In an effort to simplify the complexity in the studies of consciousness, the author suggests to divide the conscious experiences into a fundamental state, the intrinsic awareness (IA), and functions of this fundamental state. IA does not depend on external environment, our sense organs, and our cognitions. This ground state of consciousness is timeless and irreducible to sub-constituents;...
The philosophy of mind is intimately connected with the philosophy of action. Therefore, concepts like free will, motivation, emotions (especially positive emotions), and also the ethical issues related to these concepts are of abiding interest. However, the concepts of consciousness and free will are usually discussed solely in linguistic, ideational and cognitive (i.e. "left brain") terms....
In spite of the inherent difficulties in achieving a biologically meaningful definition of consciousness, recent neurophysiological studies are starting to provide some insight in fundamental mechanisms associated with impaired consciousness in neurological disorders. Generalised seizures are associated with disruption of the default state network, a functional network of discrete brain areas,...
Event Abstract Back to Event Probing cortical oscillations with transcranial stimulation Bradley R. Postle1* 1 University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States The past decade has witnessed an explosion of interest in cortical oscillations as a fundamental property of brain function. Oscillatory dynamics have been implicated in, for example, perception, binding information across anatomically...
Neuroimaging studies measure cerebral rates of glucose and oxygen consumption yet they are often interpreted to support philosophical positions about mental processes presumed to represent behavior. Cognitive Neuroscience has claimed that Neuroimaging resolves Descartes’ dualism of Mind and Matter by mapping such presumed mental processes onto the brain. Bennett & Hacker point out that this is...
This paper aims to discuss Spinoza’s theory of consciousness by arguing that consciousness is the expression of bodily complexity in terms of adequate knowledge. Firstly, I present the link that Spinoza built up in the second part of the Ethics between the ability of the mind to know itself and the idea ideae theory. Secondly, I present in what sense consciousness turns out to be the result of...
Contemporary psychologists investigate the dream’s role in memory. 1 Yet, our existential experience of the dream is one of forgetting— of being immersed in a reality that seems to stretch back in time to an origin beyond remembrance. At the next moment, we wake and the dream vanishes from the horizon of consciousness, sometimes completely but even when we retain it, our reports to a friend or...
The capacity to be creative, to produce new concepts, ideas, inventions, objects or art, is perhaps the most important attribute of the human brain. We know very little, however, about the nature of creativity or its neural basis. Some important questions include how should we define creativity? How is it related (or unrelated) to high intelligence? What psychological processes or environmental...
Statistical learning is assumed to occur automatically and implicitly, but little is known about the extent to which the representations acquired over training are available to conscious awareness. In this study, we focus on whether the knowledge acquired in a statistical learning situation is available to conscious control. Participants were first exposed to an artificial language presented...
Resting state fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) acquisitions are characterized by low-frequency spontaneous activity in a default mode network (encompassing medial brain areas and linked to self-related processes) and an anticorrelated "extrinsic" system (encompassing lateral frontoparietal areas and modulated via external sensory stimulation). In order to better determine the...