{"version":"1.0","provider_name":"UX Magazine","provider_url":"https:\/\/uxmag.com","author_name":"Nataliia Vlasenko","author_url":"https:\/\/uxmag.com\/contributors\/nataliia-vlasenko","title":"Understanding Consciousness","type":"rich","width":600,"height":338,"html":"<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"L70gh2rD8m\"><a href=\"https:\/\/uxmag.com\/articles\/understanding-consciousness\">Understanding Consciousness<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" src=\"https:\/\/uxmag.com\/articles\/understanding-consciousness\/embed#?secret=L70gh2rD8m\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" title=\"&#8220;Understanding Consciousness&#8221; &#8212; UX Magazine\" data-secret=\"L70gh2rD8m\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\"><\/iframe><script>\n\/*! This file is auto-generated *\/\n!function(d,l){\"use strict\";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&\"undefined\"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!\/[^a-zA-Z0-9]\/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),c=new RegExp(\"^https?:$\",\"i\"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display=\"none\";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute(\"style\"),\"height\"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):\"link\"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute(\"src\")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener(\"message\",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener(\"DOMContentLoaded\",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll(\"iframe.wp-embedded-content\"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute(\"data-secret\"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+=\"#?secret=\"+t,e.setAttribute(\"data-secret\",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:\"ready\",secret:t},\"*\")},!1)))}(window,document);\n<\/script>\n","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/uxmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Understanding-Consciousness-Banner-Image.webp","thumbnail_width":1792,"thumbnail_height":1024,"description":"Physics and the traditional approaches to the philosophy of the mind have failed to provide an effective understanding of subjective conscious experience. This article demonstrates that this is the case by offering a detailed analysis of a recent symposium with some leading thinkers in physics, philosophy, and neuroscience and contrasting that with a new emerging perspective called \"Extended Naturalism\" (EN). Developed by professors John Vervaeke and Gregg Henriques, extended naturalism provides us with a new conception of emergence and a coherent, layered naturalistic ontology that demonstrates that each of the primary layers (i.e., energy, material, living, mental, and cultural) are \"real\" and have emergent causal powers that cannot be reduced to the levels beneath them. This new naturalistic ontology is then merged with an integrative conception of psychology and cognitive science. The result enables us to understand both the nature of consciousness (i.e., what it is) and its function (i.e., what it does). EN shows that we need to split the so-called \"hard problem of consciousness\" into two separate problems, one of which is philosophical and addresses the concept of consciousness in the natural world and the other of which is scientific and explains how mental processes, including subjective conscious experiences, emerge in the context of animals with brains acting in the world."}