William James's Theory Of Human Consciousness

871 Words4 Pages

Among those traits, there exist desire, an intense feeling of having enough or more. Life is always unpredictable and yet logical. Though biologically we only need to stay nutrient fed and be safe to live, but under the circumstance economic and social systems, we need to work more along money parameter to stay well enough. But under capitalist modern world, we can almost buy anything we want starting from food, house, pet, and even wife and infants. Since in existence of money we can be happy with what we buy, money replaces happiness, “a state of well-being that encompasses living a good life—that is, with a sense of meaning and deep satisfaction”. However our desire for happiness turns into greed, the desire which long for unneedful …show more content…

Biologically the core of human mind, brain is composed of one hundred billions of neurons interacting with each other through electrical activity. Efficiently linked neurons pass each other information and if those linkage happens in synchrony, and it is called consciousness. In simple words human consciousness can be understood as being aware of the informations the neurons pass on or as the feeling the soul inside us. In Psychology, theory of dual process explains how human consciousness work. Initiated by William James, who first founded the two types of thinking including the true reasoning and associative, dual process theory was concluded by Daniel Kahneman, who analyzed thoughts into System a and System 2 with his best selling book called “Thinking fast and slow” (2011,Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Deriving from the book, Daniel Kahneman divides human thoughts and acts into fast System 1 of automatic unconsciousness which comes out naturally and slow System 2 of controlled consciousness which comes out rationally. Having long history of evolution, System 1 is one of the genetic traits human have learned to do without the awareness and it covers the majority of our actions like emotional patterns of crying, laughing and breathing, walking, digesting and reading words without effort. Though this process starts consciously, it takes place with our unintentional unawareness, efficiently proceeding with few resources, under controllability of knowing when to stop. The key for System 1, then is that it is“unintentional and automatic”. However System 2 proportional to our vast brain, is what makes us differ from other living creatures on planet Earth. It is time-consuming, rule based and reasoning process which makes long process to really ‘think’. Because of the capacity for System 2 in the central memory system, it takes

Open Document