Defintion: Human consciousness

Human consciousness is a state that defies definition, but which may involve thoughts, sensations, perceptions, moods, emotions, dreams, and an awareness of self, although not necessarily all of these. Consciousness is a point of view, an I, or what Thomas Nagel called the existence of "something that it is like" to be something. Ned Block divides consciousness into phenomenal consciousness, which is subjective experience itself (being something), and access consciousness, which refers to the availability of information to processing systems in the brain (being conscious of something). The issue of what consciousness is, and to what extent and in what sense it exists, is the subject of much research in philosophy of mind, psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. Issues of practical concern include how the presence of consciousness can be assessed in severely ill individuals; to what extent non-humans are self conscious; at what point in fetal development consciousness begins; and whether computers can achieve conscious states. In common parlance, consciousness denotes being awake and responsive to the environment, in contrast to being asleep or in a coma.nnnnWikipedia, the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia Contributors (Disclaimer) This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.)