Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-k7rjm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-02T01:25:45.432Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 1.2 - Consciousness in the Light of Recent Philosophy and Science

from Part I - Consciousness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2025

Raymond Romand  and
Günter Ehret
Edited by
Steven Laureys
Raymond Romand
Affiliation:
University of Strasbourg
Günter Ehret
Affiliation:
University of Ulm
Steven Laureys
Affiliation:
Liège University, Belgium
Get access

Summary

For many philosophers, the mind-body problem has to be solved in order to explain consciousness. Consciousness can be described by levels of awareness and wakefulness. The evolution of consciousness in animals shows in which taxa of animals awareness and wakefulness have been reached at levels from absence of consciousness to levels similar to humans. The ontogeny of consciousness in human babies reproduces the evolution of consciousness in animals. Brain injury and disorders in humans can throw back consciousness to animal levels.

Keywords

animal consciousnessawarenessbrain connectivitybrain wavesmind–body problemneuroscience approachesontogeny of consciousnesswakefulness

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
Near-Death Experiences
Scientific Perspectives on Stories of Personal Truth
 , pp. 10 - 25
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×