The Impact Of Consciousness On Modern Day Psychology

Many arguments in the philosophy of the mind have been made for and against, whether or not the mind and the brain are the same entity. The mind-brain identity theory is the view that the mind is the brain and that mental states are brain states (Mandik 77). Therefore, we can identify sensations and other mental processes with physical brain processes (Blutner 4). I argue, that the mind is not identical to the brain, and the conceivable idea of zombies, as well as the multiple realizability argument, can disprove this theory.

I initiate the discourse on the purpose of consciousness by first introducing Night of the Living Dead, as an effort to reveal an intuitive claim as a running theme of the movie: consciousness is what distinguishes me from the living dead. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead can teach us about what our assumptions on the purpose of higher consciousness by having it be the root feature that distinguishes the living from the undead. When Johnny dies and his corpse comes back from the local cemetery, the consciousness of his mind is left behind—there remains only emptiness inside the zombie. As his consciousness vanishes, so does the person that we used call Johnny—the corpse itself is now just a mindless shell. The Romero zombie comes back as completely subject to the zombie law of nature; leaving behind the mind, all that they can do is what a zombie does—and all zombies devour. The absolute mindlessness that characterizes the zombies in Romero’s creation, reflects on the idea, that, a free-acting human being can be reduced to nothing more than a mindless corpse by stripping away their consciousness.

The philosophical zombie is the term given to a hypothetical humanlike creature that is void of conscious experience. This zombie is not your usual ‘man eating, walking dead’ that you would usually find at the movies. According to David Chalmers’ interpretation, this zombie is like having an identical twin in every aspect. This twin looks and behaves exactly like you, dresses and eats like you too. However, you may savor the taste of good wine, smile at the aroma of coffee, marvel at the sky or contemplate your next move in a game of chess. You might feel the sensation of pain in your legs from running a few days ago, or recall a funny event that occurred a few years ago. This zombie twin on the other hand is made up of identical characteristics that are physically, functionally, behaviourally, psychologically identical to you. The zombie is even conscious in a functional sense, which is to say that she sleeps and wakes, is able to speak, and even provide feedback on her internal states, etc.

Consciousness is the state or condition of being conscious. A sense of one's personal or collective identity, especially the complex of attitudes, beliefs, and sensitivities held by or considered characteristic of an individual or a group. There are several different stages of consciousness. Waking consciousness, altered states of consciousness and sleep.

According to Chalmers, the hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. Within the hierarchy of science, one form of science can help explain another form of science. An

If this statement does not apply to something, then it is not conscious. For example, there is nothing it “is like to be” a rock, conclusively, rocks are not conscious. This description, however, becomes significantly less definitive when applied to other animals and insects. Consciousness can be defined as awareness, thought, and the ability to deliberately make a decision using logic, reason, and emotion. There is a significant amount of controversy surrounding even the mere existence of consciousness. Some philosophers debate that there is no such thing as consciousness, it is just and illusion. This theory seems to leave holes because we feel as if we are directly experiencing consciousness. Another theory is that consciousness is not necessary for life and zombies would be unidentifiable in regular life. This, however, also feels extreme because it seems that the zombie would have very little thought behind his or her actions and words, and would only operate logically, with no real emotions. There are so many theories because virtually nothing is known about consciousness. It feels that there are different states of consciousness, different levels of awakeness, sleep, and sometimes altered states from drugs or

Chapter Four: States of Consciousness in Understanding Psychology by Charles G. Morris and Albert A. Maisto helped significantly in expanding my knowledge of psychology specifically about the States of Consciousness. Although the chapter taught me a lot there was still some topics that I already knew. Such as how marijuana helps ease the pain of medical conditions. “Some evidence indicates that marijuana can relieve some of the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy and can reduce suffering among terminal cancer patients” (Morris & Maisto, 2016, p. 148). I believe that if we have some way of helping the ill enjoy life a little more and a little longer, than we should help them. I’m a huge condoner for legalizing medical marijuana, I have

By comparing conscious and unconscious events, William James focused on the problem of detecting conscious awareness. The method of binocular rivalry analyzes the switch between the two stimuli happening in the brain. It is the idea of turning on the conscious mind by looking at an object such as an apple, and processing the “visual image”, by putting together “feature maps” in different parts of the brain. Thus, creating a visual experience. However, sensory regions are not the only parts of the brain involved. In fact, the author, Bernard J. Baars of “Thinking About Consciousness” goes to explain that our brain is like a parallel processing system that involves the parietal and frontal lobes, limiting moment-to-moment conscious events.

In the field of psychology there are many terms related to consciousness. Consciousness has three main functions, restricting attention, creating a mental meeting place, and it creates a mental model of the world around us. Restricting attention is what keeps the brain from being overwhelmed by stimulation. It does this by processing what we notice and what we think about, this process is called selective attention. The degree of selective attention that someone has can vary based on the person and their ability to focus. An example of selective attention would be, when you are hungry, you are more likely to give attention the smell of food rather than the smell of something else. The mental meeting place is where sensation combines with memory,

Authored by Keith E. Stanovich, How to Think Straight About Psychology is a known work of the psychology world which was published in 1986. Beginning courses in psychology use his text frequently. Stanovich primary purpose for writing the text is to bring attention to his observation that the public’s understanding of psychology is different from psychology as a modern science. Psychology as a modern science explains the underlying functions that shape human attitudes and behavior. To the people who misunderstand this, the field of psychology is not a real science, but a pseudo-science instead. How to Think Straight About Psychology describes people’s several false impressions of psychology and it gives its readers a factual understanding of the field as a modern and scientific psychology while explaining how this science works.

Andrei Tarkovsky’s film, Solaris, brings into discussion whether or not the recreation of Hari is a real person. I will argue through analysis of Derek Parfits’ and John Locke’s perspectives on personhood how although Hari is made of neutrinos, that she is in-fact a person, although not the same person as the former Hari that Kelvin knew.

Dr. Anil Seth combines cognitive science, neuroscience, psychiatry, brain imaging techniques and mathematics to explain why consciousness exists at all. He talks about the distinction, which is passed from Descartes, between the “easy problem” and the “hard problem”. The easy problem being to understand how the brain and the body give rise to perception, cognition, behaviour and learning. The hard problem being to understand how and why we have phenomenal experiences or qualia and how all of this should be associated with consciousness at all: why aren’t we just machines, without any inner world/experiences? It is intriguing to think that solving the easy problem would get us nowhere in solving the hard problem, which leaves the brain basis

U.T. Place argues in Is Consciousness a Brain Process? The claim sensations are brain processes is logically possible. In other words, the claim itself has no contradiction built in it. Place hypothesizes the truth of the claim is contingent. Identity statements are neither necessarily true nor false. So, scientific research might reveal phenomena of consciousness are brain processes.

By using the idea of the philosophical zombie, David Chalmers successfully argues that physics is not able to explain consciousness. First, I will explain how Chalmers uses the idea of philosophical zombie to overthrow the basis of physicalism, and then I will present an argument against Chalmers’ solution. Ultimately I will offer a counter-argument that Chalmers might respond with, concluding that Chalmers’ argument against physicalism succeeds.

Nowadays, we are able to scan the brain with devices such as FMRI and it gives us opportunity to observe brain activity, beyond that, we can even study neural connections and expound them. Even though scientific improvements extend further and further along each and every moment (especially in our century) neither neuroscientists, philosophers nor brain surgeons could have been able to find a solution to question of ``How cognitive process cause conscious state? `` (``The Hard Problem``). Peter Clark & David Chalmers were originated an approach based on minds interaction with outside world and they stated vast theories and examples concerning how ``external features`` affect ``internal features`` such as beliefs and behavior. Their approach clearly did not explain all of the aspects of conscious state but it provides us a way to think on construction process of ``beliefs`` and ``individual behavior` `. Along this paper, I will try to clarify their thesis as much as I can, subsequently, I will try to