BCS 151 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: Consciousness, Panpsychism, Gabi Balint
10 Dec 2016
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Document Summary
Consciousness one of the last remaining great mysteries: definition: states of awareness of the outside world and of one"s own mental processes, thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, a global awareness. We know it intimately but it is still difficult to explain the experience. William james emphasis on the fluidity of consciousness. Function: monitoring mental events (introspection, controlling our actions to formulate and reach goals in adaptive ways. Provides a foundation for emotions (like embarrassment, empathy & envy) Tested using the mirror test in animals and babies. Failure does not mean lack of self-awareness: good for behavioral modification. Goal: to identify neural processes that are causally involved in consciousness: it is believed that if we focus on the easy problem, the answers to the hard problem will come later. Consciousness used to be the central topic for discussion and investigation in early psychology. Wundt psychology is the investigation of conscious processes in the modes of connections peculiar to them.
