Talk:Consciousness

Because of their length, the previous discussions on this page have been archived. If further archiving is needed, see Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.

• Archive 1 ( // to 21/10/05)
• Archive 2 (21/10/05 to 13/04/07)
• Archive 3 (13/04/07 to 29/11/09)

I think this page needs to be significantly re-organized. There are a lot of high quality sources and I think in general the page does a good job of covering lots of perspectives that researchers have put forward, but often not in a very systematic way. I'm planning to re-organize the page in a sandbox (without making any changes to the content) and then copy in my revised version here, but first I wanted to check if anyone objects to my overall plan. Here are the main problems I see and how I'm planning to fix them:

• The lead currently only addresses how to define consciousness rather than summarizing the whole article. The material in the lead belongs in the "Problem of definition" section with just a shorter summary in the lead along with summaries of other sections.
• The "Interdisciplinary perspectives" section is actually closer to a lead since it actually summarizes the sections for philosophy, science, and medicine below. A trimmed down version of that material and summaries of other sections can together form a new lead. The "Interdisciplinary perspectives" material doesn't need a section in the body, since it just covers what is said in later sections more briefly.
• Three of the sub-sections in the "Philosophy of mind" section should be moved out: "Consciousness in children", "Animal consciousness", and "Artifact consciousness". As the material in these sub-sections demonstrates, these topics are not necessarily only philosophical ones but rather span various disciplines. These three could be the sub-sections of a new section further down. Maybe it could be called "Consciousness outside human adults", though hopefully I can think of a better section title.
• Within the "Scientific study" section, there should be a sub-section for "Models of consciousness". Currently, there's already quite a bit about this crammed into the "Neural correlates" sub-section and for some reason "Entropic brain" has its own sub-section while no other model does.
• The "Stream of consciousness" section should be broken up. The part from William James can be worked into the "Scientific study" section, while the part about Buddhist psychology can be added to the "Spiritual approaches" section. The "Narrative form" sub-section is off-topic and I think the material should be moved to a more appropriate article, but for now I would just leave it as a separate section to avoid combining content changes with my organizational changes.
• The "Anasognosia" sub-section belongs within the "Disorders of consciousness" sub-section.

There may be a few other things to move around but that's basically my plan. Again, I won't bundle content changes together with my re-organization (though in the future a lot of these sources probably need updating). If anyone has objections/suggestions for this let me know. Otherwise I'll go ahead soon. Gazelle55 (talk) 19:59, 11 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

I've been a bit slow to get to this and I think it's better I implement the above piece by piece rather than all at once. Just fixed the organization regarding anosognosia. Let me know if any objections as I re-organize. Gazelle55 ^{Let's talk!} 21:08, 10 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

Quick note that I didn't finish all of these, but if someone else is working on the page and wants to discuss just ping me. Gazelle55 ^{Let's talk!} 20:27, 24 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Gazelle55: One thing that really strikes me about this article is that the lead section doesn't really inform the readers that consciousness isn't truly understood and that it's mechanics are a subject of research and scientific study.★Trekker (talk) 15:33, 30 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Removed uncitated sources saying default is historical one.added source citated showing dominant position in philosophy of mind is physicalism Orexin (talk) 05:51, 9 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

I am concerned that this article doesn't follow the good article criteria anymore. Some of my concerns are highlighted below:

• There is a lot of uncited text throughout the article.
• There are some sections that rely upon block quotes. This creates copyright concerns and increases the word count. This information might be better as summarised prose.
• The article, at over 11,000 words, is above the recommended length at WP:TOOBIG. I think this might be a sign that this is too detailed. I think removing most of the block quotes will resolve this, but the article should be edited for too much detail.
• The lead does not summarise all major aspects of the article.

Is anyone interested in fixing up this article or should this go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 18:52, 7 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result pending

There is a lot of uncited text throughout the article. Some sections rely upon block quotes, which create copyright concerns, make the text more difficult to read, and increase the word count. This information might be better summarized in prose. The article, at over 11,000 words, is above the recommended length at WP:TOOBIG, I think summarising most of the block quotes will resolve this, but I think information can be spun out. The lead does not summarise all major aspects of the article. Z1720 (talk) 16:15, 16 November 2024 (UTC)Reply