It takes around eight minutes and twenty seconds for light from the sun to reach the earth. It then takes another half a second for that light to be reflected off an object, detected by the retina, trigger signals that travel along the optic nerve, pass the optic chiasm, continue down the optic tract, go through the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus, arrive at the primary visual cortex and spread to wider areas of the cortex and to finally then somehow become part of consciousness. If we decide to move in response to that light, there is a similar time lapse. Specific neurons in the brain must activate continuously for at least half a second before we make the decision to move. To some, consciousness is divine; to others consciousness is the result of the contemporaneous firing of distributed populations of neurons feeding through a dynamical core of deep brain activity.

Links

Consciousness and the Brain                                           

Consciousness and Neuroscience                                   

The Problem of Consciousness, John R. Searle           

Susan Blackmore                                                  

Is Consciousness Definable                                              

William James                                                         

Daniel Dennet                                                         

Conscious Entities                                                  

Susan Greenfield                                                    

Antonio Damasio                                                    

William Calvin                                                         

Stuart Hameroff:                                                       

Journal of Consciousness studies               

Culture and Consciousness       

Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness

Anthropology of Consciousness