I happened onto the writings of Ken Wilber, an amazing polymath
who covered many territories and than tried to integrate them
into some sort of focus when it came to Consciousness.
A scientist, philosopher, and transpersonal psychologist, Wilber
provided a list of categories in Consciousness Research. I
should like to quote at least sparingly from Wilber's list.
" *Cognitive Science* tends to view consciousness as anchored
in functional schemas of the brain/mind, either in a simple
representational fashion...or in the more complex emergent/
connectionist models, which view consciousness as an emergent
of hierarchically integrated networks...
" *Introspectionism* maintains that consciousness is best
understood in terms of intentionality, anchored in first-person
accounts...
" *Neuropsychology* views consciousness as anchored in
neural systems, neurotransmitters, and organic brain mechanisms...
" *Individual psychotherapy*...tends to view consciousness as
primarily anchored in an individual organism's adaptive capacities...
" *Social psychology* views consciousness as embedded in
networks of cultural meaning, or, alternatively, as being largely
a byproduct of the social system itself...
" *Clinical psychiatry* focuses on the relation of psychopathology,
behavioural patterns, and psychopharmacology...
" *Developmental psychology* views consciousness not as a single
entity but as a developmentally unfolding process with a substantially
different architecture at each of its stages of growth...
" *Psychosomatic medicine* views consciousness as strongly and
intrinsically inter-active with organic bodily processes...
" *Nonordinary states of consciousness,* from dreams to psychedelics,
constitutes a field of study that, its advocates believe, is crucial
to a grasp of consciousness in general...
" *Eastern and contemplative traditions* maintain that ordinary
consciousness is but a narrow and restricted version of deeper and
higher modes of awareness...
" *Quantum consciousness* approaches...consciousness as being
intrinsically capable of interacting with, and altering, the physical
world, generally through quantum interactions...
" *Subtle energies* research has postulated that there exist subtler
types of bio-energies beyond the four recognized forces of physics
(strong and weak nuclear, electromagnetic, gravitational) and that
these subtler energies play an intrinsic role in consciousness..."
[Ken Wilber, an article entitled "Integral Theory of Consciousness.]
(Originally an item in my story "Sol Scientia")
