Editing Consciousness (section)

===Influence on research===
Many philosophers have argued that consciousness is a unitary concept that is understood by the majority of people despite the difficulty philosophers have had defining it.<ref name="Antony2001">{{cite journal|author=Michael V. Antony|year=2001|title=Is ''consciousness'' ambiguous?|journal=Journal of Consciousness Studies|volume=8|pages=19–44}}</ref> The term 'subjective experience', following Nagel, is amibiguous, as philosophers seem to differ from non-philosophers in their intuitions about its meaning.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Justin Sytsma |author2=Edouard Machery |title=Two conceptions of subjective experience |journal=Philosophical Studies |year=2010 |volume=151 |issue=2 |pages=299–327 |doi=10.1007/s11098-009-9439-x|s2cid=2444730 |url=http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00004888/01/Two_Conceptions_of_Subjective_Experience.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00004888/01/Two_Conceptions_of_Subjective_Experience.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Max Velmans]] proposed that the "everyday understanding of consciousness" uncontroversially "refers to experience itself rather than any particular thing that we observe or experience" and he added that consciousness "is [therefore] exemplified by {{em|all}} the things that we observe or experience",{{r|Velmans2009|p=4}}<!--COMMENT: Velman's statement is a confusion of logical categories, an error of logical typing. Empirical science has discovered much about the processes of perception because there are 'objects' perceived by 'organs' of perception; but "experience itself" is an idea, a concept, an abstraction. Since 'experience' is not some 'thing' experienced, therefore (by definition) it cannot be empirically analyzed, reduced or compared. The 'things that we actually observe or experience' are examples of 'things' and 'kinds of things'; it's incorrect to call them 'examples of experience'! --> whether thoughts, feelings, or perceptions. [[Max Velmans|Velmans]] noted however, as of 2009, that there was a deep level of "confusion and internal division"<ref name=Velmans2009>{{cite journal|author=Max Velmans|title=How to define consciousness—and how not to define consciousness|journal=Journal of Consciousness Studies|year=2009|volume=16|pages=139–156|author-link=Max Velmans}}</ref> among experts about the phenomenon of consciousness, because researchers lacked "a sufficiently well-specified use of the term...to agree that they are investigating the same thing".{{r|Velmans2009|p=3}} He argued additionally that "pre-existing theoretical commitments" to competing explanations of consciousness might be a source of bias.

Within the "modern consciousness studies" community the technical phrase 'phenomenal consciousness' is a common synonym for all forms of awareness, or simply '[[experience]]',{{r|Velmans2009|p=4|quote=In common usage, the term "consciousness" is often synonymous with "awareness", "conscious awareness", and "experience".}} without differentiating between inner and outer, or between higher and lower types. With advances in brain research, "the presence or absence of ''experienced phenomena''"{{r|Velmans2009|p=3}} of any kind underlies the work of those [[neuroscientist]]s who seek "to analyze the precise relation of [[Phenomenology (psychology)|conscious phenomenology]] to its associated information processing" in the brain.{{r|Velmans2009|p=10}} This [[neuroscience|neuroscientific]] goal is to find the "neural correlates of consciousness" (NCC). One criticism of this goal is that it begins with a theoretical commitment to the neurological origin of all "experienced phenomena" whether inner or outer.{{efn|"Investigating "how experience ensues from the brain", rather than exploring a factual claim, betrays a philosophical commitment".<ref name="Gomez2019">{{cite journal|last1=Gomez-Marin|first1=Alex|last2=Arnau|first2=Juan|title=The False Problem of Consciousness|journal=Behavior of Organisms Laboratory|date=2019|url=http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/15699/1/MS_GomezMarin_Arnau.pdf}}</ref>}} Also, the fact that the easiest 'content of consciousness' to be so analyzed is "the experienced three-dimensional world (the phenomenal world) beyond the body surface"{{r|Velmans2009|p=4}} invites another criticism, that most consciousness research since the 1990s, perhaps because of bias, has focused on processes of [[perception|external perception]].<ref name="Frith2016">{{cite book|editor-last1=Engel|editor-first1=Andreas K.|last1=Frith|first1=Chris|last2=Metzinger|first2=Thomas|title= The Pragmatic Turn: Toward Action-Oriented Views in Cognitive Science|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304657860|chapter=What's the Use of Consciousness? How the Stab of Conscience Made Us Really Conscious|pages=193–214|isbn= 9780262034326|doi= 10.7551/mitpress/9780262034326.003.0012|date=March 2016|author-link1=Chris Frith|author-link2=Thomas Metzinger}}</ref>

From a [[history of psychology]] perspective, [[Julian Jaynes]] rejected popular but "superficial views of consciousness"{{r|JJ90|p=447}} especially those which equate it with "that vaguest of terms, [[experience]]".<ref name=JJ76>{{cite book|last=Jaynes|first=Julian|date=1976|isbn=0-395-20729-0|author-link=Julian Jaynes|publisher=Houghton Mifflin|title=The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind|url=https://archive.org/details/originofconsciou0000unse|url-access=registration}}</ref>{{rp|8}} In 1976 he insisted that if not for [[introspection]], which for decades had been ignored or taken for granted rather than explained, there could be no "conception of what consciousness is"{{r|JJ76|p=18}} and in 1990, he reaffirmed the traditional idea of the phenomenon called 'consciousness', writing that "its [[denotation|denotative definition]] is, as it was for René Descartes, John Locke, and [[David Hume]], what is introspectable".{{r|JJ90|p=450}} Jaynes saw consciousness as an important but small part of human mentality, and he asserted: "there can be no progress in the science of consciousness until&nbsp;... what is introspectable [is] sharply distinguished"{{r|JJ90|p=447}} from the {{em|unconscious}} processes of [[cognition]] such as [[perception]], reactive [[awareness]] and [[attention]], and automatic forms of [[learning]], [[problem-solving]], and [[decision-making]].{{r|JJ76|p=21-47}}

The [[cognitive science]] point of view—with an inter-disciplinary perspective involving fields such as [[psychology]], [[linguistics]] and [[anthropology]]<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PKCHAgAAQBAJ&q=Consciousness+in+anthropology&pg=PP1|title=Questions of Consciousness|last1=Cohen|first1=A. P.|last2=Rapport|first2=N.|publisher=Routledge|year=1995|isbn=978-1-134-80469-6|location=London}}</ref>—requires no agreed definition of "consciousness" but studies the interaction of many processes besides perception. For some researchers, consciousness is linked to some kind of "selfhood", for example to certain pragmatic issues such as the feeling of agency and the effects of regret<ref name="Frith2016" /> and action on experience of one's own body or social identity.<ref name="Seth2016">{{cite book|editor-last1=Engel|editor-first1=Andreas K.|last1=Seth|first1=Anil|title= The Pragmatic Turn: Toward Action-Oriented Views in Cognitive Science |chapter=Action-Oriented Understanding of Consciousness and the Structure of Experience|pages=261–282|isbn=978-0-262-03432-6|doi= 10.7551/mitpress/9780262034326.003.0012|date=March 2016|author-link1=Anil Seth}}</ref> Similarly [[Daniel Kahneman]], who focused on systematic errors in perception, memory and decision-making, has differentiated between two kinds of mental processes, or cognitive "systems":<ref name="Kahneman2011">{{cite book|first=Daniel|last=Kahneman|title=Thinking, Fast and Slow|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZuKTvERuPG8C|year=2011|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=978-1-429-96935-2}}</ref> the "fast" activities that are primary, automatic and "cannot be turned off",{{r|Kahneman2011|p=22}} and the "slow", deliberate, effortful activities of a secondary system "often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration".{{r|Kahneman2011|p=13}} Kahneman's two systems have been described as "roughly corresponding to unconscious and conscious processes".<ref name="Kuijsten2016">{{cite book|last=Kuijsten|first=Marcel|year=2016|editor-last=Kuijsten|editor-first=Marcel|chapter=Introduction|title=Gods, Voices, and the Bicameral Mind: The Theories of Julian Jaynes|pages=1–15|publisher=Julian Jaynes Society|isbn=978-0-979-07443-1|location=Henderson, NV}}</ref>{{rp|8}} The two systems can interact, for example in sharing the control of attention.{{r|Kahneman2011|p=22}} While System 1 can be impulsive, "System 2 is in charge of self-control",{{r|Kahneman2011|p=26}} and "When we think of ourselves, we identify with System 2, the conscious, reasoning self that has beliefs, makes choices, and decides what to think about and what to do".{{r|Kahneman2011|p=21}}

<!-- Others, though, have argued that the level of disagreement about the meaning of the word indicates that it either means different things to different people (for instance, the [[Objectivity (philosophy)|objective]] versus [[Subjectivism|subjective]] aspects of consciousness), that it encompasses a variety of distinct meanings with no simple element in common,<ref name=Velmans2009>{{cite journal|first=Max|last=Velmans|title=How to define consciousness—and how not to define consciousness|journal=Journal of Consciousness Studies|year=2009|volume=16|pages=139–156|author-link=Max Velmans}}</ref> -->Some have argued that we should eliminate the concept from our understanding of the mind, a position known as consciousness semanticism.<ref>{{cite book|last=Anthis|first=Jacy|title=Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures 2021|chapter=Consciousness Semanticism: A Precise Eliminativist Theory of Consciousness|series=Studies in Computational Intelligence|year=2022|volume=1032|pages=20–41|doi=10.1007/978-3-030-96993-6_3|isbn=978-3-030-96992-9|chapter-url=https://philarchive.org/rec/ANTCSA|access-date=7 August 2022|archive-date=7 August 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220807144036/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-96993-6_3|url-status=live}}</ref>
<!-- Al Byrd, the author of Superhuman Creators, defines consciousness, for animals, humans and artificial agents, as the effect of integrating and filtering many different types of affordance awareness; that is, awareness of the action possibilities in an environment. According to this definition, all agents that can perceive and act on affordances are conscious to some extent. -->

In [[medicine]], a "level of consciousness" terminology is used to describe a patient's [[arousal]] and responsiveness, which can be seen as a continuum of states ranging from full alertness and [[Understanding|comprehension]], through disorientation, [[delirium]], loss of meaningful communication, and finally loss of movement in response to painful [[Stimulus (physiology)|stimuli]].<ref>{{cite book|first=Güven|last=Güzeldere|title=The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates|year=1997|editor-first=Ned|editor-last=Block|editor2-first=Owen|editor2-last=Flanagan|editor3-first=Güven|editor3-last=Güzeldere|pages=1–67|location=Cambridge, MA|publisher=MIT Press}}</ref> Issues of practical concern include how the level of consciousness can be assessed in severely ill, comatose, or anesthetized people, and how to treat conditions in which consciousness is impaired or disrupted.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Late recovery from the minimally conscious state: ethical and policy implications|first1=J. J.|last1=Fins|first2=N. D.|last2=Schiff|first3=K. M.|last3=Foley|journal=Neurology|year=2007|volume=68|pages=304–307|pmid=17242341|doi=10.1212/01.wnl.0000252376.43779.96|issue=4|s2cid=32561349}}</ref> The degree or level of consciousness is measured by standardized behavior observation scales such as the [[Glasgow Coma Scale]].