Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Consciousness explained essays
Consciousness studies
Animal consciousness experience
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Consciousness explained essays
Perhaps one of the strangest mysteries of the universe is the question of how we became cognizant creatures. Being conscious is one of the bare-bone requirements of being alive, and yet, we still don't understand how it all came to be. Consciousness is the ability to think about your surroundings, be aware of yourself, and be awake. It's considered to be the essence of existence, particularly by Descartes, who so famously said, "I think, therefore, I am." It's hard to imagine that, at one point, a bunch of brain cells just worked together to grant humanity and so many other creatures the ability to be aware of their surroundings, think, and feel emotions. It's also hard to describe being conscious. So, what is consciousness, really? …show more content…
How can you really explain what is consciousness like? It's more than just being awake. It's more than being aware, yet at the same time, it's simple enough for the smallest of children to acknowledge. Being conscious, in its own way, is probably different for every person out there. What's really strange about consciousness is that we all know what it means, but none of us know how it came to be, what part of the brain makes us conscious, or even what the full scope of consciousness is. To fully understand what we currently know about consciousness, we need to take a look at what scientists have uncovered about the human brain and its role in it. Where does consciousness exist in us? What is consciousness created …show more content…
None of the studies tell us whether we're still conscious in comas, or if brain damaged people experience consciousness on the same level that we do. To that extent, the mystery of consciousness is still as enigmatic as it ever was. So, what is consciousness made of? To a point, a large portion involving the mystery of consciousness boils down to this. Many scientists believe that consciousness is made up of integrated information our bodies take in and that our brains were designed to think as a way to make sense of it all. By making sense of our surroundings, we're better able to survive and thrive as a species. This theory suggests that it's an evolutionary advantage that has been perfected over thousands of years. Thi s theory is rapidly gaining clout in the scientific community, primarily because it explains how different animals and people can have different levels of consciousness. It also explains what is consciousness used for on an evolutionary level — and why we would have it in the first place. But, even though there are good theories, the truth is that we still don't know what is consciousness in its
Eagleman talks about unconscious learning, and explores how much of what we do daily is learned and directed by the unconscious mind. The first example is changing lanes: when we’re driving, we do it without thinking. However, when asked to describe how they change lanes, many people are flummoxed. Changing lanes is so automatic that when the conscious mind tries to take control, it confuses our brains and our gears become out of sync. The second example is chicken sexers: people who can sort chick hatching even though male and female chicks look exactly alike. The third example is plane spotters: people who could distinguish between enemy and ally planes thousands of feet in the air. In both cases, the people just knew! They couldn’t explain how they knew. Rather, after trial and error, their unconscious picked up on the slight cues that allowed to them tell the difference. The conscious mind, on the other hand, was unaware of this
explanation of where our minds, or consciousness, came from and how we are able to
Is Consciousness something automatic, rooted in our selves, something inseparable in a being with abilities of
Consciousness is a very common and much used word used to describe the condition of being awake and aware. In other words, being conscious means responding to the environment, in contrast to being asleep or in coma. But in philosophical terms, consciousness is defined as the state in which humans are able to clearly distinguish between themselves and all other
...higher order theory provides an encouraging investigation of the many connections consciousness has with other mental phenomena.
Consciousness is something that is experienced on the daily basis, whether we are describing our awareness or perception of the physical world. David Chalmers provides his insight on consciousness by first identifying the easy problems presented by consciousness, then the hard problem that is puzzling and one that can’t be fully explained. The hard problem serves as crucial topic has sparked many philosophers to attempt to provide a solution for this problem. To Chalmers, the hard problem involves our experience. Ned Block responds to hard problem by providing his ideology of the epistemic gap that exists between phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness.
...logical, and scientific manner. Even to this day many people still raise the question about the unity of consciousness. As Elizabeth Schechter stated in her work “This work is about individuating mental tokens from a theoretical or scientific perspective, and about the insights that the split brain studies yield into such individualization. It focuses on two questions about mental tokens in split brain subjects in particular: how many minds they have, and how many streams of consciousness they have.”
1. Consciousness is the fundamental fact of human existence, from the view point of persons examining their own experience. There are various aspects of consciouness, such as perception, mental imagery, thinking, memory and emotions. I believe that consiouness is a property of some lower animals and machines. An ant for an example has a conscious mind about staying in covered areas during the rain and to panic when something attacks it. This shows memory, perception and thinking which shows that it does have a conscious. Some machines have something similar to a conscious. A computer for example has a hard drive which is a lot like a “memory”, in which it stores something, and it has ram, which is basically information stored and ready to be used. If I were to open a web page browser and than open up a word document, I could instantly jump back to the browser because its stored on my hard drive, but loaded on my ram, which is a lot like how if we think about an old memory, such as grade school, and than wash our hands, the memory of grade school is still fresh in our mind, and we can go back and instantly load it up with less difficulty than the first time.
Renner, T., Feldman, R., Majors, M., Morrissey, J., & Mae, L. (2011). States of Consciousness. Psychsmart (pp. 99-107). New York: McGraw-Hill.
In another paper (1) I have argued that our conception of phenomenal consciousness commits us to the idea that there are simple components or elements that in some sense make up our complex phenomenal experience. Actually, it commits us to holding that either there are simples or that our complex phenomenal experience is such that – roughly put – analysis will always continue ad infinitum, no matter how a complex phenomenal experience gets carved up.
The human brain is not an empty vessel — right from the start it is packed with knowledge, some of which is built into every structure. A newborn baby just knows, for instance, that crying will bring other members of the species to its aid — it doesn't learn it or work it out.
In conclusion, it is very difficult to come up with scientific solutions to the problem of consciousness. Science may never be able to solve the mysteries of qualia. New methods might need to be introduced to uncover personal experience that lie far off in the future. Philosophers will just need to continue in their search for a complete theory of a science of mind. In addition, humility within the sciences may go along way towards an understanding of consciousness. “ We do not know what consciousness means outside the frame of personality”- Albert Einstein
Consciousness is not a term which could be well defined by science but a property of mind which can only be felt individually but sometimes observed by a third person. It is a state of mind. The existence of consciousness can be debated through questions such as (a)What is consciousness? (b)How does consciousness exist (in what form)? (c) Why does consciousness exist? What is the purpose of existence of consciousness if it exists? Our aim is not to definitively answer these questions but find ways to debate the existence of consciousness
To her, at least, he has more emotions than we do. All these thoughts came into my mind when I saw this question. And my answer was… it is human consciousness is no way different from animal consciousness till I started reading about this online.
Even though we accept Cashmore's argument of free will being an illusion derived from consciousness and that consciousness has an evolutionary advantage of conferring the illusion of responsibility, we are still far from understanding the concept with consciousness and free will. What type of brain activity is associated with consciousness? Why does conscious experience exist at all? Research studies can not prove this to be incorrect but research results certainly do constrain the philosophical answers that we can seriously consider.