What Is the Nature of Consciousness and Its Distinction from Awareness?

[zoobyshoe]

Tsunami, you're quite right.

Hypnagogue, you are confusing coma and catatonia. They are two separate things. Do a little search on catatonia and the difference will soon be clear.

 

[Tsu]

Originally posted by zoobyshoe
Tsunami, you're quite right.

Hypnagogue, you are confusing coma and catatonia. They are two separate things. Do a little search on catatonia and the difference will soon be clear.

Unfortunately, there is a rock band called Catatonia. That's all I get. Even when I do Mental Health + Catatonia I get zippo. I'll keep trying...

edit: I found some stuff. I'll get back to you... Should we start another thread and let these nice biology folks have theirs back?

edit#2: from this website, http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/Atoz/ency/catatonia.html
it would appear that there is still consciousness involved with either type of catatonia. If I find out differently, I'll start another thread. This is also a good one (although it has a poor choice for a name ) http://www.nuts.cc/prob/schizophrenia.html

 

[zoobyshoe]

Here you go:

Catatonic Schizophrenia
Address:http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/disorders/catschiz.htm

 

[hypnagogue]

Ah yes, I see how I was confusing the two now.

As far as coming out of catatonia, one of the links Tsunami posted states that "Catatonia usually responds quickly to medication interventions." So there are at least some cases where one can be in a catatonic state but not permanently. In those cases you can simply ask recovered catatonic patients whether or not they were conscious during their states of catatonia. (Zooby's reference to 'Awakenings' seems to imply that at least some of them were.) Whether or not these results can be generalized to all bouts of catatonia is uncertain.

 

[zoobyshoe]

The patients in "Awakenings" were not catatonic. They had some neurological disorder (whose name escapes me) that had similar symptoms, that's all. These people were conscious of what was going on around them.

I brought this up simply to point ou that people can seem unconscious due to unresponsiveness but still be lucidly conscious. I was saying that, since this was the case with the "awakenings" disease, it might also apply to catatonic people.

More research on catatonia would probably uncover what someone who had been in that state reported it to be like. What occurred to me on finding that it is called "Catatonic Schizophrenia" is that the people suffering from it could be in an altered state of consciousness - hallucinations.

 

[Tsu]

I have a pretty good handle on it now. Thanks, guys!

 

[sage]

Originally posted by Mentat
It seems to me that the distinction between self-consciousness and overall awareness has not been made clearly yet.

Only sentient and subsentient beings are known to be self-conscious. Self-consciousness is the knowledge of "what it's like to be me".

Consciousness altogether (which is the same thing as "awareness") is an entirely different matter. Simple, unconscious, reactions are a sign of some measure of awareness (=consciousness) but not of self-consciousness.

but as i said, a dog or a cat can see its body. so it can detect its own existence(can it?views). you say a animal not self-conscious do not know what it is like to be itself. so what is it like to be human? i am stumped. what about everyone here.
note-this thread is strictly scientific. we accept(i hope) that consciousness is a biologically derived phenomenon. so you need not worry about that.

observation- everyone is pretty muddled with such words like consciousness, awareness, selfconsciousness, sentience etc. i think we should affix their meanings first lest we get bogged down with semantics.