Crisis of Consciousness:

Deficiency, Possibility, and Self-Limitation in the Technological Age

Abstract

In the contemporary era of deep technological penetration, human consciousness is facing an unprecedented confluence of crisis and possibility. Departing from traditional transcendentalist and naturalist paradigms of consciousness research, this paper proposes a “structural-phenomenological method” and, from an ontological perspective, defines consciousness as a structural apparatus operating between “crisis” and “possibility.” Based on a deficiency theory of human nature—according to which humans exist as innately incomplete, disease-living beings—consciousness is neither a transcendental illumination nor a mere mental function, but a dynamic compensatory mechanism forced into being by crisis, continuously reinforcing its own crises and possibilities through a positive feedback loop. Self-consciousness is then regarded as a secondary “pseudo-center” that emerges from the failure of conscious operations, possessing a dialectical structure of forgetting and recollection. Facing the contemporary predicament in which technology infinitely amplifies both possibility and crisis, the way out for consciousness lies not in unlimited expansion but in learning self-limitation. The paper ultimately reflects on the mode of existence of modern human beings and reaffirms the philosophical mission of “know thyself.”