What is Consciousness?
“It is not necessary for someone to tell me that I am alive because I know that I am alive, I know what is happening around me. I can hear the chirping sounds out of my window. I know there are birds out there. I can smell the ghee in the pongal that my mom is making. I can hear the cycle bell sound and I know its 8.30 am and my friend is waiting for me outside for school .I can sense the fear in me that I didn’t complete my homework. I will be a dead person when my teacher asks for homework. Yes, I am alive and I know it.” This is the layman definition which we would like to give for consciousness. Scientifically, Consciousness is a state of being aware of what is happening around you. In other words, it’s an art of perception i.e. how we perceive things which we come across in our daily lives. Relationship between brain and consciousness: As mentioned above, consciousness is how we perceive things. …show more content…
It’s actually how our brain perceives the stimulus which our body comes in contact with. If we get near the fire, we can feel the hotness. Hence our brain perceives fire as a hot object. So next time when we see a hot object our brain correlates it with fire. Hence it can also be said that our memory also plays a major role in consciousness. Kim Peek: In the class, Raunak and Prithvi showed us a person with eidetic memory. Kim Peek is a person who can read two pages at a time. He is said to have an eidetic memory i.e. photographic memory. He can correlate things with what he has seen or read it in a book. He could recall 98% of everything that he ever experienced in perfect detail. He died in 2009 but by this time he has memorized 12000 books. Now the questions arise – How can he do that? Does he have any superpower? Is he a normal person or super human? And the answers to these questions are that “Yes, Kim Peek is not a normal person. He is born with Macrocephaly. It is a condition in which the cerebellum is damaged and agenesis of corpus callosum due to which the nerves connecting the two hemispheres are missing. Also, secondary connectors such as the anterior commissure were missing. Hence due to absence of corpus callosum his neurons produced unusual connections which resulted in an increased memory capacity. One more interesting fact about Peek is that when he was 18 years old he was hired to manage payroll for 160 people without using calculator and was later fired in his early 30’s because the authorities computerized the payroll. It took two full time accountants and a computer to replace him. Aurelien Hayman: This guy is even more interesting than Peek. “Oh! Really? What did he do?” He can never forget any instance in his life. “What! a guy who can never forget? Is that even possible?” “Yes, science says it is possible.” Aurelien Hayman is affected by Hyperthymesia. It means autobiographical memory. He can recall each and every detail like what he ate, what he wore, what and with whom he spoke with 100 percent precision. Hyperthymesia is a rare condition diagnosed only in 20 people around the earth. It is important to draw a difference between people with hyperthymesia and any other exceptional memory. Unlike synesthetic individuals they don’t use mnemonics to remember. They recall personal events in their lives. What is Artificial Intelligence? It is the intelligence exhibited by machines or software and the branch of computer science that develops machines and software with intelligence.The central problems (or goals) of AI research include reasoning, knowledge, planning, learning, communication, perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects. (This is the definition the which they gave in class and we find it appropriate to mention here) Raunak and Prithvi also explained about a computer playing the game of chess. It is programmed to play autonomously without human guidance. But do you think like humans, winning a game of chess would make a computer happy? Even if it makes it happy how does it express its happiness? Kuka Robot: I
“It is not necessary for someone to tell me that I am alive because I know that I am alive, I know what is happening around me. I can hear the chirping sounds out of my window. I know there are birds out there. I can smell the ghee in the pongal that my mom is making. I can hear the cycle bell sound and I know its 8.30 am and my friend is waiting for me outside for school .I can sense the fear in me that I didn’t complete my homework. I will be a dead person when my teacher asks for homework. Yes, I am alive and I know it.” This is the layman definition which we would like to give for consciousness. Scientifically, Consciousness is a state of being aware of what is happening around you. In other words, it’s an art of perception i.e. how we perceive things which we come across in our daily lives. Relationship between brain and consciousness: As mentioned above, consciousness is how we perceive things. …show more content…
It’s actually how our brain perceives the stimulus which our body comes in contact with. If we get near the fire, we can feel the hotness. Hence our brain perceives fire as a hot object. So next time when we see a hot object our brain correlates it with fire. Hence it can also be said that our memory also plays a major role in consciousness. Kim Peek: In the class, Raunak and Prithvi showed us a person with eidetic memory. Kim Peek is a person who can read two pages at a time. He is said to have an eidetic memory i.e. photographic memory. He can correlate things with what he has seen or read it in a book. He could recall 98% of everything that he ever experienced in perfect detail. He died in 2009 but by this time he has memorized 12000 books. Now the questions arise – How can he do that? Does he have any superpower? Is he a normal person or super human? And the answers to these questions are that “Yes, Kim Peek is not a normal person. He is born with Macrocephaly. It is a condition in which the cerebellum is damaged and agenesis of corpus callosum due to which the nerves connecting the two hemispheres are missing. Also, secondary connectors such as the anterior commissure were missing. Hence due to absence of corpus callosum his neurons produced unusual connections which resulted in an increased memory capacity. One more interesting fact about Peek is that when he was 18 years old he was hired to manage payroll for 160 people without using calculator and was later fired in his early 30’s because the authorities computerized the payroll. It took two full time accountants and a computer to replace him. Aurelien Hayman: This guy is even more interesting than Peek. “Oh! Really? What did he do?” He can never forget any instance in his life. “What! a guy who can never forget? Is that even possible?” “Yes, science says it is possible.” Aurelien Hayman is affected by Hyperthymesia. It means autobiographical memory. He can recall each and every detail like what he ate, what he wore, what and with whom he spoke with 100 percent precision. Hyperthymesia is a rare condition diagnosed only in 20 people around the earth. It is important to draw a difference between people with hyperthymesia and any other exceptional memory. Unlike synesthetic individuals they don’t use mnemonics to remember. They recall personal events in their lives. What is Artificial Intelligence? It is the intelligence exhibited by machines or software and the branch of computer science that develops machines and software with intelligence.The central problems (or goals) of AI research include reasoning, knowledge, planning, learning, communication, perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects. (This is the definition the which they gave in class and we find it appropriate to mention here) Raunak and Prithvi also explained about a computer playing the game of chess. It is programmed to play autonomously without human guidance. But do you think like humans, winning a game of chess would make a computer happy? Even if it makes it happy how does it express its happiness? Kuka Robot: I