Western Philosophy - MindMeister Mind Map - StumbleUpon. Alain de Botton: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success. Achilles and the Tortoise - 60-Second Adventures in Thought (1/6) Consciousness. 1. History of the issue Questions about the nature of conscious awareness have likely been asked for as long as there have been humans. Neolithic burial practices appear to express spiritual beliefs and provide early evidence for at least minimally reflective thought about the nature of human consciousness (Pearson 1999, Clark and Riel-Salvatore 2001). Preliterate cultures have similarly been found invariably to embrace some form of spiritual or at least animist view that indicates a degree of reflection about the nature of conscious awareness.
Nonetheless, some have argued that consciousness as we know it today is a relatively recent historical development that arose sometime after the Homeric era (Jaynes 1974). According to this view, earlier humans including those who fought the Trojan War did not experience themselves as unified internal subjects of their thoughts and actions, at least not in the ways we do today. Locke's contemporary G.W. 2. 2.1 Creature Consciousness Sentience. 3. A&[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] - StumbleUpon. Thebigview.com - Pondering the Big Questions - StumbleUpon.