Water symbolizes the for-itself because its fluidity mirrors consciousness.

Evidence

But it is still more frightening in that the metamorphosis is not just into a thing (bad as that would be) but into slime. Even if I could conceive of a liquefaction of myself (that is, a transformation of my being into water) I would not be inordinately affected because water is the symbol of consciousness—its movement, its fluidity, its deceptive appearance of being solid, its perpetual flight—everything in it recalls the For-itself; to such a degree that psychologists who first noted the characteristics of duration of consciousness (James, Bergson) have very often compared it to a river. A river best evokes the image of the constant interpenetration of the parts by a whole and their perpetual dissociation and free movement. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1405

Categorization

• XREF: Ties Sartre’s fluidity-of-consciousness image back to Bergson and James, and forward to Beauvoir’s and later French feminist reworkings of fluidity vs. solidity. — connects to: The slimy symbolizes the In-itself absorbing the For-itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1403; Industrialized attention extraction despoils the shared human spirit as pollution despoils water. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 479; The Address frames water as a responsible being rather than a resource — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 377
• DEFINE: Clarifies why water is consciousness’s symbol in Sartre’s system — its perpetual flight and movement recall the for-itself’s nihilation.

Broader Connections

• The slimy symbolizes the In-itself absorbing the For-itself #complicates (0.92) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1403
• Industrialized attention extraction despoils the shared human spirit as pollution despoils water. #jokes-about (0.75) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 479