Why Consciousness? WhyCon: the human mind + brain
our conscious experience is your window to the world, to other people, and even to yourself. Recognizing the consciousness of others is also basic to human relationships and ethics. Consciousness has a long and sophisticated history in philosophy, the spiritual traditions, the humanities and the arts. Yet this is the first time in history that we can observe the living brain during profoundly important conscious experiences of aesthetics,moral judgments, pain and pleasure, mother-child attachment, romantic relationships, the experiences of movies and theater, and much more.
Many scientists believe that consciousness is the key to learning, and therefore education. Some have proposed that creativity involves a dialogue between conscious and unconscious brain events. From a biological viewpoint, human consciousness may be our primary gateway to culture and human relationships. And yet our scientific understanding is still primitive. In conventional science the topic of “consciousness” is still neglected compared to any other fundamental question.
