consciousness
Searching for answers: Why asking questions make us uniquely human
Evolution of propositional speech: Human self-consciousness is about generating justification systems for one's self and others ...
‘Detecting consciousness’: Living with a missing cerebellum and other mysteries of the brain
Can electrical impulses in the brain explain the stuff that dreams are made of? ...
Are we any closer to understanding what consciousness is?
Thinkers have spent an immense amount of time and ink trying to unravel mysteries, such as how consciousness works and ...
What is the slippery notion of ‘consciousness’?
As humans, we know we [are conscious] but haven't a clue how it arises. It's a facet of intelligent life ...
Does our perception of the world reflect reality? Solving the problem of consciousness
When I see red, it’s the most religious experience. Seeing red just results from photons of a certain frequency hitting ...
Sniff test: How our sense of smell appears to signal whether an unresponsive patient might recover consciousness
Even with more recent technologies, such as brain imaging, the rate of misdiagnosis in DOC [disorders of consciousness] patients could ...
Explaining consciousness: These 2 brain networks show how we turn experiences into memories
One of the most recent studies showed a clear relationship between two brain networks critical to consciousness. In a paper ...
Consciousness is subjective. Does that mean it can’t be rigorously studied?
The science of consciousness has enjoyed a renaissance in the last couple of decades and the study of our own ...
Finding where ‘consciousness resides in the human brain’ could help us awaken comatose patients
Some people may gradually come out of a coma or wake up after a few weeks.... To help these people, ...
Viewpoint: ‘Hunches’ can’t be used to decide the fate of ‘covertly conscious’ patients in vegetative states
[A]s many as 15% to 20% of patients who have been rigorously diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state ...
Viewpoint: To understand human consciousness, we need a revolutionary way of thinking about it
A science of consciousness is coming ...
Some patients in vegetative states have functioning minds. Keeping them alive may amount to ‘torture’
[Researchers] have convincingly demonstrated that a subset of individuals in persistent vegetative states have meaningfully functioning minds — even as ...
Deconstructing the idea that consciousness is a ‘spooky’ illusion
These days it is highly fashionable to label consciousness an ‘illusion’. This in turn fosters the impression, especially among the ...
‘Scientific fight of the century’: Two theories of consciousness are going head-to-head
Here’s something you don’t hear every day: two theories of consciousness are about to face off in the scientific fight ...
Astonishing efficiency, unlimited storage: What makes the human brain so powerful?
[A] team from Washington University in St. Louis combined neural recordings from rats with computer modeling to uncover one of the ...
Searching for a mathematical model of consciousness
What is consciousness? In a sense, this is one of the greatest mysteries in the universe. ... Science has produced ...
Will we ever know if our computers gain consciousness?
The question of whether machines can have consciousness is not new, with proponents of strong artificial intelligence (strong AI) and ...
‘Tremendous ethical challenge’: What if lab-grown brains are capable of developing consciousness?
At what point does electro-chemical activity in dissected brain-like tissue become conscious? Yes, I’m talking about the classic sci-fi “brain ...
Tiny electric signals in the brains of comatose patients may help predict who will wake up
Researchers may have found a way to detect inklings of consciousness in comatose and vegetative patients just days after they ...
No, plants don’t have ‘conscious awareness’, scientists argue
The remarkable ability of plants to respond to their environment has led some scientists to believe it’s a sign of ...
Are plants conscious? Experts say trendy theory in biology based on misunderstanding of evolution
If a tree falls, and no one's there to hear it, does it feel pain and loneliness? No, experts argue ...
We could try to build a conscious robot. But how would we know if we succeeded?
Consciousness seems to stem from the struggle between our brain's beliefs and perceptions. How can we design neural networks to ...
Viewpoint: What is ‘consciousness’ and what role does it play in evolution?
One of the biggest challenges in evolutionary science is to explain the evolution of consciousness. While that is widely recognized, ...
Are we closer to determining what a ‘conscious brain’ looks like?
Most of the time, it’s easy to tell when someone is consciously aware. But there are many tragic cases when ...
Arguing for and against consciousness in single-celled organisms
A provocative new book by Arthur Reber argues that bacteria are conscious and that the origins of mind are found ...
Is conscious thought just an illusion?
Philosopher Peter Carruthers insists that conscious thought, judgment and volition are illusions. … [Carruthers:] Thoughts such as decisions and judgments ...
State of mind: Will computers learn to act and think like we do?
The technology that drives artificial intelligence is constantly moving forward. But will machines every gain the human equivalent of a ...