Consciousness

Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of internal and external existence.^[1] However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debate by philosophers, theologians, and all of science. Opinions differ about what exactly needs to be studied or even considered consciousness. In some explanations, it is synonymous with the mind, and at other times, an aspect of mind. In the past, it was one's "inner life", the world of introspection, of private thought, imagination and volition.^[2] Today, it often includes any kind of cognition, experience, feeling or perception. It may be awareness, awareness of awareness, or self-awareness either continuously changing or not.^[3][4] The disparate range of research, notions and speculations raises a curiosity about whether the right questions are being asked.^[5]

Examples of the range of descriptions, definitions or explanations are: ordered distinction between self and environment, simple wakefulness, one's sense of selfhood or soul explored by "looking within"; being a metaphorical "stream" of contents, or being a mental state, mental event, or mental process of the brain.