Conscious

Heart rate has natural fluctuations that are typically ascribed to autonomic function. Recent evidence suggests that conscious processing can affect the timing of the heartbeat. We hypothesized that heart rate is modulated by conscious processing and therefore dependent on attentional focus. To test this, we leverage the observation that neural processes synchronize between subjects by presenting an identical narrative stimulus. As predicted, we find significant inter-subject correlation of heart rate (ISC-HR) when subjects are presented with an auditory or audiovisual narrative. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that ISC-HR is reduced when subjects are distracted from the narrative, and higher ISC-HR predicts better recall of the narrative. Finally, patients with disorders of consciousness have lower ISC-HR, as compared to healthy individuals. We conclude that heart rate fluctuations are partially driven by conscious processing, depend on attentional state, and may represent a simple metric to assess conscious state in unresponsive patients.

Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of internal and external existence.[1] However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debate by philosophers, theologians, and all of science. 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.[2] 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.[3][4] The disparate range of research, notions and speculations raises a curiosity about whether the right questions are being asked.[5]

Conscious

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The earliest English language uses of "conscious" and "consciousness" date to the 1500s, but not with today's meanings. The English word "conscious" originally derived from the Latin conscius (con- "together" and scio "to know") which meant "knowing with" or "having joint or common knowledge with another".[6] In its earliest uses in the 1500s, the English word "conscious" retained the meaning of the Latin conscius. For example, Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan wrote: "Where two, or more men, know of one and the same fact, they are said to be Conscious of it one to another."[7] There were also many occurrences in Latin writings of the phrase conscius sibi, which translates literally as "knowing with oneself", or in other words "sharing knowledge with oneself about something". This phrase has the figurative sense of "knowing that one knows", which is something like the modern English word "conscious", but it was rendered into English as "conscious to oneself" or "conscious unto oneself". For example, Archbishop Ussher wrote in 1613 of "being so conscious unto myself of my great weakness".[8]

The origin of the modern concept of consciousness is often attributed to John Locke who defined consciousness in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, published in 1690, as "the perception of what passes in a man's own mind".[9][10] The essay strongly influenced 18th-century British philosophy, and Locke's definition appeared in Samuel Johnson's celebrated Dictionary (1755).[11]

The French term conscience is defined roughly like English "consciousness" in the 1753 volume of Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopdie as "the opinion or internal feeling that we ourselves have from what we do".[17]

About forty meanings attributed to the term consciousness can be identified and categorized based on functions and experiences. The prospects for reaching any single, agreed-upon, theory-independent definition of consciousness appear remote.[18]

Scholars are divided as to whether Aristotle had a concept of consciousness. He does not use any single word or terminology that is clearly similar to the phenomenon or concept defined by John Locke. Victor Caston contends that Aristotle did have a concept more clearly similar to perceptual awareness.[19]

The modern dictionary definitions of the word consciousness evolved through several centuries and reflect a range of seemingly related meanings, with some differences that have been controversial, such as the distinction between 'inward awareness' and 'perception' of the physical world, or the distinction between 'conscious' and 'unconscious', or the notion of a "mental entity" or "mental activity" that is not physical.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines consciousness as "the state of understanding and realizing something."[20]The Oxford Living Dictionary defines consciousness as "The state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings.", "A person's awareness or perception of something." and "The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world."[21]

In philosophy before the 20th century, consciousness as a phenomenon was the 'inner world' of 'one's own mind', and introspection was the mind "attending to" itself,[a] an activity seemingly distinct from that of perceiving the 'outer world' and its physical phenomena. In 1892 William James noted the distinction along with doubts about the "inward" character of the mind:

By the 1960s, for many philosophers and psychologists who talked about consciousness, the word no longer meant the 'inner world' but an indefinite, large category called awareness, as in the following example:

If awareness of the environment . . . is the criterion of consciousness, then even the protozoans are conscious. If awareness of awareness is required, then it is doubtful whether the great apes and human infants are conscious.[28]

In medicine, a "level of consciousness" terminology is used to describe a patient's arousal and responsiveness, which can be seen as a continuum of states ranging from full alertness and comprehension, through disorientation, delirium, loss of meaningful communication, and finally loss of movement in response to painful stimuli.[36] Issues of practical concern include how the level of consciousness can be assessed in severely ill, comatose, or anesthetized people, and how to treat conditions in which consciousness is impaired or disrupted.[37] The degree or level of consciousness is measured by standardized behavior observation scales such as the Glasgow Coma Scale.

Most writers on the philosophy of consciousness have been concerned with defending a particular point of view, and have organized their material accordingly. For surveys, the most common approach is to follow a historical path by associating stances with the philosophers who are most strongly associated with them, for example, Descartes, Locke, Kant, etc.[citation needed] An alternative is to organize philosophical stances according to basic issues.

Philosophers differ from non-philosophers in their intuitions about what consciousness is.[38] While most people have a strong intuition for the existence of what they refer to as consciousness,[29] skeptics argue that this intuition is false, either because the concept of consciousness is intrinsically incoherent, or because our intuitions about it are based in illusions. Gilbert Ryle, for example, argued that traditional understanding of consciousness depends on a Cartesian dualist outlook that improperly distinguishes between mind and body, or between mind and world. He proposed that we speak not of minds, bodies, and the world, but of individuals, or persons, acting in the world. Thus, by speaking of "consciousness" we end up misleading ourselves by thinking that there is any sort of thing as consciousness separated from behavioral and linguistic understandings.[39]

Ned Block argued that discussions on consciousness often failed to properly distinguish phenomenal (P-consciousness) from access (A-consciousness), though these terms had been used before Block.[40] P-consciousness, according to Block, is raw experience: it is moving, colored forms, sounds, sensations, emotions and feelings with our bodies and responses at the center. These experiences, considered independently of any impact on behavior, are called qualia. A-consciousness, on the other hand, is the phenomenon whereby information in our minds is accessible for verbal report, reasoning, and the control of behavior. So, when we perceive, information about what we perceive is access conscious; when we introspect, information about our thoughts is access conscious; when we remember, information about the past is access conscious, and so on. Although some philosophers, such as Daniel Dennett, have disputed the validity of this distinction,[41] others have broadly accepted it. David Chalmers has argued that A-consciousness can in principle be understood in mechanistic terms, but that understanding P-consciousness is much more challenging: he calls this the hard problem of consciousness.[42]

There is also debate over whether or not A-consciousness and P-consciousness always coexist or if they can exist separately. Although P-consciousness without A-consciousness is more widely accepted, there have been some hypothetical examples of A without P. Block, for instance, suggests the case of a "zombie" that is computationally identical to a person but without any subjectivity. However, he remains somewhat skeptical concluding "I don't know whether there are any actual cases of A-consciousness without P-consciousness, but I hope I have illustrated their conceptual possibility."[44]

Sam Harris observes: "At the level of your experience, you are not a body of cells, organelles, and atoms; you are consciousness and its ever-changing contents".[45] Seen in this way, consciousness is a subjectively experienced, ever-present field in which things (the contents of consciousness) come and go.

Christopher Tricker argues that this field of consciousness is symbolized by the mythical bird that opens the Daoist classic the Zhuangzi. This bird's name is Of a Flock (peng ), yet its back is countless thousands of miles across and its wings are like clouds arcing across the heavens. "Like Of a Flock, whose wings arc across the heavens, the wings of your consciousness span to the horizon. At the same time, the wings of every other being's consciousness span to the horizon. You are of a flock, one bird among kin."[46] 2351a5e196