Stream of consciousness

Altered states of conscious, as addressed in chapter 4, is defined “general name for phenomena that are different from normal waking consciousness and include mystic perceptual and sensory experiences, such as medication, hypnosis, trance, and possession” (Shiraev & Levy, 2016, p.128) From the altered states of conscious stated above, I’ve personally experienced meditation as a form of achieving tranquility and a stress-free state. Shiraev and Levy explain that meditation is a “quiet and relaxed…

Unlike Dualism, Materialism only sees the world as matter (Blackmore 20). This means that concepts such as consciousness are a direct result of physical interactions that occur within our brain. Materialism focuses on what can be seen and measured. For instance, the state of being happy is caused by a hormone, dopamine, and that the feeling of happiness is nothing…

work of the conscious mind, but the unconscious does these things as well. The adaptive unconscious is probably older than the conscious mind. The newer, conscious mind sometimes creates the illusion of control: will is sometimes an illusion. Consciousness, to use an analogy, is like Ronald Reagan: it appears to be the executive, but in fact does not have the amount of control we assume it does. So what are the specific difference between the two systems? The adaptive unconscious has multiple…

Dr. Ian Stevenson, a researcher on reincarnation, identified consciousness as a separate entity from the body that can be continued onto the afterlife and is verifiable in children. The video focuses on a case study done by Dr. Ian Stevenson’s mentee, Dr. Jim Tucker, on a little boy named Sam. The most prominent issue Dr. Jim Tucker aims to resolve in this film is the long standing belief of children fabricating their past life memories or the memories are influenced by their parent’s…

inside, and the development of, this universe. This speculation opens more questions than offers help towards the theory. The third hypothesis is known as the mind-body hypothesis and postulates that the body and the mind, more specifically the consciousness are separate. The brain is part of the body and the mind is separate from the brain the body resides in the physical world while the mind exists outside of space-time.…

does not exist in a universal form, but rather is experienced in varied manners in differing states of consciousness, with radically greater intensity perceived in a waking state than can be produced in dreams—assuming that consciousness exists in a binary, that the state enjoyed presently is the only wakeful state, and there is not a greater degree of sensation in a higher state of consciousness. Along Locke’s logic, the skeptic’s decision to refuse placing his hand in the furnace validates…

think the mind is divisible because there are mental disorders and drugs that could divide the mind. Mental disorders that can divide one’s mind would be Alzheimer’s, being bipolar, and Tourette’s syndrome. Drugs can also divide one’s mind through consciousness,…

Many may believe that they are the same person throughout all their life. However, can one really say that the person who is reading this essay right now is the same person 10 years ago? Many philosophers have wondered if one’s memory can effectively determine personal identity. Well, in what follows, I will argue that memories do not determine one’s personal identity over time. In fact, there is no enduring self that would define personal identity. One way of determining personal identity is…

I have had a near death experience, but I have also heard many stories about near death. Death comes to anybody and everybody, no matter the time. When your death chance may come nobody knows when and where it will happen. Throughout the stories I have heard, nobody knows that it is coming until it's too late. Everybody has said throughout their experiences that after they almost died their priorities change. When I was in a car accident my priorities changed such as I used to only think…

On the question whether machines can think, Descartes and Turing are in Strong disagreement. Evaluate the arguments on either side. Does Searle's 'Chinese Room' argument help resolve the debate? The question of the potential of thinking machines has both been addressed by Descartes and Turing. At the heart of the debate, the question of language and how thought can be constructed, remains the major point of difference. The essay will look at Turing’s argument for machines thinking and…