The problem of consciousness is related to one of the oldest questions of philosophy: what does the world consist of? Who am I? This is in principle related to the mind-body problem: what is the relationship between the physical and the mental? Solutions to this problem can
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Hume states that the mind is a kind of theater where different perceptions appear, pass by, come back again and mix in different situations. Dennett introduced the concept of 'Cartesian theater' (CT). This means that we feel that our "I" is somewhere in our head.
The global workspace
........Read moreQuestions about the nature of consciousness are closely tied to questions about the nature of the self, because it seems as if someone experiencing it is needed to bring about experiences. There are two ideas about the self in psychology: (1) there is such a thing as a self
........Read moreHow do the brain and consciousness interact with each other? CH.10
With the research into 'the neural correlates of consciousness' (NCC) aspects of neural functioning can be studied and it can be checked whether these correspond to the conscious experiences that people express. At NCC it is the correlation between neural functioning and conscious experiences without
........Read moreWhat views on the function of consciousness are there? CH.14
Two central questions are: (1) when does consciousness arise during human development ?, and (2) which contemporary beings are conscious? Pan psychologists believe that consciousness is not an all-or-nothing principle, but develops in different sizes. They believe that consciousness was already present before the evolution took
........Read moreWhat views are there on the consciousness of machines? CH.17
When asked whether a machine has a consciousness, two answers are possible from two perspectives. A functionalist will say that robots have a consciousness because they can perform certain tasks as robots. However, an inessentialist does not believe that machines or robots can have a consciousness because
........Read moreHow can we distinguish between reality and imagination? CH.20
In daily life we often distinguish between the outside world and what goes on in our heads. We do this without knowing that we use a skill for this. This skill is called 'reality monitoring' or 'reality discrimination'.
A hallucination is an experience that: (1) occurs in the
........Read moreWhat do sleep and dreams have to do with consciousness? CH.23
Every day we take cycles with three states: (1) being vigilant, (2) REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep and (3) non-REM sleep. Reports of non-REM dreams are often short and have few details. When people wake up during the REM sleep, they often say that they have
........Read moreWhat is known about the effect of meditation and mindfulness? CH.26
Meditation can be summarized as: (1) not thinking, but (2) having attention. Meditation often goes hand in hand with a special body posture. The goal is to make the body alert and relaxed. There are two methods for practicing meditation, namely (1) open
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