People can be considered as conscious when they can perceive their thoughts and feelings,as well as their environment and can describe these perceptions to others.Thus consciousness enables people to deal in a way based on thoughts, memory,and flexibility with their environment,rather than coping in an automatic and rigid way.
Psychologist William James described consciousness as a stream which flows continuously, not as a succession of separate ideas or sensations. Moral feelings expressions, qualities, values, standard of conduct and in concrete and practical terms, the way of life - all these aspects are common to human beings and form a vital part of our consciousness.
A complete system governing all aspects of human existance both individual and collective. Human beings have their own reality, not as a machine reacts mechanically as 'programmed' by their emotions and environment, but a true and unique creature possessing an obvious outwards aspect - the physical body - and a hidden, inner aspect - the mind emotion and soul.
Generally, there is nobody who is always in a normal state of consciousness all the time. The individual's state of consciousness is altered. Sensory deprivation sleeping, meditation, hypnosis and drug induced experiences are all examples of these altered states of consciousness. They all affect perception as well as other human functions such as respiration, cognition, motor coordination and memory.
When we go to sleep we lose awareness and fail to respond to a stimulus that would produce a response in the waking state. In a trance state people seen to be blind or deaf or immune to pain. Persons under hypnosis can for example recite forgotten memories. When awakened, they probably are unable to recall anything that happened while they were hypnotized. Childeren regularly practicing techniques that produce changes in mental states, such as whirling themselves. Darvishes in some cultures also whirl in circles, Buddhists concentrate on their breathing and Yogis contemplate specific objects. All these kinds of meditation are also altered state of consciousness.
Consciousness enables us to receive, retrieve and rearrange information needed for problem solving and long-range planning. This process gives us a great capacity of coping and dealing with our environment. It also enables us to cope with conditions that require us to choose among stimuli.
We notice emphasize and decide, we ignore or suppress the stimuli which we do not like to deal with at that time. The mechanism of attention is so great and effective, that when one kind of information has been selected, the other receivers are shut off. Every-body pays more or less attention to some events than to others. Consciousness allows us to focus on the most important parts of our environment. We do not have to respond to every stimulus around us only to those that require a response.
The human being is constantly receiving information which is in fact more than what can be noticed, absorbed and understood. Therefore, an effective way of choosing what's important is essential.
Primarily, any thing that happens in the environment engages the senses and will catch the attention. The mind begins to take an interest in it. Seeing gives rise to thinking, then one thought becomes the cause of another.
If ink is dropped on to paper, then that paper is folded to produce a symmetrical design, many familiar objects in the ink blot will be recognized and different persons will recognize different ones. The ink-blot test of personality by Herman Rorschach shows that people unintentionally project themselves into their perception of the environment ... read more ...
