Studies in the Osteopathic Sciences Volume 3 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER V THE NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS It is very evident that it is impossible to define consciousness in any exact sense. It is just as evident that it is impossible to define any primitive conception. Such terms as energy, matter, life, and all other terms applied to simple ideas, are, by that fact, impossible of definition, just as the axiom in mathematics is impossible of proof. Consciousness is one of these ideas. Yet, while the exact definition of the term is impossible, it is, like other primitive ideas, capable of a certain amount of elucidation. In order to use the term at all with profit, it is necessary to agree upon the application of the term. This must be done, as in the case of other primitive ideas, by the statement of certain relationships between consciousness and other ideas with which we are more or less familiar. It must be recognized that in our inability to exactly define consciousness we are placed in exactly the same position as we are in our inability to define matter or energy or any other primitive idea. We may only explain the use of the word matter, energy, etc., by the statement of the relationship between matter and movement, for example, or between energy, heat and light, and by otherwise expressing relationship. In the same way it becomes possible to understand something, not of the real nature of consciousness, but of its relationship to other phenomena of nature, and especially to other phenomena of physiology and biology. Definition Consciousness is a phenomenon associated with the activity of the cells of the cerebral cortex, probably of the external layer. It is associated with the activities of all parts of the cortex, and it is vivid or dim according to the metabolism of these neurons....