"Consciousness, society and values/edited by A. V. Afonso"

Reflections on "Consciousness, Society and Values" may take the individual through myriad of theoretical considerations,
ranging from purely speculative to the concrete and substantially observable. The theoretical reflections themselves would constitute their own philosophical "predilections", whereby the reflections would be justified from purely phenomelogical perspective or from empiricistic and quasi scientific standpoint. One does not assume that there are no other logics employed to justify the tl:teoretical positions adopted by philosophers. Survey of philosophical standpoints on "consciousnesses" do reveal even a "leap of faith" as a part of a logic of justification. The problem of consciousness in spite of centuries of deliberations and experimentations keeps on returning both in its seminal articulation and in forms of combinations. Whether consciousness as a property of matter, as a property of protoplasm, as learning, as metaphysical presupposition, as emergent evolution, as property of behaviour or even as a metaphor, keeps finding its place in philosophical and nonphilosophical discussions. When the last decade of the twen tieth cen tury was proclaimed by the United Nations as the decade of brain research, investigation of the phenomenon of consciousness as the most complex of brain functions regained momentum. The development of experimental techniques which enabled physiological investigation of interactions of hierarchically interconnected neighbouring brain's neural networks, significantly contributed to the breakthroughs in fields of modelling of bio-information processes and design of artificial networI.
An understanding of the phenomenon of consciousnessis recognized to have significant implications in medicine,
psychology, biology, physics, computer sciences and even communications. In relation to society, consciousness
discussions are primarily dominated by two types of theoretical models. In the traditional Marxist model, society
is mainly understood as an economic nexus and is deemed as the primary cause that shapes the individual ideas and
consequen tly patterns of consciousness which in turn influence the society. In the traditional "history of ideas"
model, individual or individuals are responsible for the ideas that influence or structure the society. There are however
alternative models represen ting the dialectical relation between consciousness and society. Some scholars have
indeed questioned the very dichotomy envisaged in the above and posi ted al ternative articulation in which
consciousness is seen as constitutive of society.