Lecture 18 Consciousness

Question 1

Consciousness

Answer 1

Consciousness is a limited resource and you can only focus on a couple things at a time.

Question 2

Creature Consciousness

Answer 2

Some creature, or kinds of creature, have the

ability to have mental - state consciousness

Question 3

Mental - State Consciousness

Answer 3

• Whether some particular mental state is conscious

or not

Question 4

Automatization

Answer 4

As we get better at things, they become easier to do, and faster, and we lose consciousness of doing them. (driving)

Question 5

Idea of children

Answer 5

Children tend to be more conscious of different things because they are new to them

Question 6

Consciousness in not the main event

Answer 6

Much of what the brain/ mind does is not available to consciousness, or does not require consciousness.
It is like an iceberg

Question 7

Intuition

Answer 7

When we perceive or decide to believe something without having a notion of how the idea came about.
(can be caused by automatization)
(genetic and learned intuitions)
People who sell things take advantage of your gut feeling

Question 8

Phobia

Answer 8

We are conditioned to fear spiders and snakes

Question 9

Free will

Answer 9

Experiments show that brainwaves show a decision before you’re going to make it, you decision is more of a notification and a rationalization after the fact.

Question 10

Qualia

Answer 10

The qualities of consciousness, you have qualia of the colour red, or taste, hear etc. but not the direction north.

Question 11

Blindsight

Answer 11

no visual qualia, some part of their brain has access to visual information, but it can not go to the brain part that processes visual perceptions

Question 12

Severed corpus collosum

Answer 12

You have conflicting wills on what you want to do, wanting to wear a different dress

Question 13

The Chinese Room

Answer 13

Its a thought experiment, guy in the room who doesn’t know Chinese but has a book that translates Chinese, the person who puts in the Chinese letters to have them translated receives them back and is surprised that the person that is translates is good at Chinese.

Question 14

Philosophical Zombie

Answer 14

a zombie is a being that is like a human but has no conscious experience

Question 15

Neurological Zombie

Answer 15

a behavioral zombie, the brain states of which are

indistinguishable from a human

Question 16

Higher Order thought modes

Answer 16

A class of consciousness theories are functional, they claim that things are conscious when involved with abstract or high level thought

Question 17

Baars Global Workspace Model

Answer 17

Consciousness highlights certain parts memory, that are viewable by other processes.

Question 18

Dennett’s Multiple Drafts Model

Answer 18

There are multiple processed in the mind that interpret things. These are like multiple drafts of the same story, such as picking up a glass of water