conciousness

[JDFlood]

Something we all posses, the perception of what is around us, our emotional responses and the inner conversation we have with ourselves. Poorly defined, you can't be serious, it is something we all experience in the same way. It can be best understood through an understanding of developmental and evolutionary psychology and biology. JD

[fr0d0]

Well I'm convinced

[Mystical]

I wish you'd gotten more responses, this is a question I currently have too

Have no idea what it is. Is it the point where you know you're a being and have a body? If so, animals are conscious. But only some animals are able to empathize, or are aware of themselves in comparison to not only the world they live in but the other creatures they live with.

I'm all confused, sorry I can't help you. But, here's an article I thought was cool

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/scienc...d=all&_r=0

[ManMachine]

Poorly defined, you can't be serious.

You don't have to take anyone's word for it (wise decision), take a look through any standard psychology or philosophy resource text and find out for yourself.

I'm glad that you feel you know, though. It means you don't have to put up with tedious debates where all the major institutions and leading academic lights get round and try to fathom it out (dull as ditch-water).

MM

[JDFlood]

I have read an enormous amount of that crap on the subject. The philosophers point of view is frequently attempts that start from knowing little and thinking themselves into understanding what it is. So they just confuse everything. Consciousness has been probably the single most interesting question on my mind since the 1970's. Fortunately, I was not alone and a lot of people of my generation have done a lot of research on the subject... several books are noted above. The definition as I explained with an on the fly definition, that is probably pretty close. However, how it comes about, is a much more challenging question that requires a lot of different disciplines to answer, hence the several book references. It's hard to put that into a paragraph. I think you need some background in some of the schience to answer. But poorly defined? No, I think we all experience it in the same way. JD

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I wish you'd gotten more responses, this is a question I currently have too

Have no idea what it is. Is it the point where you know you're a being and have a body? If so, animals are conscious. But only some animals are able to empathize, or are aware of themselves in comparison to not only the world they live in but the other creatures they live with.

I'm all confused, sorry I can't help you. But, here's an article I thought was cool

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/scienc...d=all&_r=0

I tried your link, doesn't seem to work, at least for me.

Sorry the respsonses were so short. but it is like asking what is the universe. The short answer is very short, the next level is long and involved. Hence the book references. I have been fascinated for decades, and feel comfortable with how it is created... however, for me the real key was learning about what emotions are and how chemical brain changes manifest themselves in our feelings and behavioral patterns. For me I had to start at the very basics of elementary life, chemo syntax of the paramecium and kind of work through more and more complex stimulus - response mechanisms to begin to understand that it is the confluence of all your sensory input (sight, sound, internal sensors (you have lots of those)... etc with the emotional engine and higher level thought processes all contributing to the complex sensations that is consciousness. The process of learning can be a little scary. When you start seeing that the chemical changes precede your decisions... I don't think you can not realize how very animal we are, how it determines nearly all our actions, and the logical thinking part is added after the fact to justify our animal decisions. Anyway, I wasn't trying to be flippant in recommending the books, nor the other person that did. It is just such a big question, it is hard to come up with a single paragraph to answer... so if you are interested, I highly recommend all those books. JD

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[/quote]

I think consciousness is alot of time mystified out of bs. .
[/quote]

By the way, I couldn't agree with you more! Too much BS surrounding it, obscures serious approaches. JD

[Angrboda]

[Neo-Scholastic]

Consciousness manifests itself through your will and understanding. Unless you're Dennett...he's a zombie.

[Angrboda]

Consciousness manifests itself through your will and understanding. Unless you're Dennett...he's a zombie.

Wooters, good boy! Glad to see you. I've always enjoyed your contributions. It's been a long time, where have you been?

[ManMachine]

Consciousness manifests itself through your will and understanding. Unless you're Dennett...he's a zombie.

I think the problem with people like Dennett, Dawkins, Pinker et. al. is while they have some interesting ideas, they tend get caught up in their own celebrity.

MM