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Asked by Heseinberg to Hephzi, Imogen, Jen, Jennifer, Tom on 11 Mar 2015.
Question: What is consciousness?
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Thomas Barrett answered on 11 Mar 2015:
Consciousness is the quality or state of awareness, or, of being aware of an external object or something within oneself. Philosophers since the time of Descartes and Locke (17th and 18th century) have struggled to comprehend the nature of consciousness and pin down its essential propertie
Its quite difficult to work out what is conscious or not (and that includes ourselves!). Gorillas and other apes have displayed an ability to learn sign langauge and communicate their own emotions, do these count as being conscious or is it only things we deem as intelligent as us that are conscious? I think they are conscious personally. Some philosophers think that we are not conscious at all and this is all a dream!
I don’t think we will ever pin it down perfectly.
The Gorilla I am on about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koko_%28gorilla%29
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Jen Machin answered on 13 Mar 2015:
Wow, good question! Some people say that a human or animal is conscious when they are self-aware. There is something you can do to test this and scientists have tried this with babies. The scientist puts a coloured dot on the baby’s head, and then puts the baby in front of the mirror so that they can see themselves. If the baby recognises that the dot is on his or her own head, then they are said to be self-aware – they know that the baby in the mirror is them. Babies can do this once they are about 8 months old, and some animals can do it too, including chimpanzees and dolphins (although I imagine it’s a bit more tricky to do the test underwater!)
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