Scientific Understanding of Consciousness
Consciousness as an Emergent Property of Thalamocortical Activity

Consciousness  (Damasio)

 

Consciousness depends most critically on brain regions that are evolutionarily older rather than more recent, and are located in the depth of the brain, rather than near the surface. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 275)

Consciousness is anchored on ancient neural structures intimately associated with the regulation of life, rather than on modern neural structures of the neocortex, those which permit fine perception, language, and high reason. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 275)

Machinery of feelings is a contributor to the process of consciousness, namely to the creation of the self. (Damasio; Looking for Spinoza, 110)

Sense of self; critical component in any notion of consciousness. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 89)

Consciousness occurs when our brain maps the relationship of object and organism. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 148)

Organism as a unit is mapped in the organism's brain, within structures that regulate the organism's life and signal its internal states continuously. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 169)

The object is also mapped within the brain in sensory and motor structures activated by the interaction of the organism with the object. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 169)

Both organism and object are mapped as neural patterns in the first-order maps; all of these neural patterns can become images. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 169)

Second-order maps represent the relationship of object and organism. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 169)

Neural patterns transiently formed in second-order maps can become mental images.

Continuity of consciousness is based on the steady generation of consciousness pulses, which correspond to the endless processing of myriad objects, whose interaction, actual or recalled, constantly modifies the proto-self. [Edelman's 'remembered present'] (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 176)

The most basic kind of self or consciousness is a second-order idea based on two first-order ideas -- (1) idea of the object that we are perceiving and (2) idea of our body as modified by the perception of the object. (Damasio; Looking for Spinoza, 215)

Our body is engaged in interacting with a mental object when we experience consciousness. . (Damasio; Looking for Spinoza, 215)

We have a conscious mind when the flow of images that describes objects and events in the varied sensory modalities is accompanied by images of the self. . (Damasio; Looking for Spinoza, 215)

Consciousness is a mind process that integrates the simultaneous and ongoing relationships to objects and to organisms that harbor it. . (Damasio; Looking for Spinoza, 215)

 

Core Consciousness

Core consciousness includes an inner sense based on images. The inner sense conveys a powerful nonverbal message regarding the relationship between the organism and the object. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 125)

Core consciousness is the process of achieving a neural and mental pattern that brings together, in about the same instant, the pattern for the object, the pattern for the organism, and the pattern for the relationship between the two. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 194)

Core consciousness is generated in pulselike fashion. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 126)

Sensation of consciousness lags (~500 milliseconds) the biological mechanisms of consciousness. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 127)

Continuity of consciousness comes from the abundant flow of nonverbal narratives of core consciousness. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 176)

Core consciousness is the process of achieving a neural and mental pattern that brings together, in about the same instant, the pattern for the object, the pattern for the organism, and the pattern for the relationship between the two. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 194)

Neural pattern that underlines core consciousness for an object -- the sense of self in the act of knowing a particular thing -- is thus a large-scale neural pattern involving activity in two interrelated sets of structures: the set whose cross regional activity generates (1) proto-self and second-order maps, and the set whose cross regional activity generates the representation of the (2) object. [Edelman's 'remembered present'] (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 272)

Objects can appear in mind because they are (1) sensed in our surroundings or because we (2) recalled them from memory. The resulting image objects cause core consciousness. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 183)

Memory and Core Consciousness

Core consciousness is not founded on extensive memory. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 112)

Core consciousness is not founded on working memory. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 112)

Working memory is required for extended consciousness. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 112)

All that core consciousness requires is a very brief, short-term memory. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 113)

Do not require access to vast stores of past personal memories to have core consciousness. (Damasio; Feeling of What Happens, 113)