• Question: What is consciousness?

    Asked by Ayrton to Ed, Kerrianne, Nina, Oli, yoyehudi on 6 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Yo Yehudi

      Yo Yehudi answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      I suspect we’d need a neuroscientist to answer this one effectively. I can make guesses, but they all seem so imprecise.

    • Photo: Oli Wilson

      Oli Wilson answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      I’m with Yo, a neuroscientist would be the best person to answer this. It might help to think about what unconsciousness is, though, and go for the opposite. When you’re unconscious, you can’t respond, act independently, you don’t perceive your surroundings, and you’re not actively thinking. So maybe consciousness is noticing what’s going on around you, processing it, responding to it and acting in a deliberate way.

    • Photo: Kerrianne Harrington

      Kerrianne Harrington answered on 7 Nov 2017:

      Unhelpfully, I am going to agree with everyone else and look forward to what the neuroscientist has said. I remember reading “Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole: A Renowned Neurologist Explains the Mystery and Drama of Brain Disease”, and actually being really surprised that this is not super straightforward for a doctor to tell! There’s a number of tests they have to do to check.

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