{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.0253447633246366, 'fraction_numerical': 0.005218039508013418, 'mean_word_length': 5.127853881278539, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Current neuropsychological understanding of consciousness as influenced by antecedent arguments in the philosophy of mind

The purpose of this paper is to describe antecedent influences of philosophy on modern neuropsychological conceptions of consciousness. I will first describe a brief philosophical history of consciousness in the form of several famous arguments, which underlie modern understanding of the phenomenon. As a result, I will illustrate how modern neuroscientific theories of consciousness are very much a melody of multidisciplinary historical ideas, which play notable roles in directing neuroscience investigation. The very early theories of consciousness were almost exclusively philosophical in nature. The most explicit of these early philosophies are those that viewed the mind from a dualistic perspective, which considered mind and body as separate entities that were not necessarily physically connected. The most famous of these philosophies is found within Descartes' 2 nd mediation written in the 15 th century, entitled " Cartesian Dualism " (1). Specifically, his argument stated that the only aspect of humanness one can be certain of is that of his or her own mind. In essence, because I know that I think (I can hear my consciousness), this is the only aspect of myself I can be certain exists. As a result, I cannot be so certain about the existence of my body. Thus, they must be fundamentally different in some way (1). Later, he elaborates on this premise, stating that the mind exists in some nonphysical realm, outside of reality, due to the private nature of our thoughts. The body, however, exists in physical space, because my material essence is necessarily public (1). It was not until the early 20 th century until philosophers began conceiving of mental properties as physical events with respect to fundamental laws of physics. Philosophers David Armstrong and W.T. Stace directed the philosophy of mind towards this goal. Both are considered naturalists; a school of thought which claims that " nonphysical events " (those supposedly incapable of being explained by epistemological methods) have no place in scientific investigation (4). In the 1950's, Stace and Armstrong proposed the mind-brain identity theory, proposing that mental properties are identical to physical properties. For example, mental events such as pain must have some corresponding physical cause, such as neural activity or cell physiology (2). Therefore, for every mental state, there is a physical state of the brain. Moreover, rather than pain causing neurons to fire or neurons causing the sensation of pain, pain is both those neurons and the sensation …