[MD] Intellectual and Social

[Krimel]

[John] 
>  Consciousness rather than self awareness...the difference between those
two? 

[Craig]
I thought 'consciousness' was being aware of something 
& 'self awareness' being aware of being aware of something. 

[Krimel]
Not sure how this fits in exactly but I am getting a bit long in the tooth
and have had more than my share of endoscopies and colonoscopies. These are
conducted under anesthesia. The nurse says something like, "bye, bye" and
Bamm! I am out. I wake up in a different place just like someone flipped a
light switch on.

I recently learned that this anesthesia acts mainly by interfering with
memory formation. Apparently, while "under", I appear to be very drunk and
passive. I could answer if spoken to and so forth. I just don't remember any
of it.

There is this guy, Clive Wearing, who because of brain damage cannot form
new memories. His most frequent complaint is that he has just woken up and
has never before been conscious, never had a thought or a dream.

I suspect memory is a big factor in there somewhere and if I have learned
anything from my years playing with computers it's that you cannot have too
much RAM or too big of a hard drive.