Consciousness the Science of Consciousness

Consciousness

The Science of Consciousness

In a 2007 article in time magazine, Steven Pinker explores developments made in the scientific world regarding advancements made in the understanding of how the brain -- and specifically consciousness -- operates. He begins with the description of a woman who, after suffering major brain trauma in a car accident, was thought to be in a vegetative state. Yet when researchers measured her brain activity in response to certain directions -- "imagine a room in your house" or "imagine playing tennis" -- they found that the same areas were lighting up as did on normal test subjects (Pinker 2007). This seemed to suggest that part of her consciousness survived, though to what degree was still unknown, and also provided a great deal of insight into what consciousness truly means.

Throughout the article, Pinker describes several different conceptions of consciousness and the ways the have developed. Perhaps most interesting and arguably most alarming is the apparent lack of a true center or "I" in the consciousness, and the ability and willingness of the brain to fool itself when information doesn't match up the way it's supposed to (Pinker 2007). Most decisions are actually made through conflicting bursts of electricity in the brain, with one impulse overriding the others through sheer charge power (Pinker 2007). Brains also believe in phantom limbs that don't exist, and if the brain is damaged in a way that destroys the visual recognition of familiar faces, a patient could become convinced that he is surrounded by impostors rather than by his family -- the faces and behaviors are the same, but the brain refuses to make the connection to the family members, so the consciousness comes up with the only (false) explanation it can (Pinker 2007).

The information and conclusions -- as well as the open questions -- that Pinker (2007) delivers in his article are closely tied to the concepts of consciousness described by Wayne Weiten in his textbook Psychology: Themes and variations (2007). Consciousness can be defines as both internal and external awareness; the awareness of external stimuli and an internal awareness of the self as a unique being (Weiten 2007, pp. 186). The interaction between the perceived external stimuli and the sense of self is what produces many of the distortion of consciousness discussed by Pinker (2007): the patient's sense that he would recognize his family leads him to conclude that they are impostors when his brain doesn't connect the external stimuli (i.e. The presence of his family) in the expected manner.