ABSTRACT
This chapter considers what is meant by consciousness, distinguishing the various things that are meant by the term and looking at changing assumptions about the relationship between mind and brain. It examines the critique of religion mounted by Francis Crick on the basis of the scientific study of consciousness. The chapter concerns the theological insight that God can be understood in some sense as a mind, rather like a human mind, or as a centre of consciousness. It focuses on immortality, which raises the possibility of a survival of some kind of disembodied consciousness. Brain scientists have become intensely interested in how consciousness arises within the physical structure of the brain. Within evolutionary thinking, attention is being given to how and why consciousness evolved. Consciousness is one of the most distinctive things about human beings, and is currently the focus of an extraordinary amount of multi-disciplinary interest.
