dankat24(1/11/06 6:09 am)
Quote:There are different levels of consciousness
1. Correct, the lack of conscience is called coma in neurology. It has various degrees, but lets see how doctors measure the lack of conscience. It is called the Glasgow Scale:
Eye Opening: Spontaneous=4, on verbal command=3, on pain=2, none=1
Verbal Response: Normal Conversation=5, disoriented conversation-4, words, non-coherent-3, no words but sound-2, none-1
motor response - 6 normal, 5 localises the pain, 4 withdraws to pain, 3 decorticate posture, 2 decerebration, 1 none
Now lets see how how a cat behaves:
Eye opening - Spontaneous = 4 points
Verbal Response - no words, but sounds -2
Motor Response - 6 (she can move)
Glasgow Score - 12 points - this means the cat is conscient using the Glasgow scale.
2. Conscience is strictly connected to our social heritage. Abandoned kids, who survived in forests, behave like any animal. They are uncapable of recognizing their own image in a mirror, they cant be learned to talk, their only volitional acts remain eating and reproduction. Even in normal human beings, the conscience develops gradually. We are not born conscientious, but rather like an animal. We are learned to become aware of ourselves.
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Raphiodun(1/11/06 7:41 pm)
Quote: We are not born conscient, but rather like an animal. We are learned to become aware of ourselves.
if we are not born conscient, and there's no superior being, as an important part of the users of Illyria forums believe, who taught the first humans to be aware of themselves?
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dankat24(1/11/06 10:55 pm)
Quote:if we are not born conscient, and there's no superior being, as an important part of the users of Illyria forums believe, who taught the first humans to be aware of themselves?
The Social life! The Battle group for Survival made us gain a conscience. The human being was forced to become conscient, when he began living in communities. It was needed to identify himself when comparing to others. I don't know the answer for this is question, this is my opinion. Maybe false.
Anittas you are right...It was early this morning when I wrote the post. However my point is that the conscience is a very large term, it has several meanings. A doctor, as I said before declared a patient conscient, when he can open his eyes, have a conversation or responding to stimuli. However, using the Glasgow scale, even a cat can be considered conscient, so the scale isn't very helpful.
There are 2 types of pathological conditions that modify the conscience - neurological and psychiatrical. Lets compare.
1. A patient with a stroke (the death of a part of his brain) has hemianosognosia( he doesn't recognize the left part of his body) and brain blindness (his visual occipital centres are destroyed - his eyes see, but not the brain, so the patients is not aware of his blindness and denies it). Clearly, his conscience is modified - he thinks that his left arm and foot do not belong to him, and from its point of view he is not blind, and he lives in a world created by its previous visual memories. Therefore he falls often, he get hurt and so on. Basically he is considered a Glasgow 15 patient. He cant be considered unconscient.
2. A schizophrenic patient - there are no structural damages of its brain tissue (at least at the beginning), but his neuronal connections create a special world, different from our reality. He is also considered a Glasgow 15 patient. He cant be considered unconscient.
3. During sleep the human being becomes unconscient. We sleep 1/3 of our life, around 24 years. In fact maintaining conscience is so difficult, that our brain decides to take everyday a pause of at least 8 hours of sleep. Sleep is consided a Glasgow 12 patient.
All 3 cases are considered by medical scales conscient. Which of them is more conscient that the other? Difficult question, since there isnt an accepted definition for this term.
So, the conscient depends on:
1. the structural integrity of our nervous system
2. the psychic health
3. education
Quote:A being determines his consciousness ?
I would say the conscience determines the human being. As I said before, there is a center in our brain that makes us conscient. We can to some extent influence that center, but it also has an autonomous, non-controllable life. The conscience has probably much more layers. This anatomic layer is the deepest, and it reassures us basic functions. The more we grow, the more we see other region evolve into new conscience centers. Probably animals have only the deepest layer, while social life forced the development of this center, offering more and more complex degree of conscience (civic, national, christian, moral, european and so on).
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Gyilkos Ungara(1/13/06 11:07 am)
I believe most animals unless newly bred and well domesticated ones, in this case the cat reacts on pure instinct. If you take an average fat and lazy house cat today and throw him in the jungles it can survive with no problem. Yet has the ability to coexist and adapt to human lifestyles as they do these days.
Cats really are very interesting animals as their cousins the tigers, lions, cheetahs, panthers, anything in the feline family are.
Do I believe they know who and what they are? Yes. Its simple.
Through evolution they are hunters and yet very peaceful. They love and take care of their young like any other animal. Animals are not any less smarter than humans for their ability that is as in what they are, unlike where humans today are defined and either good or bad so to speak by their surroundings.
An example, if you take a (just an example) a black guy from the streets of (anywhere U.S.) that deals drugs, murders, etc ... say that exact person was born and raised in a good family, in a good neighborhood with everything positive around him, would he still grow up to have the mindset of a murder, drug dealer, criminal etc? I think not.
In the case of a cat, no matter where it comes from it still has the same instincts to survive and you have to keep in mind aside from eating , sleeping and mating, they need nothing more.
The question of whether them being "conscious" or not of who and what they are is completely irrelevant. Though the concept of their minds are rather fascinating.