How Far Does the Circle of Consciousness Extend? Decoding the Boundaries Between Self, Family, and Others Through Science and Spirituality

I eat because I am hungry. I wear warm clothes because I am cold. I think about what is a loss or a gain. All of these start from the smallest unit of consciousness: the "self." From there, the consciousness of many people gradually expands outward to family, friends, and colleagues. Yet, strangely enough, the further that circle expands, the more the feeling of "caring for that person as much as oneself" inevitably fades. On the other hand, there are those who focus too much on the outside and become unable to care for themselves. While we may have been able to care for others purely when we were children, that purity can sometimes fade as we grow up, enter society, and our scope of consciousness widens. In this article, we will explore this theme of the "scope of consciousness" from multiple perspectives: philosophy, sociology, psychology, neuroscience, quantum mechanics, and spiritual energy.

⚫︎ In fact, this structure has been discussed for over 2,000 years
The idea that "a concentric circle centered on the self expands to family, friends, community, and humanity" is not actually new. Ancient Greek Stoic philosophers believed that a person's moral concerns expanded in concentric circles centered on the self, and they taught that the effort to gradually pull that circle inward was the practice of virtue. Even today, philosopher Peter Singer has proposed the concept of the "expanding circle" of moral consideration, arguing that throughout history, this circle has expanded from family to tribe, from tribe to humanity, and even to animals. In other words, the expansion and shading of the "circle of consciousness" you feel is an extension of a universal theme that humanity has been contemplating for over 2,000 years.

⚫︎ Why the brain creates "shading"—the upper limit known as Dunbar's number
Why does consciousness not expand infinitely and evenly, fading as it moves outward? There is quite concrete neuroscientific evidence for this. British anthropologist Robin Dunbar showed a correlation between the size of the neocortex in primates and the size of the social groups that the species can stably maintain. For humans, the upper limit for the number of people with whom one can maintain deep, stable relationships is considered to be around 150, which is known as "Dunbar's number." Furthermore, his research shows that the number of intimate relationships one can rely on in times of real trouble is about 5, and the number of friends one communicates with frequently is about 15; as the circle moves outward, the number of people increases while the density of the relationships decreases exponentially.
This means that your feeling that "the circle of consciousness fades as it moves outward" is not just a sensation, but an evolutionary constraint built into the brain's information processing capacity itself. The human brain is not physically designed to be able to continue perceiving all of humanity with the same density as family. Fading is not proof of coldness, but a rational resource allocation made by a finite brain.

⚫︎ "In-group bias" revealed by psychology
In psychology, the tendency to unconditionally prioritize the group to which one belongs is called "in-group bias." Numerous experiments have shown that this occurs not only with close groups like family and friends, but even with groups assigned by chance, such as one's alma mater or nationality. The moment a person perceives someone as being on "the same side as me," they unconsciously increase their level of empathy and cooperation toward that person.
It might make you feel a little lighter to understand that not being able to care for a total stranger with the same intensity as family is not a sign of coldness, but because this cognitive mechanism is at work. At the same time, it is known that this in-group bias can be adjusted to some extent through training and awareness. There are research reports suggesting that volunteering and experiences interacting with different cultures work to expand the circle of consideration for others, meaning the size of the circle is not fixed at birth, but is a flexible mechanism that expands and contracts through experience.

⚫︎ Those who lose themselves and those who do not—the perspective of boundaries
The phenomenon of "focusing too much on others and becoming unable to care for oneself" is explained in psychology as the "thinning of boundaries." It is known that people with high empathy for others are more likely to take on the emotions and troubles of others as if they were their own, making them prone to what is called "empathy fatigue." A healthy circle of consciousness does not mean not expanding it outward, but rather a state where one can consciously draw boundaries with the outside while keeping the "self" at the center of the circle clearly defined. The idea of "filling yourself before filling others," often discussed in child-rearing, nursing care, and interpersonal support settings, can be said to be practical wisdom for protecting this sense of boundaries.

⚫︎ The purity of children and the expansion of adult consciousness
The fact that children's consciousness tends to be directed toward people purely can also be explained neuroscientifically. Children have not yet fully developed calculations for profit and loss or social standing, and it is said that neural mechanisms that react almost directly to the emotions of the person in front of them (such as mirror neurons, which are brain functions that process the actions and emotions of others as if they were one's own) tend to work dominantly. On the other hand, as one becomes an adult and enters society, the circle of consciousness physically expands, but social calculations such as profit and loss, roles, and status are simultaneously incorporated into it. The expansion of the circle and the fading of purity may, in fact, be two sides of the same developmental process.

⚫︎ The perspective of energy and spirituality—does the circle really "fade"?
In the spiritual worldview, there is an idea that consciousness moves between people as invisible energy, and that even if the circle expands outward, the total amount of that energy itself does not change. From this standpoint, the feeling that "interest fades" is interpreted not as the energy weakening, but as a state where the limited resource of consciousness is dispersed and distributed to a larger number of targets. Practices such as meditation and prayer, which aim to "expand the object of compassion," can be seen as conscious training to reach the outside without diluting this circle.
Of course, this is not a scientifically proven theory, but the question of "whether the total amount of consciousness is finite or infinite" itself can be said to be an interesting point of contention where two different premises collide: the finiteness of neural resources handled by neuroscience and the infinity of consciousness handled by spirituality.

⚫︎ Implications from quantum mechanics—the "self" as an observer
In quantum mechanics, there is a unique idea that the act of observation itself influences the state of the object. While applying this directly to human relationships and the circle of consciousness would be a scientific leap, it is suggestive as a metaphor. Only when there is an observer called "self" do objects like family, friends, and others appear with different weights—as the measurement problem in quantum mechanics shows, the structure where the meaning of a relationship changes depending on the position of the person looking at it, not just the object itself, might be a hint for thinking about the circle of consciousness.

⚫︎ Summary—the circle is not fading, it is changing shape
The circle of consciousness that expands from the self to family, friends, and society is a universal structure that has been discussed since the time of the Stoics, and its shading has a solid biological basis in the limits of the brain's information processing. The fact that interest fades outside the circle is not proof of coldness, but a rational choice made by a finite brain. And the size of that circle and how one draws the boundaries are flexible things that can be changed through experience and training.
Caring for oneself and directing consciousness toward others may not be two opposing forces, but the inside and outside of the same circle. Without losing sight of the center of the circle, how far and in what shape you expand that circle—I believe that is the endless practice called consciousness that each person continues to adjust throughout their life.