![Image](https://www.worldsupporter.org/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/bundle/wereldbol_summaries_joho_single_boek_1_150x190px_0.png?itok=PgQm9J5z)
JoHo kan jouw hulp goed gebruiken! Check hier de diverse studentenbanen die aansluiten bij je studie, je competenties verbeteren, je cv versterken en een bijdrage leveren aan een tolerantere wereld
Some people say that they have exceptional experiences that others can not imagine. For example, James speaks of someone who is standing on a mountain top and feels that his soul 'opens' and goes to infinity. Such an experience is also called an ' exceptional human experience' (EHE) . This category includes religious experiences, lucid dreams and mystical experiences.What do these kinds of experiences actually say? There are roughly three different answers to this:There are people who believe that people lie with these experiences or come up with things or that these experiences are side effects of brain processes. Then there are people who use EHEs to indicate that materialism is wrong and that the paranormal and the soul exist. Finally, there are people who consider these experiences as normal and try to understand them without using terms like God and spirits. Out-of-body experiences, OBE, are events in which someone feels that he is outside of himself and looks at the world. An OBE can occur just like that: if someone walks on the street or sits on the couch. Before such a thing happens, people are often relaxed and have reduced sensory input. An OBE often takes a few minutes. With an ' asomatic' OBE, someone only has the feeling that he has a consciousness, while he is not in his own body. With a 'parasomatic' OBE, there is a second body outside the body that you have.An OBE is not something like a dream. People who experience an OBE say that their senses become sharper during an OBE. OBErs are less afraid of death when they have experienced an OBE. In addition, they often remember their dreams better and often have lucid dreams.There is no connection between OBE and psychopathology...
JoHo can really use your help! Check out the various student jobs here that match your studies, improve your competencies, strengthen your CV and contribute to a more tolerant world
The problem of consciousness is related to some of the oldest questions of philosophy: what does the world consist of? Who am I? It relates to the mind-body problem: what is the relationship between the physical and the mental?
Despite the fact that we are learning more and more about the functioning of the brain, consciousness remains a mystery. In the past, they used the term 'élan vital' to explain how non-living things could be made alive. Nowadays this concept is no longer used, since we know that biological processes are responsible for this. Some scientists believe that the same will also happen with the term consciousness. Once we understand how brain processes create a sense of consciousness, then we might not need to use this term anymore.
Consciousness requires some sort of dualism: objectivity vs. subjectivity, inner vs. outer, mind vs. body...
For example: Take a pencil in your hand and look at it. You see the pencil from your own unique perspective, which you cannot share with others. The pencil is part of the outside world, your experience with the pencil is part of your inner world.
The way philosophers view the consciousness problem can generally be divided into monist theories, which suggest that there are one kind of things in the world, and dualist theories, which suggest that there are two kinds of things. Some theories state that the mental world is fundamental and some theories state that the physical world is fundamental.
Monistic theories assume that the world consists of only one kind of matter (body or mind). Some monistic theories state that everything consists of the mind, according to these theories we only have ideas and perceptions of a pencil. We do not know if a pencil really exists. People who assume this are called mentalists or idealists. Berkeley supported this principle. The disadvantage of this perspective is that we can never know for certain whether objects with fixed characteristics exist.
Materialists are also monists. They believe that there is only matter. An example for this is the identity theory, which states that mental experiences are the same as physical experiences. Another example is functionalism, which assumes that mental experiences are the same as functional experiences.
Epiphenomenalism assumes that physical processes cause mental events, but that mental events have no effect on physical events. Huxley was a supporter of this idea. He did not deny that consciousness or subjective experiences existed, but stated that they have no (causal) connection with physical processes. He used
.......read moreJoHo kan jouw hulp goed gebruiken! Check hier de diverse studentenbanen die aansluiten bij je studie, je competenties verbeteren, je cv versterken en een bijdrage leveren aan een tolerantere wereld
There are several ways to navigate the large amount of summaries, study notes en practice exams on JoHo WorldSupporter.
Do you want to share your summaries with JoHo WorldSupporter and its visitors?
Field of study
Add new contribution