CONSCIOUSNESS

Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience or awareness of internal and external existence. Despite millennia of analyses, definitions, explanations and debates by philosophers and scientists, consciousness remains puzzling and controversial, being at once the most familiar and [also the] most mysterious aspect of our lives. Perhaps the only widely agreed notion about the topic is the intuition that consciousness exists. Opinions differ about what exactly needs to studied and explained as consciousness. Sometimes, it is synonymous with the , and at other times, aspect of . In the past, it was one's inner , the world of introspection, of private thought, imagination and volition. Today, it often includes any kind of cognition, experience, feeling or perception. It may awareness, awareness of awareness, or self-awareness either continuously changing or not. There might different levels or orders of consciousness, or different kinds of consciousness, or just one kind with different features. Other questions include whether only humans are conscious, all animals, or even the whole universe. The disparate range of research, notions and speculations raises doubts about whether the right questions are being asked.

PRIMITIVE CLASSIFICATION
Conscious
Subconscious or preconscious
Unconscious
FREUD'S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
ID
Ego
Super-Ego

Conscience , consciousness

Cognition , recognition , precognition

Gnosis , stereognosis , agnosia

note , notice , notion , notorius

acquaint , reacquaint

noble

ignorance , incognito