Theories Of Consciousness

To define such a universally experienced phenomena as consciousness may seem on the most superficial level rather unnecessary. Yet a more scientific, and at times philosophical, investigation into the phenomena demands some sort of confirmed interpretation which supercedes any such common understanding. For our purposes the content of consciousness may be deemed those things of which one is aware and thus can report. Thinking, as well, and the higher-level mechanisms associated there in may also be components of this consciousness. While additionally an individuals' conception that the way in which she experiences the world comes from more than just the neuronal activity of her brain can be understood as a contribution

1. Your body goes through 4 stages of sleep. REM (rapid eye movement) is the 4th stage and when you do most of your dreaming. “While you are dreaming, your body undergoes noticeable changes.  Your adrenaline rises, your blood pressure increases, and you heart beats faster. Given this hyperactivity, it should be no surprise how someone with a weak heart can die in their sleep (dreammoods.com).” It usually takes 30-90 minutes to reach REM, a person goes in and out of REM 4-7 times a night. During REM your eyes rapidly move back and forth under the eyelids. Our bodies are completely immobile and muscles are relaxed. You may shift around in your sleep but when in REM you are completely still.

This stage does last longer than the previous one but only by 10 more minutes. In Non-REM 2, you have this weird and fascinating action happing in your noggin know as sleep spindles. These sleep spindles are bursts of rapid, rhythmic brain-wave activity. After this stage comes one of the best parts of sleep and the part that you’ll generally wake up covered in drool in. This happens to be Non-REM 3 which is often categorized as deep sleep. In this particular stage, we are welcomed by slow delta waves that our brain emits. When this stage has had it’s time to shine, which is 30 minutes, it is time to move onto the final

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

The phenomenal consciousness consists distinctive characteristics that are challenging to explain in the higher orders theories. The subjective components include properties are challenging since the subjective aspects involve feelings and personal process to undergo through their mind. According to the higher order theory of consciousness, the mental feeling, thoughts, and perception people have in life consciously occur but not always since people sometimes sense things subliminally hence independent in people consciousness.

David Chalmers is a philosopher who talked at a TED Talks conference in Vancouver British Columbia on March 2014 about consciousness and how one explains it. David Chalmers mentions in his talk that each of us in conscious, without consciousness, nothing in our lives would contain any value or meaning (2014). Consciousness is like a movie playing in your head, it possesses all the senses that humans have and also the feelings they have as well (Chalmers, 2014). This movie is your stream of consciousness. Overall, consciousness is one of the most difficult problem to solve in science and philosophy, it will and has taken a lot of time to figure out. With that being said, understanding consciousness is a big key to understanding not only ourselves

Fifth Stage REM Rapid-Eye-Movement Sleep, while in REM breathing rates, brain activity increases and decreases, and brain waves are faster and smaller. Paradoxical sleep or active sleep refer to REM the reason for this is because brain, body become heightened and muscle movements are restrained but can twitch this is so dreams are not acted out. REM can last for up to fifteen min. From stage one NREM to REM sleep has taken about ninety min. For the rest of the night’s sleep cycle, it bounces between NREM and REM.

REM sleep stands for rapid eye movement sleep. Most adults only spend 20% of their time sleeping, in REM sleep. This accounts to about 90-120 minutes each night. Babies spend about 50% of their total time sleeping in REM sleep. While babies are in REM sleep, they are actually not dreaming like adults do during REM sleep. Babies are actually forming connections between neurons and much of the growth and development of the brain takes place while the babies are in REM sleep. REM sleep usually occurs during the middle to the end of the sleep cycle, especially the hours before waking up. During REM sleep, your eyes start moving from side to side, hence the name, rapid eye movement. During the night, people will experience REM sleep four or five times. The first cycle does not last very long, but

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.

Consciousness is part biology, “…each state of consciousness is composed of a number of basic psychological processes such as memory, thought, sense of time, body-perception and the senses of hearing, smell, taste, and so on”, and part experience. (Wilber 52) I am going to focus on the experience side of consciousness because it is less concrete than the genetic side. It is a concept that is socially constructed to define an abstract phenomenon. Consciousness is the awareness of being conscious.

conscious experience at all means, basically, that there is something it is like to be that organism. There

The majority of people have heard of REM sleep, but do not know much about it. It happens in cycles of about 90-120 minutes during our sleep and it makes up about 20-25% of an adults sleep time, but the amount of time we spend in the REM sleep cycle lowers the older we get. The brain cycles through five different phases during sleep: stages 1,2,3,4 (which are classified by their respective brain wave patterns) and REM sleep. The sleep cycle repeats itself, so one enters REM sleep several times a night. ("What Is REM Sleep?") .

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

Non-REM sleep is a much deeper, more restful kind of sleep. In non-REM sleep, the person’s body is free to move around. Non-REM dreams are more likely to consist of brief, fragmentary impressions that are less emotional and less likely to involve visual images than REM sleep dreams and are more frequently forgotten. The period of Non-REM sleep is made up of four stages. Each stage can last from 5 to 15 minutes. A completed cycle of sleep consists of a progression from stages 1-4 before REM sleep is attained, then the cycle starts over again. People begin the sleep cycle with a period of non-REM sleep followed by a very short period of REM sleep (Chang, 2010).

(1) What is representationalism about consciousness? What are the pros and cons of representationalism? Do you agree with this view or not? Why?