A Measure of Consciousness
Main Points in the Article
In the United States alone, thousands of people lay in a vegetative state. These individuals are unresponsive to anyone or anything. These individuals can remain this way for the rest of their lives which in some cases can be many years. There is often controversy among loved ones and friends as to whether it is a good thing to keep these individuals alive or would it be better to let them pass away. The real debate of the matter is whether or not these individuals have a quality of life that is worth preserving. Do they have thoughts, emotions, dreams, or any sense of being alive? Do these individuals have any sense of consciousness, or is their brain simply dead? This was the focus of
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Chapter four is all about consciousness as is this article. The textbook explains how the basic principle of consciousness is awareness. When we are aware then we are conscious (Wood et al. 39). The whole objective of the experiment described in this article was to determine if there was a way to measure the awareness of patients when they are in different states, from different levels of sleep to comas and states of vegetation. Chapter four goes on to discuss how we sleep. It describes a four stage cycle called non-REM sleep. Understanding this cycle is very important to the experiment conducted by Tonoi and Massimini. The higher the stage that an individual enters, the deeper he or she is in sleep. This is determined by the amount of slow waves, known as delta waves that are flowing through the brain. This stage of deep sleep is referred to as slow-wave sleep where the brain is the least active and aware (Wood et al. 120 -122). This process is essential to the research described in this article. Ultimately Tonoi and Massimini would like to measure and determine whether different individual’s brains are permanently in a state that mirrors stage 3 and 4 of this cycle. If they are then they can conclude that their brain is not conscious and that there is no quality of life
In the United States and worldwide people have different culture, beliefs and attitude about death. Over the past years, death is an emotional and controversy topic that is not easy to talk about. Everyone have a different definition of what is death and when do you know that a person is really dead. In the book Death, Society, and Human Experiences by Robert J. Kastenbaum demonstrates that you are alive, even when doctors pronounce you dead.
... in terms of living or dying. By this logic, people in vegetative states should also have rights analogous to that of an infant at least. Many people practice or research medicine for the altruistic reasons and derive pleasure and a purpose in life by restoring the injured and sick to proper health. If a potential treatment can be developed by doctors and researchers to restore people in vegetative states to normal cognitive levels, it would be considered wrong to allow such a person to die because, like an infant, there exists the chance for them to develop an ability to function as long as research is continued to find a way to reverse such a condition.
ABSTRACT: One much discussed issue in contemporary philosophy is the relation between consciousness and intentionality. Philosophers debate whether consciousness and intentionality are somehow ‘connected’; whether we have reason to be more optimistic about an ‘objective,’ ‘scientific’ or ‘third person’ ‘account’ of intentionality than about an analogous account of consciousness. This paper is intended as a limited contribution to that debate. I shall be concerned only with the intentionality of action. Not everything which is true of intentionality of action is true of intentionality of other phenomena, such as beliefs. I shall discuss the question, ‘What is the intentionality of action?’ More specifically, I shall discuss one partial answer to this question: that a necessary condition of an agent performing a certain intentional action is that the agent is conscious of performing that action. This answer is fairly unpopular in contemporary philosophy. In this paper, I shall try to say something about the ground for the rather wide-spread philosophical resistance to the answer, and I shall also outline the kind of considerations that I think are required to judge whether a wedge can or cannot be driven between consciousness and intentionality of action.
Until this century, it was rare that brain-dead patients could be kept alive for long periods of time. However, as technological prowess has increased, it has recently become possible to keep a patient alive without higher brain functioning for years and even decades. But, as is always the case with new technology and knowledge, previously unknown ethical issues arise, and thus we have the difficult ethical problems of the Karen Ann Quinlan case.
There is great debate in this country and worldwide over whether or not terminally ill patients who are experiencing great suffering should have the right to choose death. A deep divide amongst the American public exists on the issue. It is extremely important to reach an ethical decision on whether or not terminally ill patients have this right to choose death, since many may be needlessly suffering, if an ethical solution exists.
However, despite the support that this right to die movement had gained, there was opposition as states like California, Michigan, and Maine rejected it. The divided opinions of the nation then lead to the controversial question: Should terminally ill patients have the right to choose to die? However, with religion aside, the answer leans towards “yes.” Terminally ill patients should have the righ...
Today there are five to ten thousand comatose patients in long term care facilities (Wheeler A1). There are countless elderly people in care facilities that have repeatedly expressed a desire to die. There are countless terminally ill patients that have also begged for death. Should these people be allowed to die, or should they be forced to keep on living? This question has plagued ethicists and physicians throughout the years.
Reality and consciousness has been a philosophical debate for centuries. Reality is described as the state of things like they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. It includes everything that is and has been beyond observable or comprehensible proof. Consciousness is difficult to define, it can be the state or quality of awareness, or being aware of externalities beyond yourself. They can be viewed as opposing ideas and can also be considered dependents, one requiring the other: ‘consciousness creates reality’. Philosopher George Berkely argued that the world is a figment of our minds and solipsism’s philosophical theory states that only one’s own mind is sure to exist, “while not a complete figment of our imagination,
There are places where patients receive Euthanasia, and although the people in the vegetative state cannot see, the peace is something that you don’t need to see to feel it. Also, Euthanasia will save money to the family, as reported by The New York State Department of Health, “Under any new system of health care delivery, as at present, it will be far less costly to give a lethal injection than to care for a patient throughout the dying process." Besides, there is no reason to keep a person alive if there is not a possibility of recover it would only affect the economy. As stated by the Medical Billing Advocates of America, “as many people have seen, the final cost associated with life support can be an enormous burden once that loved one has passed away.” Contrasting the cost of Euthanasia with the cost of keeping someone alive, the results show a considerable difference of spend that if possible should be avoided. Nevertheless, there are cases where it is worthy to spend all this money, for example, if there is hope of a recovery, the family will never consider any amount of money too much for a second chance in their relative
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
The notion of Consciousness took various definitions through time and even today it still doesn’t have a general accepted definition. A more universal one would be that Consciousness is a state of awareness of one’s surroundings, of the external objects around, or being aware of oneself. From a more psychological perspective, Consciousness represents a state characterized by perceptions, sensations, emotions, thoughts, where the individual is aware of what he sees, feels, thinks and observes himself, those around him and the environment.
I have been asked to answer the following questions; how do psychologists define conscious states? How can these conscious states be measured?
the sleeper will gradually descend deeper into sleep, becoming more and more detached from the outside world and progressively more difficult to awaken. Stage three is the beginning of deep sleep, occurring about thirty to forty five minutes after you first fall asleep. The deepest sleep occurs in Stage four. Stage three and four has the biggest and slowest brain wave. REM sleep, a mentally active period during which dreaming occurs, provided a biological explanation for this phenomenon. Scientists found that brain activity during REM sleep begins in the pons, a structure in the brainstem, and neighboring midbrain regions. The pons sends signals to the thalamus and to the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for most thought processes. There are several myths about sleep. For one, how much sleep a person should get? According to our text book people should sleep for at least eight hours to maintain sound mental and physical health. But every one doesn’t get the chance to sleep for that amount of time. There is no normal amount of time you should sleep. Everyone is not the same. For one I might sleep for five hours and feel refreshed enough to work another shift. Other hand my cousin might need more then eight hours of sleep to feel refreshed.
Based on Professor Simone Glynn’s lectures consciousness is where impressions, dreams, memories, values and fantasies exist. Physically, It is the results of a chemical simulation of the brain; when physical things are structured in a certain way, it creates or gives rise to consciousness; emergent property.
He explains that the easy problems of consciousness are those that seem directly susceptible to the standard methods of cognitive science, whereas, the hard problems are those that seem to resist those methods. Some of the easy problems of consciousness include the following phenomena: the ability to discriminate, categorise and react to environmental stimuli; the report ability of mental states; the focus of attention; the deliberate control of behaviour and the difference between wakefulness and sleep. All of these phenomena are associated with the notion of consciousness. Often, I think about the meaning of consciousness, and like other people I would consider that a mental state is conscious when one can verbally report the situation or if one can react on the basis of that information and so on. However then, for the idea of sleep and dream state there has to be a reason to explain the basis for the organisms’ contrasting behaviours in those