Consciousness – the difficult philosophical term characterizing ability of the person to learn surrounding reality and also to define the place, a role in this reality.
What views of ancient scientists of the nature consciousness were
That such consciousness, than it is caused and that can affect it heated arguments were since ancient times conducted. At first only philosophers and theologians, then, in process of development of science, scientific different specialties – for example, biologists, physiologists, psychologists participated in them. To this day there are no accurate, standard criteria what to understand as consciousness and as it arises.
The famous Ancient Greek philosopher Platon considered that consciousness of each person is caused by existence of immortal soul. After life comes to an end, soul leaves a body and returns to the highest, the unknown "world of the ideas" which is immeasurably more developed, than that material world where there are people, animal and inanimate objects of the nature. That is the philosopher Platon actually was one of founders of the popular philosophical doctrine subsequently called dualism.
This term meaning duality of consciousness and physical objects was officially entered into use many centuries later by the famous French scientist René Descartes living in the first half of the 17th century. Popular expression "Is attributed to it I think – means, I exist". A basis of philosophical reasonings of Descartes on the nature of consciousness was the postulate that the person is a certain conceiving substance which can doubt anything, even existence of the world around, except own consciousness. That is the nature of consciousness lies out of area of laws of a material world. The famous German philosopher Hegel considered consciousness, first of all, as ability of the individual to correlate the personality to the world around.
That scientists-materialists thought of the consciousness nature
The term "materialism" was officially entered only at the beginning of the 18th century by the famous German scientist Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. But adherents of this philosophical doctrine according to which consciousness is only a product of activity of a human body (first of all, his brain) were known since ancient times. And as the human body is live matter, and consciousness is material. The most famous adherents of materialism in XIX– of the 20th centuries were Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin. Despite enormous achievements of science, exact interpretation to the consciousness nature is still not given.