Consciousness 1 Flashcards
What is subjective experience?
Internal experiences produced by the individual mind.
What is reflective awareness?
Reflecting upon an experience –> Phenomenal experience –> access consciousness by Ned Block.
What is self-awareness?
Knowing that our experience is ours and different form others’ experience.
- Mirror test for animals
What is content consciousness?
Awareness of external and internal things while you are conscious.
What is state consciousness?
If you are physically conscious or not (ie. Being in a coma, asleep, awake, under anesthesia)
Explain Dualism
Mind and body are fundamentally distinct substances (Descartes) that can exist separately.
Describe phenomenal consciousness
Subjective (internal) experiences such as the sensation of seeing red or feeling pain.
First order awareness.
Describe the contrastive approach
method to study consciousness. Compare conscious vs unconscious events. E.g., use subliminal vs conscious stimuli (awake vs asleep). Look for neural correlates of consciousness.
What did the Cambridge declaration say?
At least mammals, birds and octopi are conscious.
–> Mirror test
Are machines conscious? Describe Turing’s test.
No. Turing test–> if machines can fool a person into thinking it’s another person, then it’s conscious.
Describe Searle’s Chinase room.
Searle was skeptical about Turing’s test. He proposed an analogy in which a person, who didn’t speak chinase, was placed in a room with books which specify how to answer questions in chinase. Person would be able to respond without being conscious of what they are saying.
What is qualia?
The subjective qualitative characteristics of an experience that gives it a particular feel.
What are some implications of understanding consciousness?
- Important to identify brain areas and how it relates to certain functions.
- Medical implications –> know if a person in vegetative state is conscious and to what extent.
