Conscious Person
A Conscious Person is a natural person who passes a conscious passing task (and so is a conscious agent with a sense of self).
- AKA: Human with a Sense of Self.
- Context:
- They can (typically) make Personal Choices.
- They can (typically) be a Moral Human Being (be able to perform moral reasoning).
- They can be quantified by Human Consciousness Index, such as PCI.
- They can (typically) have a healthy Neocortex and Thalamus (for decision making), and Hippocampus (for memory management).
- They can (typically) have a healthy Pontine Tegmentum (rostral dorsolateral pontine tegmentum).
- They can range from being Fully Conscious Human to being a Semi-Conscious Human (e.g. in Hypnotized State, Sleep Walking State, Meditative State, or REM Dream State).
- They can (typically) perceive that they have Free Will.
- …
- Example(s):
- Counter-Example(s):
- a Non-Conscious Human, such as in a deep wave sleep state or a human in a vegetative state or a toddler.
- a Conscious Machine.
- a Conscious Animal.
- See: Human Forebrain, Human Cerebrum, Human Cerebellum, Complex System with Local Interactions, Anatomy of Free Will.
References
2016
- http://sciencealert.com/harvard-scientists-think-they-ve-pinpointed-the-neural-source-of-consciousness
- QUOTE: … Consciousness is generally thought of as being comprised of two critical components - arousal and awareness. Researchers had already shown that arousal is likely regulated by the brainstem - the portion of the brain that links up with the spinal cord - seeing as it regulates when we sleep and wake, and our heart rate and breathing. Awareness has been more elusive. Researchers have long thought that it resides somewhere in the cortex - the outer layer of the brain - but no one has been able to pinpoint where. …
… Now the Harvard team has identified not only the specific brainstem region linked to arousal, but also two cortex regions, that all appear to work together to form consciousness. They identified two areas in the cortex that were linked up to the rostral dorsolateral pontine tegmentum, and were most likely to play a role in regulating consciousness. One was in the left, ventral, anterior insula (AI), and the other was in the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC). …
- QUOTE: … Consciousness is generally thought of as being comprised of two critical components - arousal and awareness. Researchers had already shown that arousal is likely regulated by the brainstem - the portion of the brain that links up with the spinal cord - seeing as it regulates when we sleep and wake, and our heart rate and breathing. Awareness has been more elusive. Researchers have long thought that it resides somewhere in the cortex - the outer layer of the brain - but no one has been able to pinpoint where. …
2014
- http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/11/the-brain-makes-its-own-ghosts/382527/
- QUOTE: … studied the brains of 12 patients with neurological disorders (mainly epilepsy) who had experienced FOP, and found lesions in three regions of their brains: the insular cortex, frontoparietal cortex, and temporoparietal cortex. These areas deal with self-awareness, movement, and spatial positioning, suggesting that when sensorimotor signals get confused, people can feel presences that aren’t there. …
… It also reveals something interesting about consciousness in general — that it’s not necessarily a given that our brains always understand what our bodies are doing, or even that they’re our bodies. “The brain has multiple representations of the body,” Rognini says, “and these are usually integrated together and give us a unitary experience of the body and self in space and time. We show that when there is some damage to the brain or some trick played by a robot, a second representation of our body arises in a way that gets perceived by us but not as our body but as the presence of another human being. Physically this presence is already hidden inside our minds.”
- QUOTE: … studied the brains of 12 patients with neurological disorders (mainly epilepsy) who had experienced FOP, and found lesions in three regions of their brains: the insular cortex, frontoparietal cortex, and temporoparietal cortex. These areas deal with self-awareness, movement, and spatial positioning, suggesting that when sensorimotor signals get confused, people can feel presences that aren’t there. …
2004
- (Ramachandran, 2004) ⇒ Vilayanur S. Ramachandran. (2004). “A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: from impostor poodles to purple numbers.".
1980
- (Crook, 1980) ⇒ John Hurrell Crook. (1980). “The Evolution of Human Consciousness." Clarendon Press.