February 2024
The scientific attempts to understand consciousness face many challenges. The biggest is arguably what is called the “hard problem”, grasping how we can subjectively experience anything at all, qualia.
But it is also demanding to account for the continuous changes of conscious states: deep sleep, the dream state, meditation, deep artistic work, influence of psychedelics, psychosis, schizophrenia, mania, etc. To a researcher, it looks as if the object of study, consciousness, is unstable.
Scientific magazine Frontiers in Psychology has published a collection of studies covering different aspects of this challenge. In an editorial, three questions are raised: Can parameters be identified that help understand and describe these changes? Can constant aspects or elements be identified? Is it possible to identify an “average” conscious experience that could serve as a reference?
For more background on the topic, see our brief Covering Consciousness.
Anders Bolling
Frontier Journalists' Network 