elements" you mention are types or kinds of consciousness. But I can see information as consisting of units, with conscious units being a subset. My analogy would be types or kinds of physical phenomena, all consisting of the same basic underlying units, e.g. mean kinetic energy or whatnot. I guess I think of units as countable or measurable units rather than broad categories. Qualia have often been proposed as what all types or kinds of conscious experience have in common.

It's challenging to define the nature of consciousness since the human brane has a complex structure, being a half-discovered mystery. Consciousness includes the varieties of subjective experiences, and the exactness of objective understandings. It's units are exclusive elements, which form the essence of human judgment.