Consciousness could be described as the feeling of being inside your head, looking out, or of having a soul.

How we learn, store memories, or perceive things, are easy problems to solve. The problematic part is why all those complicated brain processes feel like anything f...

The problems of consciousness straddle the border between science and philosophy.

• Some argue that conscious sensations, such as pain, don't really exist, others, that plants and trees must also be conscious.
• A handful of neuroscientists have come to believe that the problem...

Science has been trying to ignore the problem of consciousness for a long time.

• In the 1600s, René Descartes declared that nothing is more obvious and undeniable than the fact that we are conscious. Your consciousness can't be a fantasy. At the same time, your consciousness does not ...

We could tell simple mechanical stories about the machinery of the eye, but it doesn't begin to explain the breathtaking experience of depth and clarity.

Consciousness can't just be made of ordinary physical atoms. Philosopher David Chalmers argues that it must be an additional ingred...

Most may think of consciousness as something above our physical being - as if your mind were driving your body. But to accept this as a scientific principle would discount the laws of physics.

Everything we know about the universe tells us that reality consists of physical atoms and th...

Professor Daniel Dennett, the high-profile atheist, argues that consciousness is an illusion, that the normal functioning of the brain just makes it look as if there is something non-physical going on.

His opponents think he simply denies the existence of something everyone knows: that of ...

Patricia Churchland, a self-described neurophilosopher, thinks neuroscience will eventually show that consciousness is just brain states.

Several ideas are surfacing: "global workspace theory," "ego tunnels," "microtubules," even speculation that quantum theory may provide an answer. B...

In the last few years, several scientists and philosophers are looking at panpsychism, the idea that everything in the universe might be conscious, or potentially conscious, or conscious when putting into particular configurations.

A narrower view is that anything could be conscious, provi...

The "integrated information theory" has been tested. A device has been designed to measure how integrated the brain's neural circuits are. When people fall into a deep sleep, the device demonstrates that their brain integration declines too.

In theory, you can take any device, measure the ...