• Question: What is consciousness?

    Asked by carlos tevez to Andy, Chris, Harriet, Jess, Nikki on 10 Mar 2016. This question was also asked by 527bcme44.
    • Photo: andy chapman

      andy chapman answered on 10 Mar 2016:

      I think of it as a state of being in which you are aware of your surroundings, and that your specifically are part of these surroundings. You are aware that you yourself exist. It is hard to know if any other animal experiences this other than us. Please watch this fascinating series on BBC iplayer that explains this in much more detail:

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06zdnkm

    • Photo: Nikki D'Arcy

      Nikki D'Arcy answered on 10 Mar 2016:

      It is awareness of yourself and that you are part of something bigger (the world). There is a great experiment they can do with babies and animals where they stick something on them and put them in front of a mirror. If they touch the sticker on themselves, then it’s a sign of developing consciousness and awareness.

      Thanks 🙂

    • Photo: Christopher Blanford

      Christopher Blanford answered on 10 Mar 2016:

      Hi Carlos

      I like Andy’s and Nikki’s answers.

      I think that there’s more to consciousness that if either being on or off. I think there are different levels. You see signs of self-awareness in some animals. I bet that there are creatures that have even higher consciousness than we have.

      What’s a really hard problem in biochemistry (and many other subjects!) is what causes consciousness. Some people think it’s caused by our nervous system sitting close to a tipping point where it becomes very sensitive to tiny changes.

      Here’s a good summary of the science: https://www.newscientist.com/round-up/consciousness

      Chris

    • Photo: Harriet Reid

      Harriet Reid answered on 10 Mar 2016:

      Hi
      Big question, As everyone said, its being aware of your surroundings. But I don’t think that we really know were it comes from or what makes us conscious.

    • Photo: Jessica Groppi

      Jessica Groppi answered on 14 Mar 2016:

      Hi!

      This is difficult!
      I agree with the others, it’s the ability of being self-aware.
      It’s weird though, while everyone thought about the biological or biochemical aspect of it, the first thing that came to my mind when I read your question were computers and artificial intelligence. What separates humans from the most advanced artificial intelligence right now is consciousness, there is a lot of debate on if and when it would be possible to build a conscious machine, especially because we don’t know what’s going to happen afterward. But that’s probably just Science fiction.

      Jess.

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