Article
Consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and
awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of
definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates
by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scientists. Opinions
differ about what exactly needs to be studied or even considered
consciousness. In some explanations, it is synonymous with the mind, and
at other times, an aspect of mind. In the past, it was one's "inner
life", the world of introspection, of private thought, imagination and
volition. Today, it often includes any kind of cognition, experience,
feeling or perception. It may be awareness, awareness of awareness, or
self-awareness either continuously changing or not. The disparate range
of research, notions and speculations raises a curiosity about whether
the right questions are being asked.
Examples of the range of descriptions,
definitions or explanations are: simple wakefulness, one's sense of
selfhood or soul explored by "looking within"; being a metaphorical
"stream" of contents, or being a mental state, mental event or mental
process of the brain.