Consciousness And Its Effects On Society

The study of consciousness in modern day psychology is becoming increasingly difficult to explain. In the early days of consciousness studies it may have been explained as our experience or awareness (Blackmore, 2010). However, over a number of years, there have been many psychologists who have contributed many important theories towards the explanation of how consciousness works, and its initial existence. As Chalmers states: “There is nothing that we know more intimately than conscious experience, but there is nothing harder to explain” (Chalmers, 1995 p.200). Being one of the leading philosophers in consciousness, David Chalmers introduced the idea of the Hard Problem in 1994. Chalmers defined the hard problem as: “The questions of how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience” (Chalmers, 1995 p.63). Chalmers suggested that he found it difficult to understand how a small mass of grey matter such as the brain could produce conscious experience. These ideas of a ‘hard problem’ in consciousness were rejected by a number of theorists, which will be discussed later in the essay. Another idea which Chalmers has put forward is the zombie. A zombie, according to Chalmers is a being identical to you and I, speaks like you, acts like you, but is not conscious (Blackmore, 2010). A zombie contains no qualia (a physical conscious experience). The idea of the zombie put forward by Chalmers is extremely important in the explanation of consciousness and has been

Class consciousness and false consciousness are two concepts from Marxist theory. According to Marx’ s sociological view, social class was the influential principles of social life. The phenomenon of inequality always exits in the society. There is more inequality pressing against within rich people and poor people. The upper class owns resources and labours and they get more benefits and rewards. However, the working class is hired and gets salaries from the upper class, which means they can be considered as labour force. In Marx’s view, capitalism caused that the gap between rich and poor is increasing and the rich people become richer and the poor people become poorer. The capitalism could be changed only if the working class starts a revolution.

Have you ever given thought to how powerful the unconscious mind is? Did you know that hidden in the psyche, there exists a plethora of information in the unconscious mind? What would you think if you discovered that the unconscious mind could potentially unlock many answers to your conscious self? Could it be that the numerous mental health issues that individuals suffer from could possibly be understood in greater depth, by understanding ones’ unconscious?

In the wake of slavery, the black body is constantly under attack. The hold co-exists within the wake of slavery. According to Christina Sharpe, college professor, author of In the Wake on Blackness and Being, (2016) “The wake; a state of wakefulness and a state of consciousness” (pg. 5). Being in the wake of slavery means one still faces the negative effects it and is aware of the negative affects it has on the black community. The hold co-exists in the wake of slavery and the black body is inhibited by this hold. Sharpe defines the hold as, “A large space in the lower part of a aircraft in which cargo is stowed (of a ship or aircraft); keep or detain (someone)” (p. 68). In the hold, the black body has been introduced, taught, ingrained and continues this idea of the language of violence. Through the actual hold of the ship during the Middle Passage, to the perception of blacks which also holds the black body, and to the engrained idea of the “masculine black body” which keeps queer black bodies in their own hold. In this paper, I will examine the intersectionality of blackness and queerness which is being held in the wake of slavery.

One of the ways an individual can understand cultural diversity is by creating a meaningful and genuine relationships with people who are from different cultures. Cultural diversity is an important phenomenal for teachers in training to become familiar with and I believe it is for this reason that the Education Department at Medgar Evers College has as one of its eight-unit standard Personal and Global Consciousness. The department under this standard expects teachers in training to examine, deconstruct, and reconstruct their own and others beliefs, values and perspective, to understand their own cultures, and to develop empathy and acceptance towards others culture. Teachers wishing to work in New York City

Nella Larsen, a luminary of the Harlem Renaissance, explores the nature of racial identity and double-consciousness in her novella Passing. W.E.B Du Bois’s theory of double-consciousness is characterized in The Souls of Black Folk as a sense of “twoness,-- an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body” (Du Bois 2). Irene and Clare, Larsen’s novella’s primary characters, both lack a “dark body” which allows them to oscillate, by choice, between playing the part of the white “American” and the “Negro”. The appeal of racial passing lies in how it provides disenfranchised minorities access to otherwise unattainable

False consciousness is sociological concept that I can personally identify with the most. False consciousness acording to the text book is a condition in which people, usually in groups that are relatively powerless, accept beliefs that work against their own self-interests. False consciousness has to do with myself because of my evangelical parents that defined my childhood due to their ideology and how so many of peers act against their self intrests due to a toxic ideology given to them by the ruling class. False Consciousness supports my view that the world is filled with many deceived subgroups that act in False consciousness. This sociological concept allowed me to learn more about why False Consciousness occurs and strengthened my view of the perceived power that the ruling class has over working class but the actual untouched power the working class has over the ruling class.

America is designed to give opportunity and freedom to any citizen that is within it’s boundaries. Immigrants come to America looking for these opportunities and expect to be successful in their new country. In No-No Boy, John Okada tells the story of a second generation Japanese Immigrant who is trying to figure out who he is as an American who isn’t accepted in his own country. W.E.B. Dubois is an author who wrote about the injustices on African Americans in an American society. Both John Okada and W.E.B. Dubois write about how the Double Consciousness of citizens in the United States.

Throughout the interview with Block, he stated that there are two kinds of consciousness, the access, and phenomenal consciousness. The interview straightforwardly begins, with Ned Block on the philosophical topic of consciousness by the interviewees David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton, where Block introduced the readers with one of those topics. In the beginning of the first two to three pages of the interview, Block claims that “the problem of whether conscious perception is rich or sparse” (77-78). Basically, he claims that conscious perception would either provide or limit individuals with awareness. One would either have full access of their consciousness or are limited to certain things that bypass them.

Therefore, it is safe to say an individual’s unconscious mind comprises mental processes that are inaccessible to consciousness but influence judgments, feelings, or and behaviour (Wilson, 2002 as cited in McLeod 2017). The psychodynamic approach see human functioning as based upon the interaction of drives and forces within the person unconsciousness, and between the different structures of the individual’s personality, therefore, every behaviour has a cause (usually unconscious) and all behaviour is determined which psychodynamic a determinist approach as it views all behaviours as caused exclusively by unconscious factors over which individual have no control (McLeod

This month we are featuring social entrepreneur Amy Hall, the director of Social Consciousness at Eileen Fisher. Hall guides the Eileen Fisher Company’s business responsibility including supporting women through partnerships, ensuring that workers have a safe environment and fair pay, and focuses the company’s growing commitment to environmental sustainability for both their products and business practices.

Margaret Newman in her theory on health as expanding consciousness utilized the three paradigms of nursing, e.g., person, nurse, and environment. HEC establishes a connection between the nurse and the person through caring. Thus, the concept of caring in nursing was described by Vandermark, 2006) as a key component of HEC. Initially, HEC’s primary concerns were those who suffered from a disease or had disability. In the nurse’s interaction with her sick client, both nurse and patient enter into a healing relationship with each other. For the nurse, health as an expanding consciousness is to be present in the lives of her patient, seek to understand and know what is meaningful in their lives, and

From here follows three arguments. The first argument proposes that conscious of our will stipulates our understanding of the “connexion” between soul and body and how these two operate with each other to create our will. Since we have no concept of the union of soul and body, there is no impression of “connexion” present through these means. The second argument raises the issue of why there are involuntary organs, such as the heart, that the will is unable to control (43). If we were truly knowledgeable about the power with which the will functions we would understand the existence of these limitations of the physical body and the reason behind the difference between voluntary and involuntary organs. The third argument addresses the motion of the body. The mind wills an event and the motion is observed, “but we are unable to observe or conceive the tie [“connexion”], which binds together the motion and volition, or the energy by which the mind produces this effect” (49). Hume summarizes that these three arguments prove that “our idea of power is not copied from any sentiment or consciousness of power within ourselves” (44).

The statements “I have a guilty conscious” and “My conscious eating me alive” are phrases that have been giving physical meaning by everyday people. What has not been given merit is the imaginable state of consciousness or ones conscious. Are the statements true or just simply a saying with no meaning?

In this essay, I will talk about Jean-Paul Sartre’s work about the Nature of Consciousness. Firstly, I will discuss his theories of Consciousness and secondly, I will talk about how they developed in response to the work of other philosophers. Lastly, I will state why his work is still interesting today.