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Concsiousnes

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Submitted By ayushitandon
Words 1206
Pages 5
To explore this question, it is crucial to define consciousness or a conscious experience, more to the point, does it even exist?
In this paper I will mention the standard view about consciousness and the nature of conscious experiences that I can summate from Nagel’s “What it is like to be bat?” argument and Jackson’s knowledge argument in “Epiphenomenal Qualia.”

The local worldview interprets that consciousness is basically a state of awareness of a person’s surroundings and sensations. Rather one’s own existence. Howbeit, if we adhere to this definition, all life could be contemplated as conscious. Plants are ‘aware’ of the direction of the sun, animals are ‘aware’ if they’re hungry or if a predator’s on their trail and so on. Either this state of being aware is a mere biological or chemical reaction to particular situations, smell, soil ingredients or awareness of we call consciousness is simply not relevant to such a simple definition.

While naturally there is no one philosophical opinion on this matter, this is where Nagel’s argument comes into play.

In “What is it like to be a bat” argument Nagel (1974, p. 436) believes that many different forms of animal life do have conscious experiences. Nevertheless, he also states the fact that if conscious experience exists in an organism at all, means that “there is something it is like to be that organism” (1974, p. 436) supporting the “subjective character of experience” (1974, p. 436).

Over the years the basic theorists reduces all possible philosophical cognitions to some amalgamation of mathematics, psychology or computer science. However, physical reduction of any being involves exclusion of phenomenal features of the being that is perhaps useless in the case of consciousness. This is depicted in Frank Jackson’s (Jackson, 1982) “Knowledge Argument” which aims to, not particularly, to

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