Consciousness: A Discussion Of The Mind-Body Problem

We all are very familiar with the very perplexing nature of this entity “consciousness”. We can tell when we are awake, when we are thinking, when we are pondering over the world, but to explain this nature of consciousness can be somewhat grueling. However as our understanding and comprehension of the brain is escalating, we are able to tackle this subject to an extent.

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The fascination with consciousness dates back to the time of Plato and Descartes. Since those times the term “consciousness” has spurned controversy in many scientific fields, including the fields of biology, psychology, and neuroscience. However, with the recent advancements in brain imaging technologies, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG), human consciousness has shifted from being a subjective, abstract idea into being a observable scientific phenomenon. As neuroimaging capabilities progress, the public interest in consciousness also grows.

Consciousness refers to an individual’s self-awareness, both internally and external stimulus which include your unique thoughts, memories, feelings, sensations and environment. Your consciousness can constantly change from one conscious to another. The constant change in consciousness can also be referred to as “stream of conscious”. Awareness- its mechanism and function has

For many years the question of whether or not the unconscious mind really exists, and if it does then what does it consist of has baffled many theorist’s minds and has made many philosophers question themselves. There have been debates on whether the conscious mind is influenced by other parts of the mind. These parts are indented within the unconscious, which has processes such as personal habits, intuition and being oblivious to certain things in life. While we are completely aware of what is happening I the conscious mind, we have absolutely no idea of what information is stored in the unconscious mind. It is believed that the unconscious mind comprises various significant and disturbing material, which is required to be kept out of awareness as they may be too menacing to completely acknowledge and be mindful of. There are been some critics that have completely disbelieved the existence of the unconscious mind. Many psychological scientists today believe that the unconscious mind is the shadow of a “real” conscious mind. However, through extensive research, evidence has been found that the unconscious is not visibly complex, controlling, or action-orientated.

If we knew how consciousness comes to be and if that were from non-mentalistic physical features.

The reductionist system is just to lessen the human behavior & make life parts less requesting. Reductionists say that we have the most effortless way to deal with grasp & look deliberately to the minimum troublesome parts of the system. Each mind boggling structure is being made individual which are disengaged into the parts. Every reductionist envisions that they have educational power of the comprehensive humanism.

Despite the current scientific and philosophical blockades, I will argue that the mind-body problem is soluble. The mind-body problem concerns how consciousness fits into the scientific and physical world. Consciousness seems to many to be irreducible past the point of subjective character experience. It is scientifically baffling at this point in time that the firing of neurons can give rise to this qualitative experience. Physicalists believe that everything can be explained once a language of perfect physics is developed; a seemingly logical conclusion given the constant overturning of previously believed non-physical facts by physics. However, as I will outline, respected philosophers such as Frank Jackson, Joseph Levine, Thomas Nagel and Colin McGinn believe that there are rational reasons to deny physicalism; their arguments complicate the solubility of the mind-body problem. I will explore each of those philosopher’s arguments below then move on to explain why I believe the mind-body problem is soluble. Firstly, I will briefly discuss physicalism, the most promising lead on route to the solution of the mind-body problem.

There are three levels of mind in the psychodynamic theory which are conscious, preconscious and unconscious. These are described below:

Perception is what makes the mind and body predicament actually obstinate. ‘What is it like to be a bat’ is an intricate argument geared at disproving reductionism according to Nagel (Hirstein, 2012). In human way of thinking, it is possible to imagine being shortsighted and flapping our arms to fly just in the same way bats live their life. A comparable situation can be figured for an individual born blind from the time of birth. The person can develop a rational indulgent of what light is and discover about how sighted people respond, as well as, adapt to it. These people no matter what kind of training offered to them, they will never comprehend what it is like to see. When studying the mind-body problem, consciousness becomes a fundamental

Being able to explain why something is unconscious is more practical than to explain why something is conscious. To even grasp physicalism one usually makes observation of the function, dynamic, and structure. In addition, there is an explanation of what a thing does, how it changes over a period of time, and how it is assembled. However, even after a detailed explanation of the function, dynamic, and so on…one may still ask, why is it conscious, Thus, conscious presents a problem for physicalism. An explanation of consciousness is much more complex, and may even create a boundary of what physicalism can explain. Due to this problem, there are unanswered questions when it comes to physicalism.

Even when it is defined it has no physical meaning involved. I am led to believe consciousness is not physical. For example is it physical when one knows right from wrong? Knowing happens in the mind, the mind is a part of one’s conscious. Therefore inferring knowing right from wrong is a conscious state of mind. When someone goes into the store and steals no matter the reason why, the action attaches itself to one’s conscious. The conscious is connected to memory so when someone remembers a bad action it takes a toll on their conscious.

Consciousness allows a person to recognize their existence, and subsequently, to form their essence. The

Ned Block has described consciousness as a mongrel concept (Block, 2002). What he means by this is that there are different types or concepts of consciousness that are often mixed together which lead to ambiguity. For the sake of conceptual clarity then I will adopt Block’s terminology and categorization of consciousness. In particular he distinguishes mainly between two types of consciousness, phenomenal consciousness (P-consciousness) and access-consciousness (A-consciousness). P-consciousness refers to consciousness of a subjective nature, access to experience, a perspective on what something is like.

When the word consciousness is used regarding human beings, the word itself usually implies that those individuals are conscious of being conscious. Many individuals assume that the mind, the brain, and the body react as one. But the idea of the mind is not related to the concept of the brain or the body. These differences allow philosophers to determine a people’s consciousness in the world around them. Individuals derive the concept of consciousness from their experience because consciousness itself comes from one’s youth. Consciousness can be described as an individual’s ability to become aware of his or her surroundings including both the external and internal world which they are present in. The idea of consciousness can be explained by obtaining something simple and changing it into something complex, also known as the emergent property. The process of emergent property can be achieved in two steps that allow philosophers to determine who and what possess consciousness.