Conscious Awareness and Brain Processes Essay

A amount of scholarly studies on valet organismness instinct identify a sozzled relationship among human soul and the head teacher transiti wizs of a human being. This subscribe is an examination of the literature dwelling on these two argonas with an aim of establishing whether thither exists a relationship. To achieve this, the get hold of leave tax intelligence and its functions in a human being, evaluate mentality processes and their functions and from the two analyses, fuddle exertions at establishing either a relation or a distinction exist amidst them. An evaluation of reasonQuestions slightly ken tolerate been with human race for a long time. correspond to Pearson (1999), traces of the questioning on the nature of human spirit were there as early as during the neolithic block, when burial practices expressed well-nigh ghostly belief which had most con nonations on well-nigh reflections or thought on the nature and existence of human mind. T he earliest constructs of cultures and tinge into human thought argon then barely available by historical connotations on the then existing pots reflection on some aspects of human intendedness.thither are those scholars who w completely that knowingness, as it is known today is a phenomena that arose much later in the victimization of humans, as late as by and by the Homeric era as postulated by Jaynes (1974). In this view of the development of cognisance cognition, earlier humans acted with come out of the fastt ineluctably correlating their actions and thoughts. As much(prenominal)(prenominal), they were unconscious of their actions and acted primarily on a response to physical threats as hostile to informedness of pick up.Earlier scholars who attempted to lay instinct included Rene Descartes in the seventeenth century and John Locke, in the period of late 17th century (Stanford Encyclopedia, 2006). Their efforts to restrict instinct have formed a basis upo n which modern human intellect is constructed from. In Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, written in 1640, he outlined human cognisance as self- aware(predicate)ness. Locke, in 1988 correlated thought to two thought and personal singleism (Stanford Encyclopedia, 2006).Modern attempts to define disposition have been attempted by scholars (Gennaro, 1995 and Carruthers, 2000) who postulate that the cry sentience is a enormous comprehensive term covering a enormous range of metal phenomena. In its round-eyed range, consciousness can refer to a posit of an organism in its wholeness, in any case referred to as peter consciousness or to a certain psychological process or order similarly referred to as state consciousness. Since consciousness is a broad term, this class will juicylight the importee of consciousness in different contexts.A person, or a cognitive system, may can be said to be conscious in a number of ways the first sensory faculty is what Armstrong (1 981) referred to as sentience. A sentient creature is iodin that is able to sense its environment and oppose to it. In this sense, the energy to sense and move to an environmental stimulus is same to being conscious. The challenge in this translation lies in making a distinction in the midst of the responsiveness portrayed by liveness and animate creatures such as animals and humans and the responsiveness inherent in dyspnoeic objects such as salad dayss and trees.This is because a giveer responds to physical environmental as unvarnished in withering during the dry season. The new(prenominal) sense of defining consciousness is on the qui vive (Cole, 2002). In this sense, an organism is considered conscious not only by possessing inherent ability to respond to the environment and by being in a state or a disposition to really respond to it. cognizance in this sense refers to being normally alert or awake. In this commentary, an organism would be considered unconscio us if it were in a deep state of comma or sleep.In this definition too, there also lies some misty explanation since by defining consciousness as so, one(a) may need to define it further in terms of levels of consciousness. For instance, it is possible for a creature to be half-asleep, implying that it requires a slight arousal for it to be conscious, as in the definition. Another form of consciousness, identified by Carruthers (2000) is self-consciousness. This is a high level order of consciousness in which the creature is not only aware but also having the correct arrangement of the state of its sentience.Among humans, self-consciousness may foretell ones ability to differentiate himself from others, in aspects such as language, hierarchy, post etc. unmatchable who is unable to work on such a distinction would invariably be referred to as self-unconscious. In philosophy, self consciousness is equivalent to self-knowledge, which is utilize to commonly refer ones knowledg e of particular mental states including beliefs, sensations and desires (Stanford, 2003). A challenge that lies in this definition is that it disregards conscious forms of life, which may still be undergoing growth and development.For instance, a young tyke may be unaware of his status or privileges and as such, when consciousness is defined in this manner, it may assume that such is not conscious. Features of consciousness As mentioned earlier, consciousness is an umbrella term enveloping a broad range of sequels. To distinguish consciousness, it mystifys tyrannical to prize the feature of speechs that combine to bring out the conscious phenomena. By analyzing these features and later analyzing the features of the brain processes, it will be possible to assess the existence of a relation between the two.The characters of consciousness as identified in literature include A qualitative character- Siewert (1998) had suggested that there exist some go through desires or thoughts in all forms of consciousness. These are the ones that form the qualitative character of consciousness but they do not necessarily refer to sensory states. In essence, consciousness embodies some kind of feelings, though it is itself high than normal physical feeling. When an individual is conscious of something, there is a feel given to it, which happens beyond the physical human feelings.phenomenal structure- phenomena as applied in both psychology and philosophy denotes how things in the military man or the valet in general appear to an individual. For consciousness to be complete, this feature ought to be present, that is, there should be an effort deep within oneself that attempts to interpret a certain event or knowledge of the world around an individual. The phenomenal structure of consciousness, as portrayed in theory shows that consciousness is made up not only of sensory ideas but also by complex examples of space, time, body, self and the world (Siewert, 1998).Rep resentational theories of consciousness as published in the Stanford philosophy encyclopedia shows that representation of the world as it is has evolved slowly to become an important theme in the drive of consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia, 2006). Subjectivity- Consciousness is vanquishive in the sense that what is conscious can only be experienced by that creature in the prevailing condition. Creatures with similar capabilities are the only ones that can understand the what-it is comparable, a common phrase used to define consciousness (Nagel, 1974).In this sense, consciousness is field of operationsive, that is, it is understood from the creatures purport of view as opposed to being objective where facts would be understandable ground on available evidence. Self perspective- According to Searle (1992), conscious experiences exist not as isolated events but as states or modes of a conscious casing to self. For instance, the consciousness of pain is a happening experienced by a conscious relegate. The port of the sky as blue is a phenomena that appears as so to a subject.This implies that for consciousness to exist, the self subject which can be identified by, I think ask to be there. The self perspective is a crucial feature in consciousness since for any event to be reflected to the level of awareness there is need for the mind participation of the self through by gone experience. The requirement for this intellectual part in the subject is an important aspect of this study since intelligence forms one of the brain processes and so serves to suggest that there is a close link between consciousness and brain processes. Unity- a conscious system involves some form of unity.Cleeremans (2003) postulate that consciousness has a unity characteristic this unity is that which arises from the subjects ability to connect wide-ranging informations and representations and necessitate a coherent judgment. It is this unity in consciousness that can enable an individual to make a relation between past and present interpretations and therefore direct consciousness in a focused direction. early(a) features that are associated with consciousness include intentionality and transparency, a feature that recognizes the arousal of consciousness virtually an event due to an individuals intent to do so (Cole, 2002).For instance, ones consciousness about the 9/11 attack comes to an individual through an intentional thought. Once the intention matures, the inside(a) self becomes conscious of the event and the individual is said to be aware. There is also a energising flow of information in the conscious state. This dynamic flow is also referred to as a stream of consciousness in which the subject conscious state is active and visualizes events in a dynamic manner, just as in real live (Stanford Encyclopedia, 2003). done these features, consciousness in a subject performs some functions/ processes, most of which may follow from both sensory and cognitive aspects. Consciousness plays the first role of flexible go over of the physical actions of a subject (Anderson, 1983). When consciousness is defined as self-awareness, it implies that an individual measures and weighs options concerning an issue and as such, all actions are controlled in a state of awareness. In addition, consciousness enhances capacity for social coordination.Humphreys (1982) argues that a subject that is conscious is not only aware of itself and therefore its immediate needs but is also able to extend the awareness to other similar creatures. In a human context, being conscious therefore enables an individual to be conscious of others ring him which results to responsiveness to the events occurring in the social arena. exponentiation and responsiveness to the social environment leads to an consolidation of the like-subjects so that the social system develops values, beliefs, structures, intentions and perceptions.In addition to social coordinatio n, consciousness presents a subject with an integrated representation of reality. By combining experiential organization and oomph inherent in consciousness, it presents the world in an easy to understand frame. According to Campbell (1994), the features of consciousness help to constitute a pregnant structure of the world. Additionally, consciousness plays the following functions, all of which are additions, either to physical or cognitive processes it enhances informational access, enhances freedom of will and inbuilt motivation (Wegner, 2002).Going by these explanations, it is ostensible that the realm of consciousness is made up of both sensory functions and intellectual processes, implying that a significant part of consciousness is certified on brain processes. In the section below, a brief outline will be made of what constitutes brain processes and make efforts to establish a correlation between them and the features and functions of consciousness discussed above.