A definition of consciousness

… the annoying time between naps…

Week three of an online workshop on theories of consciousness

A few days ago we started discussing the Global Workspace Theory by Bernard Baars.
From my opening statement: “I am most happy that we enter the stage of individual presentations today. Bernard Baars will be the one to start this with arguably the most influential theory to date.”
Bernard did a very interesting opening statement and we [...]

Conciousness and mind

What is the difference between consciousness and the mind?
Consciousness is always in the present and mind is never in the present.

Qualia, presence and the mirror analogy of consciousness

Qualia are famous and much disputed features about consciousness. The discussion is well known and unresolved, yet I may have come on a unrefutable argument for the existence of qualia.
Qualia exist in the present only, they are complex and irrepeatable. They are also irretrievable. No memory is that good to enable anyone to exactly recall [...]

Counting consciousnesses

Andrew Brook started counting up to 50 in a forthcoming research: “Access consciousness, phenomenal consciousness, self-consciousness, creature consciousness, state consciousness, monitoring consciousness, peripheral consciousness, prereflexive consciousness, background consciousness, focal consciousness, peripheral consciousness” here
Let us start counting with him and also look for references. He got to 11 in his tutorial draft.
12. individual consciousness 13. social [...]

Are electrons conscious?

This may look absurd on first sight, but panpsychism seems to be a realistic view on consciousness and if everything is conscious why not electrons?
A case can be made like this: consciousness is about knowing, maybe knowledge. Electrons seem to know. They seem to know certain rules in the first place. A rule may [...]

Defining consciousness ( cNEZ )

I stumbled upon this in discussions in the old Psyche-D newsgroup, which has been closed down in 2007. What struck me also reading papers and books about cNEZ, was that people seem to understand very different things where they use the word cNEZ. Then I found Thomas Metzingers statement: ‘cNEZ is an ill-defined term’ which [...]