Consciousness

Consciousness is the fact of experience: that there is something it is like to be a subject, to see, feel or think. It is the one thing we cannot doubt, since doubting is itself conscious, and the thing that has proved hardest to explain. The philosopher Thomas Nagel described it as there being “something it is like” to be an organism, and David Chalmers called the question of why physical processes give rise to experience at all “the hard problem”.

The contemplative traditions approach consciousness from within. Advaita Vedānta holds that pure consciousness (cit) is the self and is identical with Brahman, the one reality; the Sāṃkhya and Yoga schools distinguish pure consciousness (puruṣa) from the mind, which is a subtle form of matter. Buddhist traditions analyse consciousness (vijñāna) as a stream of momentary acts, and the Yogācāra school describes a storehouse consciousness beneath them.

Modern philosophy of mind asks whether consciousness is produced by the brain, identical with brain processes, a fundamental feature of reality, or the ground of matter itself. The meeting of contemplative accounts and scientific research is a growing field.