Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Reply to comment

Marissa Patterson's picture

Conciousness

Hey everyone,

Thanks again for such a great discussion topic. I was also very interested in the concept of multiple types of conciousness as brought up by a few people in this forum. I do think this is something that occurs and it is what makes the difference between coma/surgery anesthesia/sleeping/"zoning out"/being awake. It is essentially different levels of the same mental processes. Glitches in this system (or control over it) may be what is going on during surgical anesthetic awareness or even sleep walking/talking. The anesthetic awareness thing is an interesting idea. I think that once I did have it, I remember getting ear tubes when I was about 7 or 8 and watching what was going on and seeing the room around me, but then when I got tubes again a few years later and mentioned that, they said I shouldn't have been able to remember anything. However it is definitely possible that I was imagining the surroundings.

I think Natsu's question about conciousness and time is intriguing. I think many times you can be very concious of your situation and the events that are happening but not to the passing of time (such as a fun experience with friends). Time really does seem to fly when you're having fun. In what ways is that rapid passing of time different from the rapid passing of time that might occur when "unconciously" driving a long distance alone? Are the mental congitions that keep track of time flow functioning differently in these situations, or are they just similarly not concious at the moment?

Also, I dont think this was brought up in class, but when we were talking about unconsious learning in class, it made me think about A Brave New World and their unconcious sleep-learning process. If I remember correctly, they found that facts could not be taught that way, but that stereotypes and likes and dislikes could be, which they exploited to cultivate their different castes. Though this is a piece of fiction, I do think that might make sense, because I feel that a deeper understanding and ability to analyze information is necessary for school subjects, but for likes there often isn't much thought about it other than "I like it because I do." However there may have been some kind of crucial unconcious moment when some kind of event occured (perhaps your mother made a comment) that led you to learn to prefer this. Just a thought...

Reply

To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
12 + 5 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.