Does Consciousness Exist Outside The Brain?

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.

My own theory of consciousness is a state of awareness of self. It has been said that this awareness stems from arousal. Consciousness, to me, is entirely internal. We experience the external world, but only through our senses. Dehaene and Naccache (2001) explain that neuroscience is beginning to investigate and understand the "neural underpinnings of consciousness." Thus, consciousness is something that we experience via our own bodies. However, there is an implied separation between experience and consciousness. Animals and plants also have mechanisms for interacting with the world, but they do not appear to have the same neural underpinnings that them to interpret the world with the same awareness that humans have. We, however, not only experience the external world, but we are aware of that experience.

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

Explain what the unconscious contains and how those contents can enter into consciousness. Give an example that is not in the textbook.

     Consciousness is a difficult term to grasp; so much so, that many scientists will not even attempt to define the term, much less search for it’s evidence. Most however, do agree that consciousness must include certain aspects; specifically cognition, self-awareness, memory, and abstract thought.

The term consciousness refers to "your individual awareness of your unique thoughts, memories, feelings, sensations and environment” (Kendra Cherry, http://psychology.about.com). Our unconscious contains thoughts, memories, and desires that are well below the surface of awareness but that nevertheless have a great influence on behavior.

The conscious mind not only represents only a small part of our brain activity and function, but it also perceives certain behaviors differently when constructed with drugs or damage The process of the unconscious brain activity differs from the conscious part but they both

Therefore if we associate consciousness with our senses then it could be that consciousness is not the result of an immaterial substance. But it is also hard to determine if we have one unified consciousness, or when the brains are split, 2 different consciousnesses, or even more than 2! There is no way to measure that, and is still a mystery, we can’t thoroughly explain what actually determines the true consciousness of ourselves, if we believe there is more than one consciousness within our brains over ruling the other or letting that specific consciousness win the decision. If we associate consciousness with senses, then we also associate it with the decisions we make, if vanilla scented candles makes us feel calm, then we light them, if a specific song makes us happy, then we play it, if I jump off a high ledge and land wrong, it’ll hurt so perhaps I wouldn’t do that or learn how to land correctly. Or it could be that a person might do the complete opposite of those things, maybe they don’t want to feel calm, happy or might want to break their legs. We don’t know why consciousness helps us to decide what decisions we choose for ourselves or even why it matters in a scientific point of

Intelligence and Consciousness are two very controversial topics discussed in neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. They are both labels for inner-workings of the brain, so they cannot easily be identified. The existence itself of intelligence is not very controversial, because it refers to the brain’s capacity for memory, learning, and ability to reason and problem-solve. However, the measurement of intelligence is very oversimplified and unreliable. Consciousness is significantly more debatable because it is essentially impossible (at least by today’s standards) to develop an objective list of criteria to identify consciousness. Very little is known about it other than the fact that we feel as if we have a single consciousness. The two

Consciousness is a pivotal element in human existence. According to Max Velmans and Susan Schneider The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness: "Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness”. As important as it is, scientists have trouble in coining the exact definition for consciousness. Even more shockingly, there have been studies that claim human do not make conscious decisions as we have always believed, such as the article Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain published by Nature Publishing Group in 2008, and in the BBC documentary The Secret You by Marcus du Sautoy.

The subject of the conscious mind has long been a debate in the world of psychology; what exactly is it and where does it occur in the brain. Unfortunately, the debate still continues as there is no concrete answer currently available. Nevertheless, it is understood what it means to be conscious. One is aware of when they are awake, sleeping, or thinking. The topic of the conscious mind was historically left to scholars in the field of philosophy and religion with little input from the scientific side (Brainbank, 2013). But the more information that becomes readily available about the human brain, the more scientists are ready to tack the controversial subject.

Human curiosity has always attempted to understand the concept of consciousness. However, humanity's only definition is described as the state of being aware of one's surroundings. In a world where the mind is an undiscovered endless amount of power and self-expression, it is hard to categorize consciousness with such a vague definition. Questions also arise in regards to the very location of an individual's mind and whether it is dually connected with one's body or a separate entity entirely. The physical presence of the mind currently rests as a mystery but many theorize that its location is a part of your body or that it has no physical relation. Each individual currently has a different view on the definition of consciousness and the location of your mind rests with the belief of each individual.

For starters consciousness is a mystical network. It has several different extraordinary characters. One David Chalmers says it has a “unified and a differentiated character”, that he feels defines consciousness and makes it simple. But is it really that simplistic?? I mean consciousness is something everyone is aware of at every waking moment of life until death. Never has it been something

1. When discussing the real issues between consciousness and physics, we are forced to speak upon the mind-body problem. The mind-body problem is the problem of explaining how mental states (consciousness) are related to the physical states given that the human body is a physical and the mind is non-physical. Consciousness is real and cannot be negated by illusions. The mind-body issue is a debate that is continuously ongoing however, it can be argued that the mind and body are not necessarily separated however, when in use, one is reduced so the other can do its job. This can be seen in the Chinese Room Experiment. In the Chinese Room Experiment, was conducted by John Searle, which proves that computers do not have the ability to have knowledge. Computers are programmed to manipulate symbols; this makes the computer appear as though it understands the language but its understanding is not pure. This goes on to show the amount of issue that consciousness poses to the idea that we are able to understand the world through science. Science is able to create illusions and manifest many faulty ideas which can be believed as true. Consciousness allows individuals to think and question if what is seen before then actually exists.

Conscious is thought to be a mental state in which we are able to process information and act on it. However this term is used to describe a state of awareness while awake whereas there seems to be varying levels of consciousness that describe most mental states. If information can be perceived (knowing or unknowingly) then it is likely that you are conscious, e.g. even when in light sleep we can dream and may even wake up on hearing a loud noise, therefore the brain still processes information, however in deep sleep this is not the case. When looking at consciousness, there is what Levine described as the explanatory gap (Levine, 1983). This states that in the present moment we are not able to provide an explanation for the phenomena that is consciousness however as time goes on and our knowledge of neuroscience increases this gap will close gradually until it is non-existent (Block & Young, 1996). However despite this statement being made by Levine around 30 years ago, the explanatory gap still remains although it is clearly beginning to close, we still have some way to go before we can begin to understand what consciousness is. Consciousness is inherently a subjective matter as there are many different meanings for the word which are seemingly thrown around without much thought, there is no way to prove that one normal experience of consciousness is the same as another (qualia) and we are unable to scientifically explain conscious experiences. Therefore before we can