NATS 1860 Lecture Notes - Neural Correlates Of Consciousness, Global Workspace Theory, Blindsight
7 Mar 2013
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Document Summary
It"s only recently that we focus on consciousness as an attribute of the brain. Philosophy of the mind: first of all you need to define consciousness: It"s used for memory retrieval, problem solving, etc. Consciousness is the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli: however, just because it can react doesn"t mean its conscious. The integration of information by a cognitive system. The reportability of mental states: therefore, consciousness is an access to the current mental state. The ability of a system to access its own internal states. The focus of attention: this is a vast topic, and the book doesn"t do the topic justice, what you"re paying attention to you"re often conscious of. It involves the deliberate control of behaviour: there a certain type of brain damage when you"re conscious of the world, but you cannot do anything about it. Easy v. hard problems: chalmers (1996) suggests the previous aspects of consciousness will eventually be explained scientifically.
