Medical aspects Edit The medical approach to consciousness is practically oriented. It derives from a need to treat people whose brain function has been impaired as a result of disease, brain damage, toxins, or drugs. In medicine, conceptual distinctions are considered useful to the degree that they can help to guide treatments. Whereas the philosophical approach to consciousness focuses on its fundamental nature and its contents, the medical approach focuses on the amount of consciousness a person has: in medicine, consciousness is assessed as a "level" ranging from coma and brain death at the low end, to full alertness and purposeful responsiveness at the high end. [160] Consciousness is of concern to patients and physicians, especially neurologists and anesthesiologists . Patients may suffer from disorders of consciousness or may need to be anesthetized for a surgical procedure. Physicians may perform consciousness-related interventions such as instructing th...
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Consciousness , at its simplest, is " sentience or awareness of internal or external existence". [1] Despite millennia of analyses, definitions, explanations and debates by philosophers and scientists, consciousness remains puzzling and controversial, [2] being "at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives". [3] Perhaps the only widely agreed notion about the topic is the intuition that it exists. [4] Opinions differ about what exactly needs to be studied and explained as consciousness. Sometimes, it is synonymous with the mind , and at other times, an aspect of it. In the past, it was one's "inner life", the world of introspection , of private thought , imagination and volition . [5] Today, it often includes some kind of experience , cognition , feeling or perception . It may be awareness , awareness of awareness , or se...