NationStates Jolt Archive

What is consciousness? Are we truly aware of ourselves? Or is this awareness simply a chemical reaction to stimuli?

Please keep this remotely elevated.

I guess no one knows what I am talking about.

What is consciousness? Are we truly aware of ourselves? Or is this awareness simply a chemical reaction to stimuli?

Please keep this remotely elevated.
Consciousness is the faculty of being aware, so it exists. If it didn't, we wouldn't be able to be having this discussion because we wouldn't be aware you had asked anything.

We can only be aware of things, and chemical reactions are one of them.

I guess no one knows what I am talking about.
You're right. I have thought many times about the same question and I have no idea.

What is consciousness? Are we truly aware of ourselves? Or is this awareness simply a chemical reaction to stimuli?

Please keep this remotely elevated.

Neither could be seen as mutually exclusive. I would say both. One implies philosophy while another implies biology.

We are aware of ourselves via a structure of chemical reactions to various stimuli.

What is consciousness? Are we truly aware of ourselves? Or is this awareness simply a chemical reaction to stimuli?

Please keep this remotely elevated.

I view consciousness as having many different levels. You can be just barely aware of your surroundings and how they affect you, or you can know enough to predict what they will do in the future and how to manipulate those surroundings.
Higher consciousness exists when something becomes aware that it is aware.

What is consciousness? Are we truly aware of ourselves? Or is this awareness simply a chemical reaction to stimuli?

This is perhaps the most important question of biopsychology and artificial intelligence, and the answer is, we don't know, yet.

Of course there's the good old 'spirit molecule' (DMT) which, 47 (?) days into a pregnancy appears in the infant's bloodstream, and that's when it starts moving and so forth. So it could be said to be a chemical response.

However, presumably animals have this chemical present too, so I reckon it's more than just that.

Consciousness is the quality of thinking like us.

conciousness is the state of awareness. Some people use it to seperate people from other animals, as if a puppy won't be aware of its pain if you light it on fire.