Theories Of Consciousness: An Introduction

THEORIES OF CONSCIOUSNESS “This is a fine book, a fascinating set of discussions of an extremely interesting area.” John Leslie, University of Guelph “This is an excellent survey of recent theories of consciousness.” Barry Loewer, Rutgers University The most remarkable fact about the universe is that certain parts of it are conscious. Somehow nature has managed to pull the rabbit of experience out of a hat made of mere matter. Theories of Consciousness explores a number of ways to understand consciousness and its place in the physical world. Spectacularly diverse, the spectrum of theories ranges from those that identify consciousness with particular brain processes to those that seemingly deny that consciousness even exists. The attempt to understand consciousness is only as old as the scientific revolution. As William Seager shows, Descartes can be seen as the pioneer of this project and some aspects of his position still set the stage and the agenda for modern work. His views vividly illustrate the problem of explaining the physical ‘generation’ of consciousness and point to the fundamental importance of – or perhaps reveal the basic error in – an appeal to the notion of mental representation. After addressing Descartes, Seager considers theories that identify certain particular elements of conscious experience (the so-called qualia) with ‘vector codes’ within abstract spaces defined by neural networks. From there, Seager proceeds to HOT theory, which regards consciousness as the product of higher order thoughts about mental states. The influential and provocative views of Daniel Dennett are closely examined. Theories of Consciousness devotes a lot of attention to the new representational theory of consciousness and the special problems created by the phenomena of conscious thought, which lead to the conclusions that representation is indeed essential to consciousness but that an internalist account of representation is required. In his final chapter, Seager explores more speculative terrain: the idea that consciousness might somehow be a fundamental feature of the universe, perhaps ubiquitous and maybe linked to bizarre features of quantum physics. Theories of Consciousness serves both to introduce a wide array of approaches to consciousness as well as advance debate via a detailed critique of them. Philosophy students, researchers with a particular interest in cognitive science and anyone who has wondered how consciousness fits into a scientific view of the world will find this book an illuminating and fascinating read. William Seager is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto at Scarborough. He is the author of Metaphysics of Consciousness (Routledge, 1991). PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES IN SCIENCE Edited by W. H. Newton-Smith Balliol College, Oxford REAL HISTORY Martin Bunzl BRUTE SCIENCE Hugh LaFollette and Niall Shanks LIVING IN A TECHNOLOGICAL CULTURE Mary Tiles and Hans Oberdick THE RATIONAL AND THE SOCIAL James Robert Brown THE NATURE OF THE DISEASE Lawrie Reznek THE PHILOSOPHICAL DEFENCE OF PSYCHIATRY Lawrie Reznek INFERENCE TO THE BEST EXPLANATION Peter Lipton TIME, SPACE AND PHILOSOPHY Christopher Ray MATHEMATICS AND THE IMAGE OF REASON Mary Tiles EVIL OR ILL? Lawrie Reznek THE ETHICS OF SCIENCE An Introduction David B. Resnik PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS An Introduction to a World of Proofs and Pictures James Robert Brown THEORIES