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The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
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Mothers will want to crucify me for this seemingly cruel question, but it needs to be posed: How do we know that a newly born and healthy infant is conscious? There is no question that the baby is awake. Its eyes are wide open, it wriggles and grimaces, and, most important, it cries. But all that is not the same as being conscious, of experiencing pain, seeing red or smelling Mom’s milk.
It is well recognized that infants have no awareness of their own state, emotions and motivations. Even older children who can speak have very limited insight into their own actions. Anybody who has raised a boy is familiar with the blank look on your teenager’s face when you ask him why he did something particularly rash. A shrug and “I dunno—it seemed like a good idea at the time” is the most you’ll hear.
Although a newborn lacks self-awareness, the baby processes complex visual stimuli and attends to sounds and sights in its world, preferentially looking at faces. The infant’s visual acuity permits it to see only blobs, but the basic thalamo-cortical circuitry necessary to support simple visual and other conscious percepts is in place. And linguistic capacities in babies are shaped by the environment they grow up in. Exposure to maternal speech sounds in the muffled confines of the womb enables the fetus to pick up statistical regularities so that the newborn can distinguish its mother’s voice and even her language from others. A more complex behavior is imitation: if Dad sticks out his tongue and waggles it, the infant mimics his gesture by combining visual information with proprioceptive feedback from its own movements. It is therefore likely that the baby has some basic level of unreflective, present-oriented consciousness.
The Road to Awareness
But when does the magical journey of consciousness begin? Consciousness requires a sophisticated network of highly interconnected components, nerve cells. Its physical substrate, the thalamo-cortical complex that provides consciousness with its highly elaborate content, begins to be in place between the 24th and 28th week of gestation. Roughly two months later synchrony of the electroencephalographic (EEG) rhythm across both cortical hemispheres signals the onset of global neuronal integration. Thus, many of the circuit elements necessary for consciousness are in place by the third trimester. By this time, preterm infants can survive outside the womb under proper medical care. And as it is so much easier to observe and interact with a preterm baby than with a fetus of the same gestational age in the womb, the fetus is often considered to be like a preterm baby, like an unborn newborn. But this notion disregards the unique uterine environment: suspended in a warm and dark cave, connected to the placenta that pumps blood, nutrients and hormones into its growing body and brain, the fetus is asleep.
Invasive experiments in rat and lamb pups and observational studies using ultrasound and electrical recordings in humans show that the third-trimester fetus is almost always in one of two sleep states. Called active and quiet sleep, these states can be distinguished using electroencephalography. Their different EEG signatures go hand in hand with distinct behaviors: breathing, swallowing, licking, and moving the eyes but no large-scale body movements in active sleep; no breathing, no eye movements and tonic muscle activity in quiet sleep. These stages correspond to rapid-eye-movement (REM) and slow-wave sleep common to all mammals. In late gestation the fetus is in one of these two sleep states 95 percent of the time, separated by brief transitions.
What is fascinating is the discovery that the fetus is actively sedated by the low oxygen pressure (equivalent to that at the top of Mount Everest), the warm and cushioned uterine environment and a range of neuroinhibitory and sleep-inducing substances produced by the placenta and the fetus itself: adenosine; two steroidal anesthetics, allopregnanolone and pregnanolone; one potent hormone, prostaglandin D2; and others. The role of the placenta in maintaining sedation is revealed when the umbilical cord is closed off while keeping the fetus adequately supplied with oxygen. The lamb embryo now moves and breathes continuously. From all this evidence, neonatologists conclude that the fetus is asleep while its brain matures.
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Add CommentSo, is that the answer?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen "It draws its first breath, wakes up and begins to experience life."?
"Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSchneider and Velmans, 2007
Some of the new research showing that even in vitro infants can learn and remember stimuli implies to me that they are conscious at least somewhat before they are even born.
Is consciousness only limited to oxygen intake and visual feedback of your world?? Can still see a little bit in the womb as well so I would no necessarily limit consciousness to outside of the womb. Babies can also recognize the sound of their mothers voice almost instantly as they experienced it within the womb as well. I would not argue that babies are not conscious. No they are not self aware but that is the medical definition of consciousness.
We should embrace as cognitive psycholgists the epiphenomenal nature of the human behavior and learning that we study. If consciousness is limited to oxygen and waking then we might as well revert our entire science back to behaviorism (e.g. Pavlov).
"Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSchneider and Velmans, 2007
Some of the new research showing that even in vitro infants can learn and remember stimuli implies to me that they are conscious at least somewhat before they are even born.
Is consciousness only limited to oxygen intake and visual feedback of your world?? Can still see a little bit in the womb as well so I would no necessarily limit consciousness to outside of the womb. Babies can also recognize the sound of their mothers voice almost instantly as they experienced it within the womb as well. I would not argue that babies are not conscious. No they are not self aware but that is the medical definition of consciousness.
We should embrace as cognitive psycholgists the epiphenomenal nature of the human behavior and learning that we study. If consciousness is limited to oxygen and waking then we might as well revert our entire science back to behaviorism (e.g. Pavlov).
"Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSchneider and Velmans, 2007
Some of the new research showing that even in vitro infants can learn and remember stimuli implies to me that they are conscious at least somewhat before they are even born.
Is consciousness only limited to oxygen intake and visual feedback of your world?? Can still see a little bit in the womb as well so I would no necessarily limit consciousness to outside of the womb. Babies can also recognize the sound of their mothers voice almost instantly as they experienced it within the womb as well. I would not argue that babies are not conscious. No they are not self aware but that is the medical definition of consciousness.
We should embrace as cognitive psycholgists the epiphenomenal nature of the human behavior and learning that we study. If consciousness is limited to oxygen and waking then we might as well revert our entire science back to behaviorism (e.g. Pavlov).
Yes, it would have been helpful if he had specifically answered the question he posed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe doesn't answer his own question.
Nor does he define consciousness. Because I don't think there is a universally accepted definitions.
Although I remember reading an article recently about a calculation that was done based on certain awareness factors. Essentially, the calculation made certain assumptions about the ability of our brain to leap to conclusions and therefore naturally assigned higher states of consciousness to humans than animals - but also assigned at least minimal states of consciousness to any matter. ie - rocks, electrons, anything.
"But all that is not the same as being conscious, of experiencing pain, seeing red or smelling Moms milk. It is well recognized that infants have no awareness of their own state, emotions and motivations."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs the author saying that the infant body and mind are not integrated enough to interpret stimuli and respond accordingly? Generalizations such as "it is well recognized" tip one off to the author's prejudice as does his rather dismissive attitude toward "mothers." Oh, those uneducated, unenlightened mothers who spend 24/7 with multiple infants and toddlers. Their lack of calibrated instruments to measure brain activity certainly prevent them from having any relevant observations.
Behavioral psychologists could propose many testable hypotheses to challenge what the author says is "well recognized." Maybe his discipline, cognitive and behavioral biology, restricts his ability to see a human being as anything more than a biological machine. Is there a mind or machine available today that can truly measure what an infant tastes, sees or thinks? If there was, he would be sure to mention it. How do you measure personality?
The reference to the infant being unable to "experience pain" is the most disturbing. How is an infant's intense cry of distress to be interpreted after having it's heal repeatedly stabbed for blood tests at one day old? How is does his cry indicate an experience different from the author's spontaneous "ouch" at the same stimuli?
Is this line of reasoning an attempt to challenge the personhood of our young? If so, following this train of thought has some sobering applications and that echo Ehrlich and Emmanuel's "solutions" to their population and healthcare crisis models.
We existed before we were born to this world. We left our pre-existance to come to this earth, and a veil was drawn over our eyes making us forget all we knew, to come here and learn. We are concious before we enter our bodies. Science does not believe or accept this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"We existed before we were born to this world. We left our pre-existance to come to this earth, and a veil was drawn over our eyes making us forget all we knew, to come here and learn. We are concious before we enter our bodies. Science does not believe or accept this. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience does not accept it because it doesn't make sense.
That's because science does not believe in God or the imortal nature of man.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Koch (and the late Dr. Crick) is still trapped inside the 'astonishing hypothesis'about the thalamo-cortico-thalamic recursion and does not answer his own question. He should take a look at Piaget's "The Development of Thought." to get a better perspective. This way he would distinguish between robotic awareness (e.g., a thermostat awareness and/or programmed responses to changes in temperature) and the strictly human self-consciousness of being both the actor and observer of his own behavior. This requires a language processing capacity during the transition from the perceptual unconscious (inherited) --> subconscious (acquired)--> conceptual conscious level of introspective, inferred analysis that precedes adaptive responses. He should look more into the mirror neuron's role in 'reading' external acts of behavior and, with the other side of the mirror, reading his own internal feelings about the external act. See more on this (free) at: http://delaSierra-Sheffer.net. Dr.d
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are making assertions without evidence. What, you want us to accept this just because you say so? rdahl says so, therefore we should all just accpet these things you assert?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour bald assertions are precisely why it is so hard to figure out the truth. Millions of people make their assertions based on their own subjective understanding of things. "Science" is not a monolithic person that accepts or fails to believe something, but a process or method for solving this horrible problem of subjectivity. The scientific method listens to the millions of assertions made by people like you and says something like "Ok, if that's true, where's the evidence for it?" Can others replicate your findings so that this can be shown to be more than simply your subjective assertion? How could we determine if this is a good hypothesis? Is it consistent with the other things we have objectively seen to be properties of nature? Why or why not?
But I suspect this is just wasted verbiage on someone like you. If you really just want others to accept your assertions without asking these kinds of questions, what are you doing on a Scientific American website?
I contend it's the moment that they learn that coughing, altering the pitch of their crying or ultimately altering their crying pattern with intermittent coughs gets a bigger rise out of the parent(s).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem of course is how do you question a 2 0r 3 month old as to their memories of wakening. It takes 2 to 3 years to learn to speak your language, at least it took me over 2 years to usefully convert thought to language that adults could understand. My siblings (and parents) had it easier as I could translate while they learned.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs I remember the dream time was very pleasant, I spent a number of years trying to return. The adults thought I was a very pleasant child as I would go to sleep at the drop of a hat.
Awakening was very disturbing, I was awake, locked inside my head, and unable to do much of anything. Being born was a great relief, freedom from trapment.
I believe the distress of trapment at awakening triggers the birth process.
The author defines consciousness as self-awareness, also termed sentience.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe then goes on to mention the fact that infants mimic gestures and faces made by their parents. The author appropriately acknowledges that this behavior requires the baby to have proprioceptive feedback from its own movements.
But the author fails to mention that this behavior also requires self-awareness.
The infant cannot map the geometry, and the loci of motion within that geometry, of say his dad sticking his tongue out onto the infants own body, and own range of motion, without being aware of its own geometry and its own capabilities of motion.
That may not be the kind of self-awareness the author is envisioning [e.g., philosophical introspection] but it is most certainly a kind of self-awareness.
Thus, on the view that consciousness is self-awareness, a newborn is conscious; the proof of that is its mimicking behavior.
"Thus, on the view that consciousness is self-awareness, a newborn is conscious; the proof of that is its mimicking behavior."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes that mean a parrot is self-aware? How 'bout a jackdaw? A dog that barks when you make a barking sound?
I have to get a little anecdotal here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen my children were preschoolers, they definitely expressed that their dreams were more than just emotionless static images. My kids knew sign language and would tell me using a combination of signs and verbal words what their dreams were about: stories. I have an unusually long, vivid memory and can easily recall being in diapers, sitting in my crib, and even some of my dreams from back then. My dreams weren't static either. They were bizarre to say the least but never static.
And who is to say that a fetus has nothing to dream about? A blind person cannot see but can still have dreams about sensations. Even Helen Keller could dream, and she was missing sight and hearing. Dreams are not just about images. I've had dreams about just noises or just scents. Why couldn't a fetus dream about the noises it heard the day before or the sensations it felt while mom was riding in a car on a bumpy road? Why does a dream have to be about external experiences anyhow? Maybe the fetus could dream about what it was like to have hiccups.
And then there is the idea that consciousness doesn't happen during sleep. True, it's unusual to be conscious while sleeping, but there have been many cases of people in comas who report being aware of what was going on around them even though they were seemingly asleep.
Just because you can't measure the behavior or brainwaves of a person to determine whether or not they are conscious doesn't mean that they aren't. That's the tricky thing about studying consciousness -- we are only ever able to experience what it is like for ourselves, never what it is like for somebody else.
If by the three examples you gave, you intended to give the general example of an animal that produces a particular sound after it receives some other particular sound as input.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen the answer is "not necessarily."
rdahl, your response to kfreels wasn't even a response. If that was your response then what you are saying is "not believing something because it doesn't make sense" is BECAUSE you don't believe in god... So using reason and logic (a characteristic practically born naturally within all of us) is a sign of being Atheist?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisplease explain?
PS: from your first response I get the feeling you are LDS?
The conscious mind wants to wean itself from sedation, but parts always remain switched on "hold". Pressing the reset button with sleep helps rebirth during information overload in life: this article is like a welcome call, back to life. A little reverse can do a lot to spring us forward and ahead with insight into amorphous audio programming and acoustical architecture.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKoch writes: Mothers will want to crucify me for this seemingly cruel question, but it needs to be posed: How do we know that a newly born and healthy infant is conscious? Mothers will feel pity for him, not anger. Perhaps Koch never held a newborndidnt connect with the creature he held.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo understand consciousness, we must think carefully about what were thinking about. Similar but distinct ideas get lumped together as consciousness.
Koch writes: It is well recognized that infants have no awareness of their own state, emotions and motivations.
Awareness of ones own stateself awarenessis one of those things that gets lumped with consciousness. But its a particular kind of consciousness: Its consciousness when the content of the consciousness is the self. Its not consciousness, per se.
Koch also considers consciousness in sleep. Although consciousness during dreams is not the same as during wakefulnessmost noticeably insight and self-reflection are absentdreams are consciously experienced and felt.
The problem of dream consciousness forces us to consider the relationship of consciousness and memory. If you waken a sleeper and he tells you his dream, hes reporting from memory. A lot of scientific work on consciousness depends on reports of an experience from memory.
But suppose you give someone an anesthetic drug that impairs memory formation, so that a person has no memory of a conscious experience. Are you able to conclude by getting a verbal report from the person that he wasnt conscious during the anesthesia? Often when scientists talk of consciousness, theyre actually considering a memory of an experiencewhich is also a particular kind of consciousness.
The same question arises if we consider a hypothetical experience that doesnt have access to brains memory apparatus. How can we know whether we are unconscious of some experience, or rather that the experience lays down no memory trace?
It's often true that the assertion that an experience is not consciousness is actually based on the absence of a memory of the experience, rather than a direct demonstration that the experience lacks consciousness.
My comment above #20 is very difficult to understand because the SciAm software doesn't display the punctuation marks I used. It's particularly problematic that it drops all the quotation marks I used, so it's not possible to see where I'm quoting Koch and where I'm commenting about what he said.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Science does not accept it because it doesn't make sense."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI beg to differ, science does not limit itself to things that don't make sense. There is plenty of science that doesn't make sense on the face of it (String Theory, Particle Physics, etc.). It only makes sense when you accept certain untestable basic assumptions, and then apply tests and proofs from there.
If you accepted an untestable basic assumption that this life is to test, teach, and prove us so that we may become more like God, then rdahl's assertion makes sense. However, I would tell rdahl that you can never prove a matter of faith to anyone else. Refer to the parable of the ten virgins, everybody must get their own oil. The proof is only between each person and God.
Having said this, I love science and make my living as a scientist, but I know that science doesn't have all of the answers AND even many of the answers that it has can be suspect if you truly understand science. Science can never be smarter than our current understanding, and often our current understanding is flawed. A wise scientist once said:
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist.
This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
Peace.
I like to use the word apperception to describe the awareness of self as a separate entity. Many of us have had the out of body experience when unergoing some trauma, where the sensation of pain is lost for the moment. I believe that is a moment of regression to some former state where the body reacts reflexively to pain stimulii, (even emotional in some cases, I KNOW), but the brain does not immediately make the conscious connection that this is happening to the subject. Pain and fear come later. We all know that this discussion is heading towards Roe v Wade and the abortion issue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have no doubt that abortion is a sinful act, but I also think it is a stretch to endow a fetus with apperception. This means that an act that has all the appearance of being an act of supreme cruelty is probably nothing of the sort, since the fetus has no way of knowing that it is actually experiencing what's being done to it. I think it is a mistake to crowd important issues with inaccurate information, since this eventually tends to discredit an otherwise valid argument.
<"This way he would distinguish between robotic awareness (e.g., a thermostat awareness and/or programmed responses to changes in temperature) and the strictly human self-consciousness of being both the actor and observer of his own behavior. This requires a language processing capacity during the transition from the perceptual unconscious (inherited) --> subconscious (acquired)--> conceptual conscious level of introspective, inferred analysis that precedes adaptive responses." >
I'm amused by Dr D's remark above because another WASP, (I'm guessing based on what follows also told our graduating High School class much the same thing 40 years ago, about the relationship between thought and language.
We all laughed when one fellow student emboldened by our imminent graduation, told the Head Teacher, "That's because you never tried Rock and Roll!" meaning that you know you're having a heck of a time dancing to the, then, new dance craze, but there are no words to express the pleasure of grooving to musical rhythms. ("Music is language," the head replied, "so is art, and math!")
Of course they have self-awareness! How do you define the term?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find the question irrelevant. Human is human and that is all I need to know. It is much like the assertion that "it isn't human so it doesn't feel pain". What a crock of crap! The function of pain is to notify the organism of harm. This function occurs in all animals and a surprisingly large (to me anyway) number of plants. It also happens in invitro humans. This is all part of the "I'm different than you so I must be superior" garbage that infests so much of humanity. Even some birds use tools.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you want to have any kind of convincing study of mind and consciousness abandon the automatic assumption of human superiority and do a truely scientific study.
That being said, I am LDS and share the same view as Rdahl. I just think that throwing a tiny chunk of doctrine into a discussion with no supporting context or relevant tie is just plain wrong. It is kind of like walking up to two guys discussing a corvette convertible and saying "horses eat hay". It may be true but what has it got to do with anything in the discussion?
First of all, bucket, that "tiny chunk of doctrine" is a valid component in a discussion of this nature, not to subtly persuade, but purely to identify the status of the witness, as in a court of law.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs to whether an organism can feel pain or not, that is equally specious, because as "bucket of squid" rightly pointed out, an organism in a state of unconsciousness cannot BY DEFINITION experience pain in that state, but that doesn't make it any less human. So the question being begged by the title here is really, when can a fetus be defined as a human being? The answer is, of course, "it depends!"
So, the question of consciousness may be irrelevant, but how do you answer the question, what is a human being? First you have to determine whether you are answering a question of biology, theology, or law.
This answer only begins to pose problems when people attempt to leap the legal divide and impose their doctrinal views on others who don't share them. Discuss biology and theology as much as you want, but ever since Roe v Wade the legal answer is clear, when it is viable as a human being, even if that means viable on life support, since an unwilling mother cannot legally be forced to be life support for a fetus, any more than I can be forced to give up an aging kidney to my brother. That would be enslavement.
It is important to note that studies in consciousness and cognition reveal that a concept of self system as different from the environment is a result of learnt behaviour,and is a virtual entity still ,with no specific brain circuitry associated as such with it.In fact self concept is a disparate system in the brain involving many regions in an associative manner.At the same time new borns do have an extended self notion and neural architecture associated with it develops in the womb itself.This extended self notion may occur in grown ups in a pure consciousness states which they are found to attain in meditative mentation states preceded by successive deep and shallow,contained breathing.This has been reported based on empirical studies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgain there is a unity in dream state cognition and wakeful thought .The difference is that the unconscious is more predominant in dream state ,or REM sleep.Given that the influence of the unconscious is considerable even in conscious cognition,one should prwesume that there is some sort of an unconscious extended self consciousness present in the child in the womb that is genetic and conditioned by the subtle stimuli from inside and outside the womb that it receives.Some studies reveal that children have a better musical skill if they happen to listen to music because of the environment in their uterine atmosphere,like when some one sings to the preterm child in the womb,or plays music that it can subtly sense.Hence one cannot discount the fact that the fetus has consciousness which conditions it to certin attitudes and behavioral or learning patterns and aptitudes as it grows up to be baby ,child and adult,though nurture also plays a greater role in these later periods of growth and learning.The twins often show variabilities in behavioural attitudes ,tendencies,approaches and aptitudes because of this intrinsic difference in preterm consciousness.May be as the ancient philosophers and Indians put it there is a personality that is being reborn as a new fetus and baby.
SURESHKUMAR.S,ADVISER,NIIST[CSIR],TRIVANDRUM,INDIA
I suspect the belief that babies don't have consciousness are based upon the fact that people generally don't remember earlier than 4 years of age or so. However, I remember back to three days after my birth and I remember my emotional state from that very first memory so I don't buy the babies / infants aren't conscious argument.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr just because there isn't any data to prove it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDetermining when the baby is able to perceive its surroundings should not be the deciding factor for coming to a consensus on when the baby (or fetus) ought to be treated as a human being.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find the focus on visual stimulation being refered to as a factor of 'awareness' to be disturbing. Is the author implying the blind are not concious? The pain reaction of in vitro fetus' is well documents in the second trimester, not the third. If it feels pain and reacts to it then it has a level of awareness that is undenyable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the article, the author says, "...this seemingly cruel question...needs to be posed: How do we know that a newly born and healthy infant is conscious? " Obviously, the author doesn't have kids.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only folks who would pose this question are those who support abortion.
As to the experimental findings, I'm not surprised at all. Growth and development happens during sleep. Why shouldn't this be true of babies in utero, also?
I have a doubt: is an 8 day-old baby alert enough as to perceive and record some info about a person performing actions on him, data as gender of contact, and kind of contact related feelings and experiences?. I'm thinking precisely about circumcision.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think conciousness exists when the fetus is first conceived, I could very well say that the sperm is concious in it's own right, as is the egg - or aware lets say. I could go even further and baffle your mind by saying that each individual cell is aware of its existence and is co-creating (with the help of your mind) YOU! We could take it to the atomic structure, which miraculously models a solar system --- Microcosm and Macrocosm...... o.O Life is simply miraculous! There is more to consciousness than you may think.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thislet us remember that there are differences in awareness. A human is aware, but how aware? Which brings me to cognitive awareness, how we view our world is not the same is how other creatures view the same world!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience does not believe or accept this because there is no basis for your claims. Science runs on evidence. Not mindless conjecture that people come up with to try to understand the world with no evidence input. For example, the reason society now believes the world is round instead of being flat is because of evidence for the first. Science uses theories that are backed by evidence (Scientific Method) to make hypotheses on the happenstances perceived in the world. Anything else is mindless blathering.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHuman consciousness coincides with the development of language skills. Processing "complex" visual information isn't unique to humans and therefore doesn't give a child the unique ability to think like a human.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisD J Wray
www.atotalawareness.com
Before addressing the issue whether fetus or babies aging a few days are conscious or not, more basic issues regarding " What is consciousness?" should be addressed. It is beyond the current understanding of Science to go deeper into the issue as to what consciousness is. However some of the internal and external attributes can lead to some broad consensus on the definition of consciousness. One should keep in mind that such definition per se does not describes "what consciousness is ?"but indicate impact of consciousness on matter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am suggesting below some of the attributes of consciousness.These are indicative only and not all encompassive :
i) Creation of self motion in some organs or full body, creation of breathing, blood circulation
ii) Awareness of environmental stimuli
iii) Response to environmental stimuli
iv) Self awareness
v) development of higher cognitive faculties.
Of all the above attributes, awareness of environment or self is the most essential and fundamental attribute for consciousness to manifest
For consciousness to manifest in any body made up of matter, it is not necessary that all the above attributes may appear simultaneously. For example, fetus has motion in some organs and also aware of some environment, therefore, they are consciousness. Plants have only one attribute : rudimentary awareness of environmental stimuli, as such, they are also conscious.
It is only in a grown up human being in the waking state that all the attributes appear, therefore,he is in fully consciousness stage. But what about a person in deep sleep or sedation stage? In deep sleep or sedation stage, consciousness is drastically reduced but person shall still be in the conscious category. Reason? In deep stage also, breathing and blood circulation are maintained and on awakening, awareness and self awareness re-appear. Most essential, after awakening from deep sleep or sedation, person remember and describes that he/she was in deep sleep or sedation. This establishes that in deep sleep also, there was conscious observer who was having awareness of "nothingness" of deep sleep or sedation
But what about a moving star or planet? a moving star or planet is not consciousness since neither it indicates breathing/ blood circulation nor it reflects any degree of consciousness
I have a memory of being in my mother's womb. I have never forgotten it. It was my first ever thought. It was dark, I was comfortable and warm and I could hear muffled sounds. Then I fell asleep. So I would say consciousness starts very early.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey were using Lamb fetuses. Humans have a much more complex thought process, long termmemory storage etc. No comparison. If there were no consciousness, then why talk to your tummy, play soothing music etc. There have been studies that playing loud high bass music in a car while pregnant has long term effects on the child. We are not lambs.
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