ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY
 QUOTATIONS ABOUT CONSCIOUSNESS
FROM THE BOOK
June 22, 2019

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THE HUMAN BRAIN BOOK:
 An Illustrated Guide to Its
Structure, Function, and Disorders

 by Rita Carter with Susan Aldridge, Martyn Page, and Steve Parker; and consultants Chris Frith, Uta Frith, and Melanie Shulman.
Dorling Kindersley Limited, 2009 1st ed.
and 2014 2nd ed. and 2019 3rd ed. (264 pages)

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QUOTATIONS ABOUT CONSCIOUSNESS

 Note = Index of the 2019 3rd revised edition (page 257-263)

Consciousness (6, 176-193)
    Altering (186-187)
    Attention and Consciousness (182-183)
    Dissociation (186)
    Emotions (126, 128-129)
    Investigating the brain (8)
    Levels of consciousness (192)
    Locating (180-181)
    In machines (219)
    Proprioception (104)
    Requirements (181)
    Self (192-193)
    Sensory information (79)
    Sleep and dreams (188-189)
    Time (190-191)
    Types and levels of consciousness (179)
    What is consciousness (178-179)
Consciousness and language (146)

"Consciousness is essential: without it, life would have no meaning." (178)

Consciousness is like nothing else. A thought, feeling, or idea seems to be a different kind of thing from the physical objects that make up the rest of the universe. The contents of our minds cannot be located in space or time. Although they appear to be produced by particular types of physical activity in the brain, it is not known if this activity itself forms consciousness [The monist/materialist view] or if brain activity correlates with a different thing altogether that we call 'the mind' or consciousness [The Duelist view]." (178)

"If consciousness is not simply brain activity, this suggests that the material universe is just one aspect of reality and that consciousness is part of a parallel reality in which entirely different rules apply." (178)

"Consciousness developed when cognitive mechanisms evolved, but only as a result of them, rather than for any purpose of its own." (178)

"There are types and levels of consciousness. Consciousness has different modes, such as emotions, sensations, thoughts, and perceptions, which are all experienced at different levels of neural activity, focus, and concentration." (179)

"The 'level of neural activity' determines the intensity of consciousness." (180)

"The direction of focus can be towards the outside world or the inner world [such as thinking about thinking = metathinking] ... Concentration can be loosely targeted, involving a range of objects or fixed, involving just one particular aspect." (180)

"Consciousness can also be separated into three types of awareness:

(1) Awareness in the moment, where the brain registers and reacts to moment-by-moment events but does not encode them in memory;

(2) Conscious awareness, where events are registered and encoded in memory; and

(3) Self-consciousness, where events are registered and remembered as a person is conscious of doing them." (179)

"Most conscious thinking is expressed or formulated (couched) in language." (146)

"Words function as symbolic 'handles' that are used to grasp the objects that they represent. However, about 25 percent of thoughts are experienced as sensations or perceptions (without being expressed in words)." (179)

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