The Origins Of Consciousness

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For this assessment, you will evaluate in 5–8 pages what cognitive and affective psychology lends to the understanding about the origins of consciousness.

Ethical issues raised in research about consciousness and how scholars and theorists address those issues influence how theories and principles are applied in the real world.

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:

Write a paper evaluating what cognitive and affective psychology lends to our understanding about the origins of consciousness.

  • Begin by identifying foundational theories in both cognitive and affective psychology about the origins of consciousness.
  • Then, evaluate what these theories contribute to our understanding. Address these questions in your paper, drawing on scholarly sources to support your evaluation:
    • What does cognitive neuroscience contribute to our understanding?
    • What do theories related to affective psychology contribute to our understanding this topic?
  • Identify the ethical issues raised in research about consciousness and how scholars and theorists address those issues.
  • Explain how the field of cognitive and affect psychology evolved into a recognized psychological discipline.
    • Summarize key foundational theories about the origins of consciousness.
  • Evaluate the theories and principles that pertain to the cognitive components of cognitive and affective psychology.
    • Evaluate how cognitive neuroscience contributes to the understanding of the origins of consciousness.
  • Evaluate the theories and principles that pertain to the affective components of cognitive and affective psychology.
    • Evaluate how affective psychology contributes to the understanding of the origins of consciousness.
  • Explain how ethical principles and practices influence the application of the theories and principles found within cognitive and affective psychology.
    • Identify ethical issues raised in research about the origins of consciousness.
  • Communicate in a manner that is scholarly, professional, and consistent with expectations for members of the psychological professions.
    • Communicate in a manner that is scholarly, professional, and consistent with expectations for members of the psychological professions.
  • It is useful to consider the origins of consciousness through the lens of cognitive and affective psychology. In recent years, scientists and researchers in myriad disciplines—for example, David Chalmers, Francis Crick, Daniel Dennett, Roger Penrose, and Steven Rose—have addressed this question of consciousness: How is it that physical processes in the brain cause consciousness?
  • According to Chalmers (1996):
  • Consciousness . . . is as perplexing as it ever was. It still seems utterly mysterious that the causation of behavior should be accompanied by a subjective inner life. We have good reason to believe that consciousness arises from physical systems such as brains, but we have little idea how it arises, or why it exists at all. How could a physical system such as a brain also be an experiencer? . . . Present-day scientific theories hardly touch the really difficult questions about consciousness. We do not just lack a detailed theory; we are entirely in the dark about how consciousness fits into the natural order. (p. xi)
  • Francis Crick, Nobel prize laureate in physiology and medicine, in his 1994 book, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul, borrows an idea from Hippocrates and uses it to argue that “you, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules” (Crick, 1994, p. 3).
  • Philosopher and cognitive neuroscientist Alva Noë, in response to Crick’s statement, argues that the most striking thing about Crick’s hypothesis is that is not astonishing at all:
  • What needs to be kept clearly in focus is that the neuroscientists, in updating the traditional conception of ourselves [we are our brains], have really only succeeded in replacing one mystery with another. At present, we have no better understanding of how ‘a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules’ might give rise to consciousness than we understand how supernatural soul stuff might do the trick. Which is just to say that the you-are-your-brain idea is not so much a working hypothesis as it is the placeholder for one. (Noë, 2010, p. 6)
  • Michael Gazzaniga, in his 2008 book, Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique, makes the following observations about consciousness:
  • One of the mysteries of consciousness is how a perception or information enters into consciousness from the nonconscious depths. Is there a gatekeeper that lets only some information through? What information is allowed through? What determines that? What happens after that? How do new ideas form? What processes are contributing to consciousness? Are all animals equally conscious or are there degrees of consciousness? Is our consciousness unique? The question of consciousness has been rather like the holy grail of neuroscience. If you tell me you are interested in knowing just exactly what parts of the brain are active when you are conscious of something—a flower, a thought, a song—what you are asking about is known as the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). You are not a lone coyote on this request. No one knows exactly what is going on, but there are plenty of suggestions. (Gazzaniga, 2008, p. 278)
  • Journalist Steven Johnson, author of Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life, tells the following story about an incident that demonstrates the complex relationships among the brain, memories, and emotions:
  • Several years ago, doctors at the Salpêltriére Hospital in Paris were experimenting with a revolutionary new treatment for Parkinson’s disease that involved implanting an electrode in a section of the brain stem that plays an important role in motor control. . . . With one patient . . . the doctors accidentally stimulated an area that initiates the physical posture of great sadness. Within seconds of receiving the electric current, the patient slumped in her chair, a morose expression spreading across her face. Soon her eyes filled with tears, and her verbal report to the doctors was suddenly something straight out of Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground: ‘I’m fed up with life, I’ve had enough. . . . Everything is useless.’ When the doctors switched off the current, her despair disappeared almost instantly: she smiled and professed bafflement about why the world had suddenly seemed so bleak. (2004, p. 147)

Questions to Consider

To deepen your understanding, you are encouraged to consider the questions below and discuss them with a fellow learner, a work associate, an interested friend, or a member of the business community.

  • What two fundamental approaches explain perception?
  • Can we actively process information even if we are not aware of doing so?
  • How do we attend to information in the environment? What processes are involved?
  • How are perception, attention, and consciousness connected to brain functions? How did theories and models of memory evolve over time? Which ones guide our current understanding of memory?
  • How is information processed—taken in, encoded, stored, and recalled—in and from memory?
  • What is the relationship between memory and brain physiology?
  • What is the relationship between memory and learning?
References

Crick, F. (1994). The astonishing hypothesis: The scientific search for the soul. New York, NY: Touchstone.

Chalmers, D. J. (1996). The conscious mind: In search of a fundamental theory. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Gazzaniga, M. S. (2008). Human: The science behind what makes us unique. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.

Johnson, S. (2004). Mind wide open: Your brain and the neuroscience of everyday life. New York, NY: Scribner.

Noë, A. (2010). Out of our heads: Why you are not your brain, and other lessons from the biology of consciousness. New York, NY: Hill and Wang.

Suggested Resources

The following optional resources are provided to support you in completing the assessment or to provide a helpful context. For additional resources, refer to the Research Resources and Supplemental Resources in the left navigation menu of your courseroom.

Library Resources

The following e-books and articles are linked directly in this course:

Additional Requirements

  • Written communication should be free of errors that detract from the overall message.
  • APA formatting:Resources and citations should be formatted according to APA (6th edition) style and formatting.
  • Length:5–8 double-spaced, typed pages.
  • Font and font size:Times New Roman, 12 point.
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