Psychology and More

In most of the intro psych textbooks, the definition of consciousness is woefully inaccurate. I often hear the definition as something like “Awareness of our selves and our environment.” ACK! That is way to limited and vague. Of course, a reasonable treatment of consciousness requires more than a 40-page textbook chapter.

The blog Developing Intelligence offers a link to an article that provides an interesting taxonomy for defining consciousness.

Developing Consciousness: Are you conscious? 17 criteria for consciousness:

A recent article by Seth, Baars & Edelman argues for a core set of 17 properties that are characteristic of consciousness, and could be used in the “diagnosis” of consciousness in humans and other animals.

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