The Philosophy of Consciousness

The term "consciousness" will be thought of as, "the state of being mentally awake to one's surroundings (by Webster's Dictionary)," throughout this paper. I'm going to approach consciousness from a biological approach and say that consciousness exists within the cerebral cortex of the brain. I'm also going to say that anything that has this has consciousness. Consciousness is an element possessed only by living things with these attributes. With the exception of aliens which are considered living, but may contain something similar to a brain with a cerebral cortex. This is because of what I learned in a previous biology course. I'm not being closed minded about this, I've listened to the other points of view on this topic and I've adopted portions of those other views while still keeping mine as the most sufficient way in defining what consciousness is. I know it's hard to understand how neurons in the brain can cause this, but scientists don't exactly have all the knowledge there is to the brain. They only know so little, but they know enough to understand where consciousness comes from. To not accept science would be out right insane, for it explains many a things of the unknown. I'm not going to say that consciousness is something beyond us, like there would be consciousness if our bodies disintegrated. Things can be explained in terms of science, but if we can't prove something and come up with wild ideas like the mind is some non-existent force within the world, then we must reject that. I can't propose a full proof theory, but I can try hard to provide the best I can come up with, using good reasoning and logic and not psychobabble.

As a computer can take ones and zeros and produce a certain output, the mind acts in similar way. Software within the computer tells how each bit is perceived. The mind is understood by rules and guidelines too that it must follow to produce certain sensations. The brain is a physical thing, but it must be run by non-physical means, like computers. It follows procedures to produce outputs such as thoughts and the like. I'm not saying the mind runs the brain, I'm saying that the brain creates, uses, maintains, etc., the mind and that the brain is run by nonphysical means like software in the computer.

In addressing plants, bacteria, amebas and the like, non-living, and the dead, it's extremely difficult for me or anyone to see how rocks, chairs and even bacteria possess consciousness. Animals are difficult to understand. I can only take things from my perspective, maybe, just maybe bacteria, viruses and the like all possess consciousness. But it seems that animals are just here and all they do is exist. They live life and never question it. But we shouldn't deny them consciousness because they can't speak our languages etc.

Per say some foreign being of another world came upon this earth. Would you grant it consciousness because he can communicate with you fully? Not necessarily, because he could be merely pre-programmed and have been equipped with the ability to communicate with you. Do you question how this being can have consciousness? Seeing how I don't know of other worldly creatures, it's possible that these beings can have consciousness and not possess a brain, but something similar.

When we use words like, "imagine," we are using our minds. If I said imagine a pink elephant riding a mouse, an image of this would "appear" in your mind. This image doesn't exist in the real world, but within your mind, of which your brain composed it. If we stripped the world of everything and annihilated everything that currently exists, conscious would not exist and all there would be is nothingness. Our minds are independent to our bodies and we cannot use telekinesis to talk with other minds and thus, we are not many minds of a larger one. We all have separate minds to accommodate ourselves.

I know this is a bunch of jibber-jabber, but it's the best I can do in explaining my theories. I mean, take Furbies for instance, do they possess consciousness because they can "learn?" No, they are preprogrammed, but can they still have consciousness? With machines, I would say that it's just wires and electrical circuits and nothing more. On the other hand, if we attached a brain to a machine that we could some how keep alive in a vile or something, I would grant the brain with consciousness, but not the machine. We can create machines, such as computers to perform unbelievable amounts of tasks, but all they are doing is following the instruction set given to them by software installed on it. The mind exists not above, to the side, or below us, but within our brains. The brain composes the mind and if the brain is absent so is the mind. Our bodies can exist without minds but not brains and we don't require minds to live.

Source: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/