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. Philosophers divide consciousness into phenomenal consciousness which is experience itself and access consciousness which is the processing of the things in experience (Block 2004).

Functions of consciousness

We generally agree that our fellow human beings are conscious and that lower life forms such as bacteria are not. Many of us attribute consciousness to higher-order animals such as dolphins and primates; academic research is investigating which rather than whether animals are conscious. This suggests the hypothesis that consciousness has co-evolved with life, which would require it to have some sort of added value. People have therefore looked for specific functions of consciousness. Bernard Baars (1997) for instance states that “consciousness is a supremely functional adaptation” and suggests a variety of functions in which consciousness plays a role: prioritization of alternatives, problem solving, decision making, brain processes recruiting, action control, error detection, planning, learning, adaptation, context creation, and access to information. Antonio Damasio (1999) regards consciousness as part of an organism’s survival kit, allowing planned rather than instinctual responses. He also points out that awareness of self allows a concern for one’s own survival, which increases the drive to survive. Although how far consciousness is involved in behaviour is an actively debated issue. Many psychologists, such as radical behaviourists, and many philosophers, such as those who support Ryle's approach, would maintain that behaviour can be explained by non-conscious processes akin to artificial intelligence and might consider consciousness to be epiphenomenal or only weakly related to function.

Related Topics:
Bernard Baars - Antonio Damasio - Behaviourists - Ryle's - Artificial intelligence - Epiphenomenal

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