I haven't been following this thread closely, so perhaps this has
already been mentioned, but didn't William James teach us if he taught
us anything) that consciousness doesn't come in wholly discrete "states"
but is a "stream"? Indeed, the primary functionalist critique of
Titchener's structuralism (e.g., Angell, 1903) is that it falsely
reified, through introspective analysis, fleeting moment of experience
into artifactual "objects." "So," you say, "that's all history. No one
is either a structuralist or a functionalist today." Fair enough, but
the insight remains a valid one. The exact boundaries of a particular
conscious "state" are not likely to be clearly definable. The problem,
in my view, is not so much that the term "consciousness" is fuzzy
(though that is true), as that we do not know what distinguishes one
"authentic" (valid, reliable, etc.) conscious "state" from another.
Sure, we might, for practical purposes, group a bunch together on the
basis of, say, whether or not one is dreaming, and group another bunch
together on the basis of, say, whether they are correlated with a
certain EEG pattern, but that's hardly the same as, say, distinguishing
chemical elements from each other. In short, there is no definitive
answer to the question of whether the things you list do or do not
constitute different "states" of consciousness.
Angell, J. R. (1903). The relations of structural and functional
psychology to philosophy. Philosophical Review, 12, 243-271.
Regards,
--
Christopher D. Green
Department of Psychology
York University
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Canada
416-736-5115 ex. 66164
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.yorku.ca/christo
======================================
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On 21 Feb 2007 at 23:14, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I think that the stages of sleep are differing states of consciousness,
but what about the following, which came up in class today? <snip>
alpha (awake, relaxed)
when taking Benadryl or some other drugs with side effects of
drowsiness
and a change in alertness and
reaction time
daydreaming
hypnosis
meditation
jet lag
persistent vegetative state
coma
traumatic brain injury
Also,do all of these produce changes in consciousness?narcotics,
barbiturates, depressants, stimulants?
Lemme have a go at winging it. As others have said or hinted,
"consciousness" is a fuzzy concept which defies definition. We generally
accept two kinds as uncontroversial: either we're conscious or we're not.
And we know someone is conscious when they're aware of their
surroundings.
How do we know they're aware? When they tell us, preferably verbally, but
also by other means, such as eye blinking to questions, as in the tragic
locked-in case of Jean-Dominique Bauby in his remarkable book "The Diving
Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death".
In other cases (animals, fetuses) all bets are off. Even in the case of a
verbal adult, as above, there can be problems. My wife typically protests
she wasn't even asleep (i.e. unconscious) when I poke her to stop
snoring. Am I right, or is she?
I doubt that anyone claims that all four of the stages of sleep are
different states of consciousness, as it's generally recognized that the
distinction between one stage and the next is purely arbitrary and has no
particular physiological significance. REM sleep is different, and its
importance has been hyped by claiming it represents a different "third
kind" of consciousness. Mostly, this was back in the days when dreaming
was thought to occur exclusively in REM sleep, a notion we now know is
untrue. There are other physiological changes which make REM sleep
qualitatively distinct from the other stages, but dces this mean it rates
a new form of consciousness? I think not.
However, if we are willing to tolerate a bit of fuzzy thinking, we can
talk about degrees of consciousness (even though we don't know what
consciousness is). This seems to be mostly tied to alertness. I'd think
that the items on Riki's list could be classified as different degrees
of consciousness, with more impairment the greater the interference with
brain function (through, e.g., sleepiness, drugs, and physical trauma to
the brain). But we might be better off just referring to them as
"alertness".
Stephen
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
2600 College St.
Sherbrooke QC J1M 0C8
Canada
Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at
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