Consciousness
(US title: �Exploring Consciousness�)
Consciousness � what it is and how it comes to exist in an otherwise obviously material world � is famously known as the �hard� problem. It is so hard, actually, that when I started to research and write about the brain I steered well clear of it, just as most sensible scientists had managed to do for a century or more. �Mapping the Mind� therefore dealt almost entirely with the (relatively) �easy� problems � the biological processes that underpin consciousness.
Once you start thinking about these things, though, the hard problem creeps up on you. Why should the oh-so-physical fizz of electrically charged brain cells produce this other, seemingly non-physical thing � our subjective experience? �Consciousness� (�Exploring Consciousness in the USA) is my attempt to tackle that age-old question, bringing contemporary neuroscience to bear on it along with timeless philosophical approaches.
I can�t claim to have cracked it. In fact, it nearly cracked me � there were times while I was researching this book when I actually wept with the frustration of grappling with some of the slippery, counter-intuitive, concepts that haunt this subject. So this book doesn�t promise to let you in to the secret of consciousness � only to show you just how tricky (and endlessly fascinating) it is, and how clever are some of the attempts that have been made by philosophers and scientists to get to grips with it. At the moment I think that is the best anyone can offer � I console myself that no-one else has explained it yet either!
See me talk about it.
You can read a bit of "Exploring Consciousness" here or check out the reviews.
Books:
→ Mapping the Memory
→ Mapping the Mind
← (Exploring) Consciousness
→ Multiplicity
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