AT THE CROSSROADS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Abstract

Being at the crossroads of consciousness, we are here to commence on a beautiful journey into the minds of man and machines. But before we shall begin, we should have something about the end in mind. That is to say, we should not get stuck somewhere within the paradigms of phenomenon and epiphenomenon, or metaphysical allegories. In this endeavor, our goal is not just limited to the understanding of and to debate on the issues related to the origin and nature of human consciousness, but as also, regarding some sublime rational, yet realistic issues concerning true relationship between brain and consciousness, which is but, the philosophy of mind. Until now, what we know for sure is that the brain is the material element of our mind which powers our thoughts and ideas, emotions and beliefs, hopes and expectations, but what we still do not know or speculate about is how our mental states shape our conscious processes [6]. That is, what are those mental processes and the contents of those processes that help generate our cerebral state of consciousness, and how? The primary development that comes into our mind is the neural correlates of consciousness-neural group firings, since; there could not be consciousness without such neural activities. Till date, from studies related to neural group firings and central pattern generation circuits (CPG) that scientists are able to study, we have gained some idea about how such neural firing takes place, whether alone, or in groups. Yet we may ask, why does it take place at the first instance? The answer to this query relates to the process of perception; to deliver perceived information through sense organs to the specific areas of the brain responsible for processing such information in order to be able to produce some response. Responses are generated, integrated and propagated to elicit some behavior, whether motor or sensory. These behaviors in effect, define our course of action in both decision-making and understanding of those decisions made via sensory feedback back to the place of origin of action-behavior response-the brain. A different aspect is how our brain controls such behavior? We shall come to that later.