The Nature of Consciousness

The present article, The Nature of Consciousness, relates consciousness to brain activity without assuming consciousness to be a brain process capable of affecting other brain processes.

Consciousness is assumed to be a pure passively emergent epiphenomenon automatically accompanying certain neural brain processes and having no influence on those processes. Consciousness simply being how we perceive sensations from outside and inside our body, including brain processes like thinking.

This is in contrast to existing theories of consciousness, which considers consciousness to be a brain process capable of affecting neural brain processes, and even orchestrating major functions of the brain.

It is suggested that this notion of consciousness, being able to affect brain processes, is an illusion resulting from consciously and continuously perceiving brain thought processes and erroneously getting the impression that consciousness is governing those thought processes while all the time failing to distinguish brain generated constructs from the conscious perception of them.

The present notion of consciousness, being a purely passive epiphenomenon, furthermore shows promise of throwing light on the Mind-Body problem, settling the question of free will, explaining the nature of a self, and showing its relation to evolution.