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(A psychological approach to...) the nature of consciousness


dslc1000

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What does consciousness consist of?

Sensations, thoughts, memories, ideas and emotions.

The defining characteristic of any ‘thought’, whether it be an evaluation, intention, fancy or whatever, seems to be its mode of representation. What is common to all thoughts is that they are represented either as (i) imagined sensations, or (ii) silent words. Yet silent words are actually imagined sounds. Thoughts, therefore, are imagined sensations.

Yet delcarative memory actually consists of imagined sensations as well.

The same can be said for ideas, which are represented as pictures, sounds or words in our minds. As pointed out already, these are all imagined sensations. We have an interesting prospect, i.e. that thoughts, memories and ideas are all imagined sensations.

What about emotion? Well, I propose that an emotion has two components:

(i) sensation of the physiological changes belonging to a particular emotion (James-Lange theory of emotion), and

(ii) the imagined sensation – the pictures, sounds or silent words which accompany the physiological changes.

 

If this hypothesis is correct, and if what people refer to as thoughts, memories and ideas really are imagined sensations, then consciousness itself seems to have two components, namely:

(i) sensations, and

(ii) imagined sensations

 

Note: I would categorize dreams as a sensation (as opposed to merely an imagined sensation).

 

(These are my own ideas; and I can readily verify this)

 

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