Consciousness refers to the relationship and interactions between our mind and its surrounding environments. Consciousness fades when the normal patterns of waking neural activity in the brain are replaced by the patterns characteristic of sleep, or when the tissues of the brain are damaged physically or by intoxicants. We do not have a set explanation has to how brain activity produces consciousness. It is concluded that consciousness is an elemental component of the universe that cannot be discussed or analyzed any further by the human race. Doubts about the consciousness of animals occasionally surfaced even in classical antiquity. Augustine argued that nothing can be perceived without reason, which is needed to judge and classify sensations,
I attended a blues concert in Hayward and it was one of the most culturing experiences of my life. I learned a lot about the culture and context surrounding the blues music. I found the lyrics thought provoking especially, B.B. King’s “Why I Sing the Blues” sung by Billy Dunn. Prior to me attending this concert I hardly knew anything about the blues music or historical roots. I never listened to the blues before, so I am unaware of this type of music, but I learned a lot about this style of music and enjoyed it. I also learned about the impact Hayward had on the blues and blues musicians when African Americans migrated from the deep south to the then unincorporated area of Hayward, known as Russell city. Ethnically, the majority of the attendees were African American, the second highest ethnic group attendees were Caucasian. This makes sense, since the blues and jazz were developed in the south of the U.S. and is associated with Africans. For African Americans, the blues and jazz goes a long way back in history, more specifically their history. It is associated with African American history in America, as well as African oppression and liberation.
Throughout his Confessions, Augustine's view of humans--our essential nature has interesting differences from the way in which others, in different time periods and in different civilizations, have seen humans.
God and the problem of evil is treated by most philosophers as a paradox to be resolved by creating a theodicy. A theodicy is an attempt to explain or answer the question of how God could allow bad things to happen. So, is there an adequate theodicy? B.C. Johnson argues there is no adequate theodicy, and therefore that there is no perfectly moral God. However, Augustine argues that there is an adequate theodicy, and therefore human are incapable of choosing good without the assistance of God's divine grace. Both natural and moral evils are ultimately the result of the actions of free rational beings who sin. Augustine's theodicy attempts to protect God from responsibility for the existence of evil. The dialogue addresses these and related questions.
In reference to your final statement, it is my belief as to how fast or slow someone decides to convert their life is not for us to determine. Everyone is different and situations are handled differently. Augustine spent years battling internal conflicts relating to earthly desires, “[M]y sins were multiplied” (Puchner et al. 1191); therefore, he struggled with his conversion because he recognized he was doing wrong and had difficulties stopping his sinful ways. In any event, even when the heart knows right from wrong, converting to Christianity can still be a challenging decision and effort.
Additionally, St. Augustine, in the seventh chapter , describes how he finds God through his singular mind, this he states is what sets apart humans from animals such as mules. However, what is he referring to when he talks about the mind? This mind being, as the title of the chapter suggests, different than the body and the soul, but connecting us to God, allowing us to have a relationship with Him and experience the things of religious nature that Jame’s
Consciousness is an idea that we have based on subjective experience and not based on anything that we can really measure or observe in brains. We know that there’s consciousness because we can self report it. In reality no one really knows what makes us conscious, or what parts of the brain are responsible for that, or what processes in the brain. There is no doubt that computers at some point might be powerful enough that they can just simulate a
Dr. Anil Seth combines cognitive science, neuroscience, psychiatry, brain imaging techniques and mathematics to explain why consciousness exists at all. He talks about the distinction, which is passed from Descartes, between the “easy problem” and the “hard problem”. The easy problem being to understand how the brain and the body give rise to perception, cognition, behaviour and learning. The hard problem being to understand how and why we have phenomenal experiences or qualia and how all of this should be associated with consciousness at all: why aren’t we just machines, without any inner world/experiences? It is intriguing to think that solving the easy problem would get us nowhere in solving the hard problem, which leaves the brain basis
St Augustine was one of the fathers of the early Christian Church. He was responsible for the growing presence of Christians. Augustine did so by sending missionaries to the pagan-populated land of the Saxon tribes in England. Christians had feared the land because of the conquerors who lived there.. However, Augustine was able to convert these conquerors to Christianity. According to Catholic Online, “King Æthelberht converted to Christianity and allowed the missionaries to preach freely, giving them land to found a monastery outside the city walls.” (Brooks Early History of the Church of Canterbury pp. 4–5) St Augustine’s spreading of he Christian faith had an effect on the English language because Latin was the language of religion and learning
It was so difficult for Augustine to make the decision to embrace the Christian faith because he was running from God. He speaks as if he had been convicted for a while, and he did not want to accept that God was convicting him. Augustine was also struggling with not being worthy enough for this call on his life from God, to become a Christian. Augustine might even have had some struggles with letting go of his plans and life and allowing God to have control. Augustine is at odds with himself because he describes how he willed it and how he did not will it. Augustine is struggling with letting his life go and giving it to God. He struggles with giving God the power and glory over himself.
Consciousness, a material property that is not explained in its entirety through physics, is our rational capacity for understanding the functions of human life in this world. The mind has an element in its nature that differentiates it from the physical. Understanding the functions of the mind has both an objective and subjective aspects. Consciousness is the subjective, inner life of our mind. It is based on the emotions and ideas that arise from perceiving external activities. Knowledge of consciousness comes from our knowledge of the brain and knowledge of experience. As stated by Nagel, "There are facts about conscious experience that cannot be deduced from physical facts about the functioning of the brain.” It is known that subjective experiences emerge from physical processes; however, it is yet unknown how or why this is. In order to reach an understanding of consciousness, theories based on philosophical and neuroscientific laws are being
Throughout the ages, there have been countless influences on not only social and political life, but on religious character and prevalence as well. Aurelius Augustine, who would eventually rise to the position of bishop in the early Catholic Church, was one of the most interesting characters that would surely leave his mark on the Roman Empire, especially in the few decades before the western part of the empire was to be taken over by Germanic tribes from the North. Perhaps, his most influential characteristic that history still records today, was his striking tenacity to preserve the Christian religion as it was ‘supposed’ to be and to spread that influence to all who walked the earth. This, of course, is only a small fraction of the
The term consciousness refers to "your individual awareness of your unique thoughts, memories, feelings, sensations and environment” (Kendra Cherry, http://psychology.about.com). Our unconscious contains thoughts, memories, and desires that are well below the surface of awareness but that nevertheless have a great influence on behavior.
Consciousness gives us no answer as to why brain states give rise to mental states. Consciousness is a certain feature shared by sense-experience and imagery, perhaps belonging also to a broad range of other mental phenomena. According to Graham, “Consciousness is the most vivid or explicit feature of our mental lives- for our being minded or possessing a perspective.” It is interesting because Consciousness has us ask ourselves what it seems to be. How is feels to be in pain, anger, shame or happiness. Consciousness is in a sense, the feeling we get when we think through a math problem or remember where we parked our car.
Consciousness is part biology, “…each state of consciousness is composed of a number of basic psychological processes such as memory, thought, sense of time, body-perception and the senses of hearing, smell, taste, and so on”, and part experience. (Wilber 52) I am going to focus on the experience side of consciousness because it is less concrete than the genetic side. It is a concept that is socially constructed to define an abstract phenomenon. Consciousness is the awareness of being conscious.
Consciousness is often considered as an awareness of oneself, ones thoughts and ones behaviours (REF). It is difficult to comprehensively define, and even more problematic to research due to the internal and subjective nature of reason and sentience. The fact that we cannot experience the consciousness of others makes the process of gathering reliable, empirical research particularly challenging. Introspection can be used to reflect upon and describe our thoughts and feelings, but we cannot be certain whether the descriptions are accurate, or akin to the reflections, as we have no way of definitively verifying whether subjects are in fact able to accurately describe their mental states (REF). The often-ineffable quality of conscious experience