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Consciousness
Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally
regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience,
sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one's
environment. It is a subject of much research in philosophy of mind, psychology,
neuroscience, and cognitive science.
Higher Consciousness
Evolution in this sense is not that which occurs by natural
selection over generations of human reproduction but evolution brought about by
the application of spiritual knowledge to the conduct of human life. Through the
application of such knowledge (traditionally the preserve of the world's great
religions) to practical self-management, the awakening and development of
faculties dormant in the ordinary human being is achieved.
Mind and Brain Portal
Representation of consciousness from the 17th century. Some philosophers divide
consciousness into phenomenal consciousness, which is experience itself, and
access consciousness, which is the processing of the things in experience
Phenomenal consciousness is the state of being conscious, such as when we say "I
am conscious." Access consciousness is being conscious of something in relation
to abstract concepts, such as when we say "I am conscious of these words."
Various forms of access consciousness include awareness, self-awareness,
conscience, stream of consciousness, Husserl's phenomenology, and
intentionality. The concept of phenomenal consciousness, in modern history,
according to some, is closely related to the concept of qualia.
An understanding of necessary preconditions for consciousness in the human brain
may allow us to address important ethical questions. For instance, to what
extent are non-human animals conscious? At what point in fetal development does
consciousness begin? Can machines achieve conscious states? Are todays
autonome and intelligent machines already conscious? These issues are of great
interest to those concerned with the ethical treatment of other beings, be they
animals, fetuses, or, in the future, machines.
In common parlance, consciousness denotes being awake and responsive to one's
environment; this contrasts with being asleep or being in a coma. The term
'level of consciousness' denotes how consciousness seems to vary during
anesthesia and during various states of mind, such as day dreaming, lucid
dreaming, imagining, etc. No consciousness exists when consciousness is not
present. There is speculation, mostly among religious groups, that consciousness
may exist after death or before birth. Self Discovery Life Mastery is a method
by which one can manage their consciousness deliberately.
Books
Ned Block: On a Confusion about a Function of Consciousness" in: The
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1995.
Stuart Shieber (ed): The Turing test : verbal behavior as the hallmark of
intelligence, Cambrigde, Mass, MIT Press, 2004, ISBN 978-0-262-69293-9
Steven Marcus: Neuroethics: mapping the field. Dana Press, New York 2002.
ISBN 978-0-9723830-0-4 .
See Aquinas, De Veritate 17,1 c.a.
See Catherine G. Davies, Conscience as Consciousness, Oxford 1990, and
Hennig, Cartesian Conscientia.
See Etienne Balibar, Identité et différence. Le chapitre II, xxvii de
l'Essay concerning Human Understanding de Locke. L'invention de la conscience.
Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1998. ISBN 978-2-02-026300-9
See Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, §355.
a b Christof Koch, The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological
Approach. Englewood, Colorado: Roberts and Company Publishers.
Dennett, D.C. and Hofstadter, D. (1985). The Mind's I: Fantasies and
reflections on self and soul (ISBN 978-0-553-34584-1)
Chalmers, D. (1997) The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory.
Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-511789 {{Please check ISBN|0195117891
Searle, J. (1980) "Minds, Brains and Programs" Behavioral and Brain
Sciences 3, 417-424.
Spiritual
Consciousness
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