What is consciousness - just about the complex

Adviсe

• What is consciousness?
• Main characteristics of consciousness
• Conscious and unconscious actions
• Consciousness and self-awareness
• How to master the conscious and subconscious

A person doesn’t even think about why mental images appear in him, he manages to realize the situations that have happened, think about them and draw conclusions. We don't just store facts and a knowledge base, we are able to reflect, use our mental faculties, analyze, appreciate, create and love. We are drawn to the beautiful, the unknown and the perfect. The source of these abilities is our consciousness. No matter how trivial it may be, it is what distinguishes us from animals and other life forms. But what is consciousness? What are its features? How is the formation and development of consciousness carried out?

What is consciousness?

The study of consciousness is carried out by philosophy, psychology and other sciences, the subject of which is artificial intelligence. In a broad sense, consciousness is perceived as a form of any psychological reflection. In a narrow sense, consciousness is defined as the perception of what enters the human brain. From this concept it follows that consciousness is characteristic only of people.

Although scientists are making every effort to study this psychological feature of a person, it is impossible to fully understand its form and source of development. Therefore, computers and robots fail to achieve conscious action. Researchers can recognize how the latest computer works, but there are a number of differences between it and the workings of the human brain.

In practice, consciousness is a collection of sensory and mental images, which are the subject of deep reflection. Scientists believe that similar psychological processes occur in the brains of some developed animals: horses, dolphins, dogs, monkeys and others. However, the presence of this psychological process does not yet indicate awareness and the ability to perceive. The mechanism of the process and the result of information processing is the main property inherent only to humans. Considering the individuality and complexity of the formation of consciousness, it is beginning to be considered a phenomenon that holds many secrets and features incomprehensible to humans.

Reviews and comments

If you have your own thoughts about what consciousness is, share it in the comments to this article. Let's discuss whether reality is really subjective (that is, everyone has their own) or whether there is some kind of common denominator... Agree, it is difficult to accept that no one knows and will never know what reality really is.

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Key words:1Cognitive science

Main characteristics of consciousness

Actively. This characteristic applies to many animals, but a distinctive feature of man is the ability to psychologically reflect reality, to perceive the world around him not passively and indifferently, but according to the degree of significance. Such differentiation occurs consciously, but without human intervention in the psychological processes of the brain.

Intentionally. This property means “aspiration”, “direction”. The characteristic of consciousness is expressed in a person’s desire to realize a goal that appears as a result of conscious thinking or unconscious intention. In the literal sense, “intention” implies a person’s attraction to the implementation of a given task without direct intervention.

The presence of the main characteristics of consciousness produces the following properties:

Psychological reflection through the use of human feelings and cognitive processes (memory, thinking, sensation, imagination, perception). When one of the processes is disrupted, conscious actions are also disrupted. Self-esteem and reflection. A person is able to observe himself, control emotions, thoughts and actions. Thanks to this, human ideals and values ​​are born. Hegel's statement reflects this characteristic well. He said that although man is an animal, he is aware of it, which means he is no longer an animal. Ability to make sound judgments. This property is clearly manifested in moral feelings and judgments, moral qualities and life values. Setting a goal. A person is able, on the basis of conscious activity, to make decisions, make plans, motivate himself, and make some adjustments.

It is noteworthy that all information received by the brain is processed and realized by a person. At first, a person takes active steps to assess the situation that has occurred, and then the processes are automated.

About consciousness in simple words

It has long been proven that only man : it is his main distinguishing feature in comparison with other living beings. A flower does not think about what time to close its petals or open them - it does it at a certain hour, because it is in its DNA.

The lion will not be upset if he does not catch his prey and will not make Napoleonic plans to take revenge on the tiger with whom he recently fought. Aquarium fish do not remember what the food tasted like yesterday, and do not draw a mental image of it. All this is available only to a representative of the human race .

Thus, consciousness is a property of mental matter, with the help of which we can reflect reality.

A simple example: I see a cup in front of me. It is a beautiful red color. By the way, can I have some tea? The one I bought a week ago at the tea exhibition. The seller highly praised this variety. It's time to make sure of his honesty and brew this promising drink.

In one minute, a bunch of thoughts and images associated with them flashed through my head. I visited the past, future and present, experienced certain emotions and even sensations. This is what we call consciousness .

Consciousness can be compared to the wind, which cannot be seen, but traces of its activity can be observed.

I got this idea from this interesting video:

Conscious and unconscious actions

Consciousness does not exclude unconscious activity. If at first we analyze our actions, evaluate them, reflect on the situation or a question that is new to us. All this is recognized without human intervention in psychological activity. However, the process of fulfilling and achieving the set goal is automated.

Unconscious actions include walking, singing, speaking, reading, counting, and writing. To achieve automation, a person actively manages these processes and works hard on them. Moreover, such unconscious repetition of habitual actions can in an instant go from automated to controlled and controlled. In an unconscious state, a person is not able to objectively assess the situation, he does not control it and does not own this problem, he needs help, his behavior is disrupted and there is no ability to keep track of time.

A clear manifestation of unconscious activity is sleep. During this complex process, countless reactions occur in the brain. GNI is inhibited, and thanks to dreams, psychological exhaustion is prevented.

Dreams are one of the forms of consciousness, which is characterized by the presence of ideas. One of the scientists emphasized that dreams are an amazing combination of past experiences. What we see in a dream has already happened in life. Some absurd pictures that may appear before our eyes are based on experiences that have already occurred, which enter into reactions and various connections in a certain part of the brain.

When we wake up, we move from an unconscious state to a conscious state. Therefore, life is a unity and harmonious combination of subconscious life and conscious life.

Consciousness is especially necessary in such situations:

In solving complex and conflict situations. Make a decision if necessary. At the moment of psychological or mental threat. As necessary to overcome psychological or mental resistance.

Marketers especially often take advantage of a person's ability to act unconsciously. These people purposefully use a person’s tendency not to catch some information, but immediately put it into the subconscious. As a result, when a person sees similar information again, it seems familiar to him and, accordingly, necessary. So, without realizing it at all, we purchase goods that we do not need at all.

Scientists have realized that it is possible to easily control a person’s psyche by providing him with information at a certain moment. So this knowledge bypasses consciousness and is immediately deposited in the subconscious. This theory is called the 25th frame.

The ability of the brain to quickly perceive new information without the participation of consciousness and remember it well is used not only for the selfish purposes of marketers. There are a number of methods for learning a foreign language. One of the most effective is to use the 25th frame. The training lasts 45 minutes, which are divided into three parts. During the first, you are offered to view pictures with written foreign words, which change 25 frames per second.

Then, for the next 15 minutes, review the same words, but listen to the pronunciation. This lesson proceeds at a normal pace. The last 15 minutes are practice and you need to make an effort to get the right words out of your subconscious. Thanks to this technique, a person is able to memorize 7,000 new foreign words in just an hour, and these words remain in memory, although you may not use the language you are learning. Compared to the traditional way of teaching and learning a foreign language, you will have to put in a year and a half of effort.

Structure, properties and functions of consciousness

Structure is what consciousness actually consists of:

1. Cognitive processes - perception of the surrounding world through 5 senses (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, mouth), memory, thinking, speech.
2. Spectrum of emotional states.
3. Will as the ability to control one's actions.

Properties

Consciousness can be described by two main properties:

1. Activity – implies the continuity of the process of awareness of reality (stream of consciousness). At every moment of time (and even in a dream), a person is focused on something. The world is huge and diverse, so items are chosen according to their degree of personal significance.
   For example, if you sit next to a hungry person and someone dying of thirst, put plates of food and glasses of drinks in front of them, the first will look at the food, the second - the drink. Anyone who dreams of children will notice children everywhere. Anyone planning to buy a car turns their attention to a car of the desired brand.

   Each individual captures in space what is relevant to him at a given moment in time. That is why the attention of different people focuses on completely different figures.

2. Intentionality - this is direction, desire, attraction. If you observe yourself from the outside (engage in reflection), you will see that your thoughts are always directed somewhere: towards a goal, an object, an action.

   For example, in the discussion about the red mug above, my thoughts were directed towards tea drinking.

Functions of consciousness

Consciousness has its own functions, the main ones being:

1. The reflective function is the organization of mental processes (memory, thinking, perception, representation) aimed at understanding the surrounding world.
2. Creative or creative - creating something new.
3. Evaluative - we evaluate everything that we are aware of, we give it an emotional and sensory assessment.
4. The transformative function is to build certain goals and translate them into reality through actions. That is, we are transforming the world around us.
5. Time-forming - the formation of a general picture of the world, where there is a past, present and future.
6. Reflexive function or self-awareness is the ability to observe oneself as if from the outside, to evaluate one’s thoughts and behavior.

Consciousness and self-awareness

Consciousness plays a key role in the process of assessing oneself as an individual. A person is capable of evaluating, cognizing, and exploring himself, both as an individual and as a subject of collective activity. Self-awareness implies a continuous process of self-improvement and improvement of one's achievements and qualities.

There is even a branch of psychology that studies the “I.” There is an opinion that the “I,” that is, a person’s consciousness, is several images: from ordinary to ideal and even fantastic. Depending on the perception of oneself, a person makes decisions and subsequently acts.

Self-awareness also manifests itself in personal self-esteem. It is closely related to a person’s aspirations and desired level of achievement. The scale of aspirations increases if the individual manages to achieve the set bar and decreases if the person is haunted by failures.

Hard problem

If my wisdom teeth were pulled out without anesthesia, most likely I would scream and try to move my limbs - but from this description it is difficult to tell what is happening to me, unless you know that I am experiencing terrible pain. That is, when I am conscious and something happens to my body, it is important to emphasize: in order to say that I am conscious, I add some internal private characteristics to the history of my body.

This brings us to the so-called hard problem of consciousness, a term coined by David Chalmers. It is as follows:

Why is brain functioning accompanied by subjective and private states? Why doesn't it happen "in the dark"?

It does not matter to a neuroscientist whether conscious states have a subjective, private side: he is looking for a neurological expression of these processes. However, even if this neurological expression is found, it is still experienced in some way. Thus, a neurological description or description of consciousness through brain, behavioral processes and cognitive functioning will always be incomplete. We cannot explain consciousness using the standard methods of the natural sciences.

© davestrick / Giphy

How to master the conscious and subconscious

Due to the flow of information that hits a person, it is recommended to be extremely careful. Since the subconscious is intertwined with self-consciousness, it is necessary to begin to improve in various areas, but especially in art. This way you will be able to use your mind to a greater extent.

Be positive and visualize success. In this case, you will definitely be able to achieve your goal. Watch what you read or watch before bed. If you want to remember information that is useful for yourself or learn new foreign words, then repeat them before going to bed. For an hour at night, the brain will process the acquired knowledge and put it into the subconscious.

The more a person delves into the work of the brain and consciousness, the more difficult it is for him and the further he goes from the truth. Only a person is capable of knowing himself and exploring his own brain with the help of his brain. This dignity must be appreciated, used as much as possible with mental abilities, developed and controlled by the flow of information introduced into us.

Consciousness and mental processes

Since ancient times, philosophers and thinkers have been intensely searching for the answer to consciousness.
For many centuries, there have been debates around the essence of consciousness and the possibilities of its knowledge. To understand the world around us, it is necessary to understand it; hardly anyone will argue with this position now. Unconscious - having written these words, I immediately imagined myself in a similar state, when I lose consciousness from the stuffiness, and, waking up after that, I cannot immediately understand what happened and the surroundings.

Without consciousness there can be no attention, memory, thinking, life continues, but this is a purely physical life, not even the life of an animal, but perhaps even a plant. This is a life about which we can say that it is more likely not to exist than to be there.

All mental processes, states and properties of a person are involved in consciousness; consciousness is the unity of all forms of cognition and experiences of a person and his attitude to the conscious. Consideration of attention in cognitive psychology without taking into account consciousness influencing mental processes is simply impossible.

Theoretical foundations of consciousness

Modern psychologist I. Tulving studied and presented the theoretical foundations of consciousness:

1. Anoetic consciousness (procedural memory) is a state when we are not conscious of anything, but register environmental signals and respond to them.

2. Noetic consciousness (semantic memory) is a state when we are aware of something that is not part of the existing environment, like symbolic consciousness.

3. Autonoetic consciousness (episodic memory) is what we know about ourselves, memory of events in our personal life.

Previously, philosophers and psychoanalysts studied consciousness, but Tulving scientifically substantiated his classification and experimentally confirmed it.

Brain research, functional asymmetry

The next stage in the study of consciousness is brain research. Let us consider, for example, what contribution the functional asymmetry of the brain makes to the functioning of the neural mechanisms of vision, which plays an important role in attention processes. The left and right hemispheres play different roles in perception and image formation.

The right hemisphere is characterized by high speed of recognition, its accuracy and clarity. It most likely compares the image with some standards available in memory on the basis of identifying similar informative features in the perceived object.

The left hemisphere carries out a mainly analytical approach to image formation, associated with the sequential selection of its elements according to a certain program. However, if the left hemisphere works in isolation, then it will not be able to integrate the perceived and selected elements into a holistic image. With its help, phenomena are classified and assigned to a specific category through the designation of a word. Thus, both hemispheres of the brain simultaneously take part in any psychological process.

Functional asymmetry of the brain led scientists to believe that there are two types of consciousness: spatial knowledge in the right hemisphere, and language knowledge in the left hemisphere. This assumption has led to a large number of studies and classifications of levels of consciousness.

Each sensory modality has its own levels of consciousness. Sensations from each level enter the cognitive system, but we are not aware of them until we direct our attention to them.

From this we can conclude that we can easily control our consciousness, but, alas, due to the fact that it operates at different levels, this is not easy to do. There are, as it were, two levels of information availability: easy and difficult to access.

Easily accessible information is quickly transferred from the preconscious memory to the conscious one, while difficult-to-access information, being in the subconscious memory, may not transfer to the conscious one. It is possible that this approach is quite controversial, but one thing is clear: the study of consciousness is very important for the study of attention and memory.

Phenomenon of consciousness

What is the secret of the phenomenon of consciousness? The consciousness of modern man is a product of the history of all mankind, the result of the development of an endless series of generations of people. Before understanding its essence, it is necessary to find out how it originated. Consciousness developed along with the evolution of the animal psyche. Over millions of years, conditions were created for the emergence of intelligent man; without this, the emergence of human consciousness would hardly have been possible.

At first, living organisms developed the initial basis of the psyche—reflection. Reflection reproduces the characteristics, properties and relationships of the reflected object. A living organism has irritability and sensitivity, and specific reflection properties.

Reflection is an information interaction, one leaves a memory of itself in the other. Information for a living organism is everything with which this organism interacts.

Everything in the world is in direct or indirect interaction of everything with everything, receding into infinity - everything carries information about everything. This presupposes a universal information field of the universe, which is a universal form of communication, a form of universal interaction and thereby the unity of the world: after all, everything in the world “remembers” everything! This follows from the principle of reflection as a universal property of matter.

Development of consciousness

The simplest organisms, as well as plants, have developed the ability to “respond” to the influence of the external environment; this form of reflection is called irritability. Irritability is characterized by a certain selectivity - the simplest organism, plant, animal adapts to the environment. This stage of the psyche can be called sensory.

After many millions of years, organisms acquired the ability to sense, with the help of which a more highly organized living creature, based on the formed sense organs (hearing, vision, touch, etc.), acquired the ability to reflect individual properties of objects - color, shape, temperature, etc.

This was made possible because animals developed a nervous system, which made it possible to intensify their relationship with the environment. This is the perceptive stage of development.

The highest form of reflection in the animal world is perception, which allows you to imagine an object entirely. The psyche, as a result of the interaction of the brain with the outside world and mental activity, made it possible for animals not only to adapt to the environment, but also to a certain extent to show internal activity in relation to it and even change the environment.

Higher mammals already have elementary thinking. For example, monkeys are characterized by mental activity that is more complex than that of other animals. This stage of the psyche is called the stage of intelligence.

Having united all the listed stages of the psyche, a person “added” feelings, will, and on the basis of the mechanical memory of animals, he developed a logical, semantic memory, thus, all forms of mental reflection were combined into a single whole. This single, complex, highest form of reflection in the evolution of nature is consciousness.

Concept of consciousness

So, consciousness is the highest form of reflection of the real world, characteristic only of people and the function of the brain associated with speech, which consists in a generalized and purposeful reflection of reality, in the preliminary mental construction of actions and anticipation of their results, in the reasonable regulation and self-control of human behavior.

The core of consciousness, the way of its existence, is knowledge. Consciousness belongs to the subject, the person, and not to the surrounding world. But the content of consciousness, the content of a person’s thoughts is the whole world, all its aspects, connections, laws. Therefore, consciousness can be characterized as a subjective image of the objective world.

Consciousness is not an addition to the human psyche, but the subjective side of the psyche itself, awareness of the immediate sensory environment and awareness of a limited connection with other persons and things located outside the person beginning to become conscious of himself, and at the same time awareness of nature.

Criteria for Conscious Behavior

Man, unlike animals, knows and is aware of himself, he is capable of improving. His consciousness is characterized by such aspects as self-awareness, introspection, and self-control. Their formation occurs when a person separates himself from the environment. Self-awareness is the most important difference between the human psyche and the psyche of the most developed animals.

Consciousness is not just a mental state, but the highest human form of reflection of reality. Human consciousness is structurally organized and is an integral system consisting of various elements that are in regular relationships with each other. In the structure of consciousness, it is important to highlight the awareness of objects and experience, i.e. attitude towards the content of what is reflected.

The development of consciousness is possible only when it is replenished with new knowledge about the world around us and about man himself. Cognition, awareness of things has different levels, depth of penetration into the object and degree of clarity of understanding.

The brain of modern man was formed as a result of long evolution and is a complex organ. The level of consciousness depends on the degree of organization of the brain and this is confirmed by the fact that the consciousness of a child is formed with the development of his brain, and when the brain of a very old person becomes decrepit, the functions of consciousness also fade away.

The connection between consciousness and processes occurring in the brain

Consciousness is always connected with these processes occurring in the brain and does not exist apart from them.

Consciousness is the highest form of reflection of the world and is associated with articulate speech, logical generalizations, abstract concepts, which is unique to humans.

• The core of consciousness, the way of its existence, is knowledge.
• Work develops consciousness.
• Speech (language) shapes consciousness.
• Consciousness is a function of the brain.
• Consciousness is multicomponent, but constitutes a single whole.
• Consciousness is active and has the ability to influence the surrounding reality.

Consequently, for the characteristics of the highest form of life, consciousness, we must thank the socio-historical experience of generations, labor, language and knowledge.

The infallibility of illusion

Some characteristics of phenomenal consciousness or consciousness in general can be identified: quality, intentionality, subjectivity, privacy, lack of spatial extension, ineffability, simplicity, infallibility, direct acquaintance and intrinsic nature. This is the working definition of consciousness.

Quality is how you experience your internal subjective experience. Usually these are sensory characteristics: colors, tactile, taste sensations, etc., as well as emotions.

The privacy of conscious experience means that you do not see the way I see you. Even if in the future they invent a means of seeing what another person observes in his brain, it will still be impossible to see his consciousness, because what he sees will be your own consciousness. Neurons in the brain can be seen surgically, but this will not work with consciousness because it is completely private.

The lack of spatial attraction indicates that when I look at a white column, my head does not increase in size by the volume of this column. The mental white column has no physical parameters.

Ineffability leads to the concept of simplicity and indecomposability into other characteristics. Some concepts cannot be explained through simpler ones. For example, how do you explain what “red” means? No way. The explanation in terms of wavelength does not count, because if you start substituting it for the word “red”, the meaning of the statements will change. Some concepts can be expressed through others, but at first glance they all seem inexpressible.

Inerrancy means: you cannot be mistaken about being conscious. You may be mistaken in your judgments about things and phenomena, you may not know what is behind the mental image, but if you come across this image, it means it exists, even if it is a hallucination.

And although not all researchers agree with this working definition, anyone who studies consciousness will interpret these characteristics one way or another. After all, it is impossible to empirically answer the question of what consciousness is due to the fact that we do not have the same access to it as to all the phenomena of the natural world. And how we will work with patients in serious condition depends on the empirical theory we have built.

The process of development of human consciousness

How does consciousness develop in people? We have a well-developed vocal apparatus; our tongue allows us to reproduce complex sounds necessary for speech.

The ability to speak allows us to share our experiences with each other. While a dog learns primarily from experience and builds knowledge about the world from scratch, we can learn from each other. We can create a body of collective knowledge and pass it on from generation to generation.

This ability expands people's consciousness in several ways. Our spatial experience expands as we become aware of events outside our immediate sensory environment. And as we learn about events that happened before our own lives, our experience of time also expands.

As well as using speech to communicate with each other, we can also use it to communicate with ourselves, in our minds. We can think and reason.

Thinking allows us to create associations with past experiences. When we think of the word tree, images of trees easily come to mind. Or if we think of a person's name, we may remember events associated with that person.

Other beings may also experience associations with past experiences, but these are always determined by their immediate environment. Thought freed people from this limitation. We can consciously remember the past, regardless of what is happening in the present.

Thinking has also expanded our assessment of the future. We can think about what may or may not happen, make plans and make decisions. A new inner freedom was born - the freedom to choose the future and thereby have a much greater impact on our lives.

Thinking in the form of words awakened our minds. We can ask questions, a whole new dimension has been added to our consciousness - understanding. We can formulate hypotheses and beliefs about the world in which we find ourselves.

In man, consciousness reflects not only the nature of the world, based on one’s own experience, but also the nature of consciousness itself. A self-reflective consciousness emerged.

This is how the formation and development of human consciousness occurs.

Structure of consciousness

Philosophy considers consciousness as an integral system. However, in each individual philosophical movement it has a completely different structure. For example, A. Spirkin identifies three main spheres: cognitive, emotional, volitional.

But C. G. Jung already identifies four functions of consciousness that manifest themselves at the conscious and unconscious level: thinking, feelings, sensations, intuition.

Until now, philosophers are trying to give a clear structure of consciousness, but all this is done to one degree or another subjectively.