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Essay on consciousness
Consciousness and its variations
Essay on consciousness
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People experience in an out of different states of consciousness, such as daydreaming, yet still able to prepare basic tasks. Consciousness is often described as when people are being attentive of their own surrounding and something within themselves. The subject of consciousness was very essential for many psychologists in the different approaches to psychology. Two of the perspectives to study consciousness, cognitive and biological, has guided us to reconsider the ideas about the mind. This can be described as part of a human being that allows them to express an awareness of the environment and background of experiences, as a part of our knowledge about consciousness (Holt et al. 2012). Reconsidering these diverse ideas of consciousness has made psychologists interested to learn more about the mystery of consciousness in many special ways. The scientist in 1850`s started to study human perception, vision and the nervous system in the human mind. William Wundt started to explore the understanding of consciousness, as well as feelings, emotions and ideas. He viewed the consciousness as having several parts, and he intended that this could be investigated by analysis or reduction. He was certain that the conscious mind actively systematises the experiences instant. William Wundt believed in something called introspection. The idea behind introspection is that a person can observe inside the human mind and find out the information of what they are thinking and feeling. We will now look at the approach of consciousness through behavioural aspects and neurophysiological aspects as well as introducing different theories and measures that covers the measuring of consciousness. One of the theories that still influence the experi... ... middle of paper ... ...roencephalographic (EEG) movement in the 20-70 Hz variety (Berger, H. 1929 & Baars, B.J. et al, 2003). Event-related cortical potentials (ERPs) are known for measuring a stimulus either if it is consciously apparent or not, however there has been some argument about if the early components are highly revealing of the conscious awareness, which includes how the amount changes ~100 ms vs ~300 ms after the stimulus starts. Several features if of the EGG signal is associated with the bispectral index to approximate the anaesthetic depth, which is the conscious level, and later see the chance of waking up in the middle of the surgery. The theories that have been mentioned in this literature review suggest the use of particular measures, and these particular measures accept certain theories. These particular measures focus on every diverse part of the consciousness.
Martino, Gail, and Lawrence E. Marks. "Synesthesia: Strong and Weak." Current Directions in Psychological Science 10.2 (2001): 61-65. Print.
In order to do so, I shall be looking at different sources and reviewing various definitions and interpretations of consciousness and distinguishing the methods approached to the study of the topic in the way it is measured.
To conclude this essay, I like to emphazise that Rosenthal's HOT is more of an empirical hypothesis, rather than an analysis of the term ‘consciousness.’ His aim is precisely to explain the phenomena of consciousness in relation to other mental states, such as thought and perception, and while achieving this, he has elaborated a theoretical structure for comprehending the functions of our mind.
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.
An attempt to understand and grasp what the mind truly is has paved the way for new fields in research. First of all, the mind is elucidated as “the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.” Based on that information it can be assumed that the mind is like our window to the physical world, but it is crucial to note that certain aspects of our personality define it. Additionally, our perceptual experiences are deemed to be influenced by a stimulus that arrives at our sensory organs and have the power to cause changes in our mental states. But, how is it “possible for conscious experiences to arise out of a lump of gray matter endowed with nothing but electrochemical properties (wiki)?” This is precisely where psychologists come into play since they focus on understanding people, the mind, and human behavior. Psychologists perform countless experiments and research studies in order to elucidate on how we act, feel, and think, and additionally treat mental illness...
Ratey, John J., and Albert M. Galaburda. A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and
of consciousness. Daydreaming is when, due to boredom or mental fatigue, a person enters a dream-like state while awake. While not necessarily ba...
Consciousness is a concept that is socially constructed to define a real, yet abstract phenomenon. The point of defining consciousness, in Combs words, is to take an metaphysical idea, something that can not be understood directly in itself, and turn it into an object for humans to understand from a concrete perspective. For the purpose of this paper, the type of consciousness that will mostly be discussed can be described as having consciousness, an adverb that is understood as an experience, not solely the state of being alive (Walden. Lecture. 8/24/16). To define consciousness in words does not do it justice, as it is comprised of the intangible and feelings. Yet, consciousness directly effects the physical world. According to *** , the meaning of consciousness arises in
Titchener, who was a one student of Wundt, on the other hand, described his system as structuralism, which involves the analysis of the structure of the mind. Tichener broke down consciousness into elemental feelings and sensations. Wundt held the belief that consciousness was vital in scientific psychology, thus dependent on structuralism. He used introspection to study the functions of the mind occurring in active experience. It is however, imperative to note that Wundt’s introspection could not be used to establish higher functions of the mind. He divided the active experiences as feelings and sensations (Titchener, 1915).
Vithoulkas, George, and D. F. Muresanu. "Conscience and Consciousness: A Definition.” Journal of Medicine & Life 7.1 (2014): 104-08. Print.
Integrating the simple actions of everyday life seems to involve awareness, whether it is as simple as flicking a light switch (Morsella & Poehlman, 2013) or decision making. From a Darwinian standpoint, human conscious awareness holds pronounced evolutionary importance; however, its purpose in human behaviour remains a mystery. This unexplained phenomenon of conscious experience has led to the possible suggestion that complex cognitive processes can occur in the absence of consciousness (Peremen & Lamy, 2014; Yang, Zald & Blake, 2007). The latter speculation will be the topic of this thought paper, in which Mudrik, Breska, Lamy and Deouell article will be summarized and its strength, weaknesses and potential theme of follow-up studies will be discussed.
Puttemans, V., Wenderoth, N., & Swinnen, S. P. (2005). Changes in brain activation during the
Consciousness, in psychology, is a term commonly used to indicate a state of awareness of ones self and environment. In Freudian psychology, conscious behaviour largely includes cognitive processes of the ego, such as thinking, perception, and planning, as well as some aspects of the superego, such as moral conscience. Some psychologists deny the distinction between conscious and unconscious behaviour; others use the term consciousness to indicate all the activities of an individual that constitute the personality. Consciousness has been defined in a number of ways, according to Thomas Nagel (1974) consciousness is ‘what it is like to be something.’ Without it, it would be like nothing exists. The term means many different things to many different
Psychology started, and had a long history, as a topic within the fields of philosophy and physiology. It then became an independent field of its own through the work of the German Wilhelm Wundt, the founder of experimental psychology and structuralism. Wundt stressed the use of scientific methods in psychology, particularly through the use of introspection. In 1875, a room was set-aside for Wundt for demonstrations in what we now call sensation and perception. This is the same year that William James set up a similar lab at Harvard. Wilhelm Wundt and William James are usually thought of as the fathers of psychology, as well as the founders of psychology?s first two great ?schools? Structuralism and Functionalism. Psychologist Edward B Titchner said; ?to study the brain and the unconscious we should break it into its structural elements, after that we can construct it into a whole and understand what it does.? (psicafe.com)
After the separation of psychology from philosophy, other key developments that have been critical to its advancement as a scientific discipline are evidenced throughout its juvenile history. One important progression in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the introduction of quantitative measures for mental processes (Michell, 2006). Most prominent for his influence in this introduction is Gustav Fechner. In his two-volume text, Elements of Psychophysics [Elelmente der Psychophysik], Fechner demonstrated that psychological phenomena could be studied experimentally and quantitatively (Robinson, 2010). Robinson (2010) states that Fechner went beyond the indications in this direction by his contemporaries, namely Ernst Weber—who proposed Weber 's law, influencing Fechner 's law—by proposing a new field of study, which he referred to as psychophysics (Robinson, 2010). This discipline undertook the empirical measurement and correlation of brain states with sensory experience (Hawkins, 2011). Robinson (2010) argues that since the publication of Elements of Psychophysics, researchers who investigate psychological processes not only have the Weber law at their