A quick treatment of consciousness from a cultural and scientific perspective.

1. Consciousness

2. What is consciousness?

3. No consciousness?

4. Unconscious?

5. How about CHANGED consciousness?

6. Often illegal

7. Changed consciousness

8. Why ILLEGAL?

9. Not normal AWARENESS

10. Not truly AWARE

11. Sometimes legal

12. Why LEGAL?

13. Changed consciousness is OK in some
cultures?

14. But not in others

15. IMPORTANT in some cultures

16. Some cultures NEED this?

17. Sometimes TOLERATED in the west

18. Legal in SOME places

19. But NOT in others

20. Why is consciousness so important?

21. What is the MIND?

22. Where does the MIND end?

23. And the BODY begin?

24. Or is mind and body the same?

25. Dangerous and consciousness-altering

26. But legal

27. Normal AWARENESS?

28. Dangerous and consciousness-altering

29. But legal

30. How about AWARENESS?

31. How about a spirit world?

32. Encouraged in some cultures

33. Important part of BELONGING

34. Religious ceremonies

35. NECESSARY for JOINING!

36. Cast OUT of society!

37. Very big CULTURAL divide

38. Traditional cultures: spirit world is
important

39. Experience is NECESSARY for growth

40. Oneness

41. No big split between dream and reality

42. “Modern” societies

43. Dualism

44. MIND and MATTER

45. CONSCIOUSNESS and THINGS

46. Big split between REALITY and dream

47. What is the SCIENTIFIC view?

48. The “WESTERN” view: consciousness is
electical signals

49. Brain activity

50. Just electrical signals

51. No signals = brain dead

52. Brain dead = dead person

53. Brain dead = you don’t need your body

54. Other people can take your organs

55. Clear MIND-BODY split

56. A modern, RATIONAL view

57. “Traditional” societies see connections

58. Everything is connected

59. Difficult to split MIND and BODY

60. Consider recent scientific experiments

61. Coma patient

62. Vegetative

63. Vegetative = no response

64. Vegetative = not truly aware

65. Vegetative = cannot answer questions

66. Vegetative = cannot respond

67. No response = no consciousness?

68. No RESPONSE = no CONSCIOUSNESS?

69. Functional Magnetic Resonance
Imaging

70. Experiments on “vegetative” patients

71. Brain scan

72. Evidence of activity

73. Imagine different things

74. Different brain activity

75. Different imaginings …

76. … different kinds of activity

77. Imagine playing tennis

78. Imagine walking around the house

79. Try it!

80. Imagine walking around the house

81. Imagine playing tennis

82. Really imagine it!

83. You should FEEL a big difference

84. And brain activity IS different

85. Let’s say TENNIS = yes

86. WALKING = no

87. Imagine walking around the house

88. Yes

89. No

90. Vegetative coma patient

91. fMRI scanner

92. Imagine playing tennis

93. NORMAL response

94. NORMAL tennis response

95. NORMAL response = consciousness

96. So the VEGETABLE was CONSCIOUS!

97. Another patient …

98. … same result

99. This time …

100. … the scientists taught the yes-no code

101. Yes

102. No

103. Scientists asked lots of questions
about life history?

104. What kind of questions?
• Are you a man?
• Did you live in New York?
• Is your wife’s name Anne?
• etc

105. The patient answered correctly!

106. Eyes closed

107. No sign of consciousness

108. But correct responses

109. So MUST be conscious

110. Lots of patients did this

111. So it’s proof

112. But what IS consciousness

113. The most basic questions …

114. … still not answered

115. Whose idea of consciousness is
better?

116. Rational, dualistic West?

117. Irrational traditional societies?