develop productive insights into consciousness, the new science of mind first had to settle on a working definition of consciousness as a state of perceptual awareness, or selective attention writ large. At its core, consciousness in people, is an awareness of self, an awareness of being aware. Consciousness thus refers to our ability not simply to experience pleasure and pain but to attend to and reflect upon those experiences, and to do so in the context of our immediate lives and our life history. Conscious attention allows us to shut out extraneous experiences and focus on the critical
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