Consciousness
Consciousness
In Beat Your Addiction we emphasize the problems caused by dichotomous thinking. Dichotomous thinking not only causes problems in addictions and mental illness, but also in philosophical and scientific areas. One of these is the problem of consciousness. How does the machinery of the brain create awareness, consciousness, self-awareness, etc.? It seems mysterious, and people search for the answer in mysticism, vital forces, quantum theory, and neuronal structures. The difficulty is that in dichotomous thinking, a being is either conscious or not. Plants don't have awareness, humans do. Worms, we don't know, and people argue about that in the same way that biologists argue about whether viruses are or are not alive.
But if we think in shades of gray rather than black or white, the mystery fades. If we think of levels of consciousness from primitive bare awareness to high level self-consciousness there is less mystery because there is no sudden emergence of this wonderful phenomenon from out of some mysterious mechanism. The problem is clarified still further if the levels of consciousness are seen as a series embedded in a continuum of responsivity from the simplest response, the deflection of two subatomic particles which collide, to the most complex, human self-consciousness.
We'll have more to say about this issue from time to time. What do you think? Let us know.
Thought question: can a computer become conscious? Can it have self awareness?
In Beat Your Addiction we emphasize the problems caused by dichotomous thinking. Dichotomous thinking not only causes problems in addictions and mental illness, but also in philosophical and scientific areas. One of these is the problem of consciousness. How does the machinery of the brain create awareness, consciousness, self-awareness, etc.? It seems mysterious, and people search for the answer in mysticism, vital forces, quantum theory, and neuronal structures. The difficulty is that in dichotomous thinking, a being is either conscious or not. Plants don't have awareness, humans do. Worms, we don't know, and people argue about that in the same way that biologists argue about whether viruses are or are not alive.
But if we think in shades of gray rather than black or white, the mystery fades. If we think of levels of consciousness from primitive bare awareness to high level self-consciousness there is less mystery because there is no sudden emergence of this wonderful phenomenon from out of some mysterious mechanism. The problem is clarified still further if the levels of consciousness are seen as a series embedded in a continuum of responsivity from the simplest response, the deflection of two subatomic particles which collide, to the most complex, human self-consciousness.
We'll have more to say about this issue from time to time. What do you think? Let us know.
Thought question: can a computer become conscious? Can it have self awareness?
posted by
PsychologicalSolutions | 3:59 PM
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