Consciousness You May Be Conscious at This Very Moment!

ConsciousnessYou May Be Conscious at This Very Moment!

What the hell is consciousness? How would you define consciousness?

René Descartes The Cartesian Theater (Daniel Dennet)

Unconscious Mind: what is not visible to the mind’s eye

Cogito Ergo Sum

“I think, therefore…?”

Phenomenology Most sciences study observable objects but…

Consciousness is not an empirically observable object

Phenomenology: how things seem to the conscious person Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) Phenomenological Epoche Where are you?

Problems with the Study of Consciousness Problem of Other Minds

The fundamental difficulty we have in perceiving the consciousness of others Philosopher’s zombie: looks, talks, acts conscious but ISN’T Even electrical monitors like “consciousness meters” only predict whether patients

will say after the fact that they WERE conscious Alan Turing?

In the Eye of the Beholder Where does the perception of other minds come from?

Simply from the mind of the perceiver

People judge minds according to the capacity for (1) experience (e.g. the ability to feel pain, pleasure, hunger, consciousness, anger,

or fear) and… (2) the capacity for agency (self-control, planning, memory, or thought)

Mind/Body Problem Descartes said…what?

Modern psychologists might say, “The mind is what the brain does.”

Brain’s activities may actually PRECEDE the activities of the conscious mind Electrical activity starts roughly 300 milliseconds before conscious wishes are

registered and about 535 milliseconds before action occurs Consciousness: epiphenomenal?

Benjamin Libet

Consciousness: Basic Elements Intentionality

Consciousness is always directed towards some object

Unity Consciousness is resistant to division Multitasking?

Franz Brentano1838-1917

Consciousness: Basic Elements (2) Selectivity

Capacity to include some objects and not others Dichotic listening Cocktail Party Phenomenon

Transience Tendency to change Mind wanders from one “right now” to the next “right now” and then on to the next Stream of consciousness Immanuel Kant? Working memory limitations

Different Levels of Consciousness Minimal Consciousness: consciousness that occurs when the mind inputs

sensations and may output behavior

Self-Consciousness: when a person’s attention is drawn to the self as an object Tendency to notice shortcomings Mirrors increase self-consciousness

Full Consciousness: when you know and are able to report your mental state When you realize pain hurts, when you’re able to report or reflect upon your feelings

Can animals achieve self-consciousness or full consciousness?

Conscious Contents How to accurately measure what comes to mind?

Have people report Sample randomly Anything else?

Much of consciousness is directed towards immediate environment What is seen, felt, heard, tasted, and smelled

Otherwise: current concerns What you think about repeatedly Your mental “to-do” list Emotional?

Why do “Current Concerns” consume you? Daydreaming

“a state of consciousness in which a seemingly purposeless flow of thoughts comes to mind”

Developmental/Evolutionary roots?

Isn’t It Ironic? Mental Control: the attempt to change conscious states of mind

Thought Suppression: the conscious avoidance of a thought Don’t think of a polar bear! Rebound effect of thought suppression: the tendency of a thought to return to

consciousness with greater frequency following suppression

Ironic Processes of Mental Control: ironic errors occur because the mental process that monitors errors can itself produce them The process that monitors errors operates in the unconscious mind and stays alert to

signs of the thought that it wants to suppress But this means that part of the mind is always ON the suppressed thought!

The Unconscious Mind Freudian Unconscious

“Dynamic Unconscious”? Repression Inferable from consciousness Wishes, drives, rules

The Unconscious Mind (2) Cognitive Unconscious

All the mental process that are not experienced by a person but that give rise to the person’s thoughts, choices, emotions, and behavior

Subliminal Perception Thoughts of getting old = slower movement?

Sleep and Dreaming! Altered State of Consciousness: a form of experience that departs

significantly from the normal subjective experience of the world and the mind

States of Sleep: (1) hypnagogic state; (2) hypnic jerk; (3) SLEEP!; (4) hypnopompic state

Circadian rhythm: naturally occurring 24-hour cycle Err…25.1 hour cycle?

Stages of Sleep Waking: Beta and Alpha waves (activity, relaxation)

Stage 1: Theta Waves (more relaxed than Alpha Waves)

Stage 2: Sleep Spindles, K Complexes

Stage 3/4: Delta Waves (“slow-wave” sleep, hard to awaken)

REM Sleep Stage 5: REM Sleep

A stage of sleep characterized by rapid eye movements and a high level of brain activity (similar to Beta Waves)

Those awakened report having dreams more often than at other stages Signs of sexual arousal Wild dreams Dreams occur in “real time”

Really?

REM Sleep

Sleep: Do You REALLY Need It? REALLY? Newborns sleep 6-8 times in 24 hours totaling more than 16 hours

Typical 6-year-old needs 11-12 hours

Adults need 7-7.5 hours a nigh

Randy Gardner: record holder for most consecutive hours awake

Sleep appears to be necessary for memory consolidation

Rats last 21 days without sleep

REM sleep deprivation leads to memory problems and excessive aggression REM rebound after a night of no sleep

Dreams Characteristics?

1. Intensely emotional 2. Illogical 3. Sensation is fully formed and meaningful (especially visual, sometimes sound,

touch, movement) 4. Uncritical Acceptance 5. Difficulty of remembering dream afterwards

Theories of Dreams Hobson & McCarley’s “activation-synthesis model”

Dreams are produced when the mind attempts to make sense of random neural activity that occurs in the brain during sleep

Mind continues to INTERPRET signals as if they were meaningful, even though they’re not

Theories of Dreams (2) Freud!

The Dreams of Children

Manifest/Latent Contents

Daily Residues

Rules: Condensation (combination), Displacement (emotional significance separated from true object), Visualization, Secondary Revision

Nightmares?

Other Altered States of Consciousness Drug Use

Hypnotism

Meditation