What is consciousness?

By Nanthana Lathan Year 10 To this day, scientists and philosophers are still debating new ideas on what consciousness is, many of these controversial and puzzling. Many agree that there is some sort of consciousness within humans and even mammals, the topic continues to baffle scientists and philosophers. The main debate is how and what needs to be explained and analysed to achieve the answer of what consciousness is. Some may refer to consciousness as an aspect of "inner life" . It could also mean a certain level of awareness, or refer to an individual's thoughts and imagination. All these explanations have implications for our life as a society, as the idea of consciousness gives rise to the idea of conscience.

State of Consciousness

The state of consciousness refers to the brain being aware of the internal and external environments in order to react to a situation or simply being aware of our surroundings. There are times where consciousness is absent from our brain, for instance in dreamless sleeps or in comas. There are also circumstances where the relationship between the mind and the world can be hindered, known as "altinerate consciousness" . This can be produced through drugs, alcohol or can occur naturally.

Scientific Study

Scientists avoided researching the topic of consciousness for many years due to it being something hard to test, as it always seemed hard to define in measurable terms. However, there have been experiments and testing on the brain exploring how consciousness can affect the brain activity.

Neural Correlates

This refers to an experiment where scientists examined the relationship between the subject doing the activity and what the brain is signalling in the scans when doing the activity simultaneously. The aim was to determine if a particular part of the brain or a pattern was seen to associate it with the consciousness awareness that is occurring when doing the activities, using several brain imaging machinery such as EEG and fMRI scans. This led to the theory that consciousness was associated with the high-frequency oscillation of brain activity (repetitive patterns of the neural activity in the central nervous system). This idea came about in 1980 when Christof von der Maksburg and Wolf Singer stated gamma oscillation coils solve the so-called blinding problem, by linking information from different parts of the brain into a unified experience.

These experiments showed how consciousness is the state of being aware of situations and the surroundings in order for us to act accordingly. The brain shows different wavelength patterns when doing different activities therefore this could link to our consciousness and how we apply that to different circumstances we are in. Although the origins of consciousness and how it came about still remains a mystery there are still more improvements and discoveries within this area of research.

Philosophical Perspectives

“Consciousness” has often been described as the part of the soul, which defines morality and ethical choices. Many religious people believe that the conscience is the voice of God guiding humans through their life and aiding them to make good choices whilst providing free will. This is one of the beliefs in Christanity, as well as other religions. It is believed that consciousness is the religious awareness of

God. There are often many correlations between the soul and one's consciousness. Things that are ruled by your consciousness consist of being aware of the different outcomes from situations and the variety of feelings such as guilt or worry. Other philosophers believe that the conscious cannot be defined. Instead, they believe it is something that we have to co-exist with, without knowing the true explanation for what it is and why we have it.

Concluding words…

In conclusion, the brain is a complex organ in our body with different functions and needs. Consciousness still remains an enigma within our body due to the testing difficulties. Yet, there are many theories associated with it. By having many interpretations of the consciousness state, it opens doors to new possibilities and allows more room for research to be done to solve this problem. In order to get a result and full explanation, new technology needs to be used and there will eventually be a breakthrough in this case. Therefore, the question on what consciousness is still stands unresolved. Nevertheless, there are many ideas and thoughts which are used to fill that space for the definition of consciousness.

Sources

● Wikipedia. 2022. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. [Accessed 11 February 2022]. ● Is consciousness a product of the brain or/and a divine act of God? Concise insights from neuroscience and Christian theology. 2022. Is consciousness a product of the brain or/and a divine act of God? Concise insights from neuroscience and Christian theology. [ONLINE] Available at: scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0259-94222016000400125. [Accessed 11 February 2022].