The little man in the frig

...we cannot be conscious of what we are not conscious of.

Julian Jaynes

I recall a song from childhood about the little man in the frig who turned the light on whenever someone opened the door. Or did he? Maybe he left it on when the door was closed. Maybe there was no little man! How can we know?

Similarly (this metaphor was first used, to my knowledge, by Susan Blackmore), when you ask the question, Am I conscious now? the answer is always yes. What about when you aren't introspecting? Are you conscious then? How can you know?

We can't. But because, whenever we check, we are conscious, we're stuck with the illusion that we're conscious all the time. Hence the notion of "stream of consciousness" (coined by William James), the idea that our waking lives are imbued with continuous awareness.

Not to mention the little man in my brain.