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Wakefulness is a daily recurring brain state and state of consciousness in which an individual is conscious and engages in coherent cognitive and behavioral responses to the external world. Being awake is the opposite of being asleep, in which most external inputs to the brain are excluded from neural processing. [1] [2] [3] [4]
This system of a sort of general activation of consciousness is called "arousal" or "wakefulness". [14] It is not necessarily accompanied by drowsiness. [16] Patients may be awake (not sleepy) yet still have a clouded consciousness (disorder of wakefulness). [17] Paradoxically, affected individuals say that they are "awake but, in another way ...
"Consciousness", as far as neurology can determine, is not something that can deduced from the behavior of an agent: it is always possible that the machine is simulating the experience of consciousness, without actually experiencing it, similar to the way a perfectly written fictional character might simulate a person with consciousness.
Sociology of human consciousness uses the theories and methodology of sociology to explain human consciousness. The theory and its models emphasize the importance of language, collective representations, self-conceptions, and self-reflectivity. It argues that the shape and feel of human consciousness is heavily social.
Arousal is the physiological and psychological state of being awoken or of sense organs stimulated to a point of perception. It involves activation of the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) in the brain, which mediates wakefulness, the autonomic nervous system, and the endocrine system, leading to increased heart rate and blood pressure and a condition of sensory alertness, desire ...
Higher-order theories of consciousness postulate that consciousness consists in perceptions or thoughts about first-order mental states. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] In particular, phenomenal consciousness is thought to be a higher-order representation of perceptual or quasi-perceptual contents, such as visual images.
Wakefulness is a quantitative assessment of the degree of consciousness, whereas awareness is a qualitative assessment of the functions mediated by the cortex, including cognitive abilities such as attention, sensory perception, explicit memory, language, the execution of tasks, temporal and spatial orientation and reality judgment.
Consciousness Explained is a 1991 book by the American philosopher Daniel Dennett, in which the author offers an account of how consciousness arises from interaction of physical and cognitive processes in the brain. Dennett describes consciousness as an account of the various calculations occurring in the brain at close to the same time.