The research proposal by Muhammad Adil Raja aims to explore human consciousness, focusing on how the brain gives rise to the mind and the localization of bodily functions in the brain. It highlights areas such as speech production, motor skills enhancement, free will, meditation, and the afterlife, proposing a multi-method approach that combines neuroscience techniques. The methodology includes literature review, data collection, experimentation, and aims to produce scholarly publications over a timeline of two to three years.

1. Understanding Human Consciousness
Muhammad Adil Raja
Research Proposal
December 22, 2014
Understanding Human Consciousness by Muhammad Adil Raja is licensed
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2. Abstract
Over the past few years there has been a growing interest world-
wide in understanding the nature of human consciousness. On one
hand, such academic endeavors aim to understand and enhance the
quality of life of ordinary human beings. Specifically, the main focus
is to understand that how brain gives rise to the mind. Moreover,
it is attempted to understand that how various bodily functions such
as motor skills, digestive and respiratory systems are localized in the
brain. On the other hand, there has been an increasing interest in un-
derstanding that whether a nonphysical mind, such as a human soul
exists.
1 Introduction
Human beings have complex physical structures having a diverse set of ca-
pabilities. There are activities that human beings can perform intentionally
such as movements of various parts of the body. There are others that we
perform unintentionally such as breathing and digestion of food. Moreover,
there are other intangible, time varying mental states through which human
beings undergo. We call them emotions. It is argued that all of these ac-
tions, gestures and functions are localized in the brain. Human brain is the
most complex of all human organs. A deeper knowledge of how human brain
functions can give rise to a lot of valuable insights about the functioning of
various other organs, of various other muscle groups and also about the func-
tioning of our minds. Specifically, understanding how the brain gives rise to
the mind represents a great scientific challenge.
In order to easily understand the functioning of the brain, the various
roles it performs can be broken down into three main categories. These
are, perception, cognition and action. It is worthwhile to briefly go through
each one of these. Perception corresponds to the attempts of the brain to
understand the inputs it receives from its environment. The sound of a loud
cry, a light beam that falls on the retina of our eyes, heat of the stove felt on
the skin, are all examples of various external stimuli that come to the brain
from its surroundings. The manner in which the brain makes sense of these
stimuli is called as perception.
Cognition is comprised of a set of intangible mental faculties that dif-
ferentiate human beings from other animals. These are emotions, memory,
reasoning skills, ability to plan, and various habits.
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3. Action represents the final output of the brain that translates into our
various bodily actions and movements. This is done through control of vari-
ous muscles. Muscles we use for various actions range from our limbs that we
use while, for instance, playing football, to our tongue, which is a complex
muscle used for language and speech production.
Understanding how human mind and brain function cannot be done with
a single technique or methodology in isolation. It requires a multi-pronged
approach which should leverage from a gamut of modern neuroscience tech-
niques. On one hand where it is necessary to study molecular genetics, on
the other hand it is also important to utilize various imaging techniques such
as fMRI or PET scanning. The natural expectation is that the results would
not only enhance our understanding of the human brain but also help in un-
derstanding the various disorders associated with the brain and in devising
their cures. To this end, this research proposal looks forward to understand-
ing and addressing the following problems.
2 An Overview of Selected Areas and Prob-
lems Affecting Human Consciousness
Although the overall human consciousness can be thought of to be comprised
of many interrelated areas spanning from the human auditory and visual
systems to short term and long term memory defects, this section attempts
to give only an overview of the problems of interest that have been found to
be more intriguing. It is needless to say that all the areas areas are somehow
mature and intensive research is already being done in them.
2.1 Speech and Language Production
An interesting area of research is to work on various aspects of language
processing and communicative disorders. The study of comprehension and
production of language is quite intriguing. Particularly, one can be interested
in the production and correction of naive (or more generally belligerent, hyp-
ocritical or other negative types of) rhetoric in various contexts. Understand-
ing the difference between how (and what) the mind composes (in terms of
sentences or phrases) and how (and what) the tongue utters. Another curi-
ous problem is to find ways to bringing mind and tongue in harmony so as
to produce, for instance, more sensible, polite and honest language at both
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4. (mental and lingual) levels, possibly in real time. Speech production is be-
lieved to be the most complex of human motor skills. Studying topics such
as neural correlates of human language and speech production can give key
insights about how to enhance this faculty.
2.2 Enhancement of Human Motor Skills
One of the motives of this research proposal is to understand the neural basis
of human motor skills. The research proposal would look forward to inves-
tigate that what factors affect the development of good human motor skills.
The research proposal would also look forward to investigate the factors that
are responsible for various disorders in human motor skills.
To this end, the research proposal also looks forward to studying various
neurological illnesses that affect human motor mechanism. These are, for
instance, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.
2.3 Free Will and Volition
There has been an increased interest lately to study the nature of free will.
There are various camps which hold a spectrum of positions between the
complete existence and non-existence of free will. Whether or not free will
exists or not is not a question of philosophical fantasy, but also a concern for
neuro-scientific scrutiny.
Moreover, whether or not free will exists also urges us to investigate the
question that how should we use our various abilities to act, that is, volition.
The question about our ability to act is a very cogent one in our developed
world and civilized society. The way we individuals act in our daily lives and
schemes thereof affect the whole fabric of society. Thus, it is very important
to investigate about the question of free will and volition.
The question of free will has implications in various scientific and hu-
manitarian disciplines. These include jurisprudence, religion, politics, mental
health, psychiatry, philosophy, neuroscience etc. The list goes on.
2.4 Meditation and Spirituality
There is a growing interest in studying the nature of meditation and spiritu-
ality in religious as well as agnostic communities. The effect meditation and
spirituality can have on the altered states of consciousness is being studied
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5. in various parts of the world. Moreover, their effect on the well being of the
individual and the society as a whole is quite important to understand.
2.5 Afterlife
One of the most important questions that has gained a considerable level of
traction in various parts of the world is that of afterlife. More specifically,
the expectation is to be able to understand that whether there is an afterlife
or not once we die. This question is quite important to understand from
various perspectives. The materialist view holds that once we die we live in
eternal oblivion. As opposed to that there are various religious explanations
that emphasize on the existence of a heaven/hell or a purgatory for the dead.
Proponents of the afterlife theory include many people with an inclina-
tion towards scientific method. These include spiritualists and Near Death
Experimenters (NDEers). This research proposal looks forward to perform-
ing a thorough scrutiny of the works of spiritualists and the works of NDE
researchers. The expectation is to be able to undertake an independent re-
search that studies the nature of consciousness and its plausible survival after
bodily death.
3 Methodology
The specific methodology that would need to be adopted in this research
is not being chalked down as it would depend on the problem statement.
However, it may be anticipated that it would have the components of a
typical research project. Few thoughts are as follows:
Initially, depending on the problem statement, a literature review would
be required. This would primarily be of the problem domain (i.e. of one or a
set of problems), and also of the computer scientific methods that have been
or may be used to solve the problem. A critical analysis of the benefits of
one method over the other would be important. This may follow with a data
collection phase in which problem critical data may have to be created. This
would need to be addressed by the research supervisor. This would follow
with an experimentation phase that may require a design and execution of
simulations. Issues concerning design and deployment of any software that
may be developed on multiple machines may also be required.
The experimentation phase may end up with writing up of the results
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6. and findings. The expectation here would be that the work would end up in
decent scholarly publications.
4 Timeline
Given that two to three years are normally allotted for a research project,
following set of activities can be foreseen:
1. Literature review – 6 months.
2. Design and evaluation of any software that may be required – 3 months.
3. Experimentation and writing (of any papers/journal articles/patents)
– 6 to 12 months.
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