Consciousness is a elusive concept. It seems to be well known as an intuitive and subjetive reality, but when you try to grasp it conceptually, you may encounter serious problems.
I don't pretend to offer a definive and authoritative definition of consciousness, only a workable defintion of it as used in this blog.
I understand consciousness as a set of capabilities consisting in cognitive, affective and volitional processes integrated in an unit of self-awareness (the "center of self").
That definition implies:
-Consciousness includes cognitive processes, that is, processes of conceptual and abstract thinking.
-It also includes affective processes, involving emotions and feelings, and the ability of recognize them as such.
-It includes, volitional processes, involving goal-directed and purposeful thinking. It can be considered as sub-group of cognitive processes (because it involves thinking), but it's included here as a separated function of consciousness.
-The unit of self-awareness, where all the above functions are recognized as real in our integrated subjetive experience.
If consciousness survives physical death, then we should to expect that the above functions remain esentially intact (even thought they could be expanded or modified in some non-essential way)
I think this imperfect and personal definition is workable to analyze and think about the main topics of consciousness.
Keep in mind that I'm refering to individual consciousness, not to the all-embracing (and often ineffable) universal consciousness experienced by some mystics.
