Download or read book Consciousness and Qualia written by Leopold Stubenberg and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1998-05-15 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a philosophical study of qualitative consciousness, characteristic examples of which are pains, experienced colors, sounds, etc. Consciousness is analyzed as the having of qualia. Phenomenal properties or qualia are problematical because they lack appropriate bearers. The relation of having is problematical because none of the typical candidates for this relation — introspection, inner monitoring, higher level thoughts — is capable of explaining what it looks like to have a quale . The qualia problem is solved by introducing a bundle theory of phenomenal objects. Phenomenal objects are bundles of qualia. Thus there is no need for independent qualia bearers. The having problem is solved by introducing a bundle theory of the self. To have a quale is for it to be in the bundle one is. Thus no further relations are needed to explain how qualia are had. This study strives for phenomenological adequacy. Thus the first-person point of view dominates throughout. (Series A)
Download or read book The Case for Qualia written by Edmond Leo Wright and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 790 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophical and scientific defenses of Indirect Realism and counterarguments to the attacks of qualiaphobes. Many philosophers and cognitive scientists dismiss the notion of qualia, sensory experiences that are internal to the brain. Leading opponents of qualia (and of Indirect Realism, the philosophical position that has qualia as a central tenet) include Michael Tye, Daniel Dennett, Paul and Patricia Churchland, and even Frank Jackson, a former supporter. Qualiaphiles apparently face the difficulty of establishing philosophical contact with the real when their access to it is seen by qualiaphobes to be second-hand and, worse, hidden behind a "veil of sensation"--a position that would slide easily into relativism and solipsism, presenting an ethical dilemma. In The Case for Qualia, proponents of qualia defend the Indirect Realist position and mount detailed counterarguments against opposing views. The book first presents philosophical defenses, with arguments propounding, variously, a new argument from illusion, a sense-datum theory, dualism, "qualia realism," qualia as the "cement" of the experiential world, and "subjective physicalism." Three scientific defenses follow, discussing color, heat, and the link between the external object and the internal representation. Finally, specific criticisms of opposing views include discussions of the Churchlands' "neurophilosophy," answers to Frank Jackson's abandonment of qualia (one of which is titled, in a reference to Jackson's famous thought experiment, "Why Frank Should Not Have Jilted Mary"), and refutations of Transparency Theory. Contributors Torin Alter, Michel Bitbol, Harold I. Brown, Mark Crooks, George Graham, C.L. Hardin, Terence E. Horgan, Robert J. Howell, Amy Kind, E.J. Lowe, Riccardo Manzotti, Barry Maund, Martine Nida-Rümelin, John O'Dea, Isabelle Peschard, Matjaz Potrc, Diana Raffman, Howard Robinson, William S. Robinson, John R. Smythies, Edmond Wright
Download or read book Emotions Qualia And Consciousness written by Alfred Kaszniak and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2001-07-19 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The experience of emotion is a ubiquitous component of the stream of consciousness; emotional qualia interact with other contents and processes of consciousness in complex ways. Recent research has supported the hypothesis that important functional aspects of emotion can operate outside the conscious awareness. Primary types of emotions are found in animals, while secondary, more complex types are involved in interpersonal relationships. Emotions both influence genetic repair mechanisms of individuals and are responsible for group behavior. Many scholars and scientists believe that no scientific or philosophic account of consciousness can be complete without an understanding of the role of emotion.
Download or read book Consciousness and the Philosophy of Signs written by Marc Champagne and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-03-09 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is often thought that consciousness has a qualitative dimension that cannot be tracked by science. Recently, however, some philosophers have argued that this worry stems not from an elusive feature of the mind, but from the special nature of the concepts used to describe conscious states. Marc Champagne draws on the neglected branch of philosophy of signs or semiotics to develop a new take on this strategy. The term “semiotics” was introduced by John Locke in the modern period – its etymology is ancient Greek, and its theoretical underpinnings are medieval. Charles Sanders Peirce made major advances in semiotics, so he can act as a pipeline for these forgotten ideas. Most philosophers know Peirce as the founder of American pragmatism, but few know that he also coined the term “qualia,” which is meant to capture the intrinsic feel of an experience. Since pragmatic verification and qualia are now seen as conflicting commitments, Champagne endeavors to understand how Peirce could (or thought he could) have it both ways. The key, he suggests, is to understand how humans can insert distinctions between features that are always bound. Recent attempts to take qualities seriously have resulted in versions of panpsychism, but Champagne outlines a more plausible way to achieve this. So, while semiotics has until now been the least known branch of philosophy ending in –ics, his book shows how a better understanding of that branch can move one of the liveliest debates in philosophy forward.
Download or read book Consciousness Explained written by Daniel C. Dennett and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Brilliant...as audacious as its title....Mr. Dennett's exposition is nothing short of brilliant." --George Johnson, New York Times Book Review Consciousness Explained is a a full-scale exploration of human consciousness. In this landmark book, Daniel Dennett refutes the traditional, commonsense theory of consciousness and presents a new model, based on a wealth of information from the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence. Our current theories about conscious life-of people, animal, even robots--are transformed by the new perspectives found in this book.
Download or read book Illusionism written by Keith Frankish and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illusionism is the view that phenomenal consciousness (in the philosophers' sense) is an illusion. This book is a reprint of a special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies devoted to this topic. It takes the form of a target paper by the editor, followed by commentaries from various thinkers, including leading defenders of the theory such as Daniel Dennett, Nicholas Humphrey, Derk Pereboom and Georges Rey. A number of disciplines are represented and different viewpoints are discussed and defended. The colleciton is tied together with a response to the commentaries from the editor.
Download or read book Unbounded Consciousness written by Ming Singer and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The enigma of consciousness fascinates psychologists, philosophers, neuroscientists and physicists. The author of this book is interested in the qualitative aspects of consciousness, known by the philosophical term qualia. In this book she puts forward an original and integrative theory of consciousness that argues for the inseparability of qualitative and non-qualitative aspects and for the restoration of the concept of psyche.
Download or read book Qualia and Mental Causation in a Physical World written by Terry Horgan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-05 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of new essays that develop themes from the work of the philosopher Jaegwon Kim.
Download or read book Consciousness written by Christof Koch and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-03-09 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating exploration of the human brain that combines “the leading edge of consciousness science with surprisingly personal and philosophical reflection . . . shedding light on how scientists really think”—this is “science writing at its best” (Times Higher Education). In which a scientist searches for an empirical explanation for phenomenal experience, spurred by his instinctual belief that life is meaningful. What links conscious experience of pain, joy, color, and smell to bioelectrical activity in the brain? How can anything physical give rise to nonphysical, subjective, conscious states? Christof Koch has devoted much of his career to bridging the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the physics of the brain and phenomenal experience. This engaging book—part scientific overview, part memoir, part futurist speculation—describes Koch’s search for an empirical explanation for consciousness. Koch recounts not only the birth of the modern science of consciousness but also the subterranean motivation for his quest—his instinctual (if “romantic”) belief that life is meaningful. Koch describes his own groundbreaking work with Francis Crick in the 1990s and 2000s and the gradual emergence of consciousness (once considered a “fringy” subject) as a legitimate topic for scientific investigation. Present at this paradigm shift were Koch and a handful of colleagues, including Ned Block, David Chalmers, Stanislas Dehaene, Giulio Tononi, Wolf Singer, and others. Aiding and abetting it were new techniques to listen in on the activity of individual nerve cells, clinical studies, and brain-imaging technologies that allowed safe and noninvasive study of the human brain in action. Koch gives us stories from the front lines of modern research into the neurobiology of consciousness as well as his own reflections on a variety of topics, including the distinction between attention and awareness, the unconscious, how neurons respond to Homer Simpson, the physics and biology of free will, dogs, Der Ring des Nibelungen, sentient machines, the loss of his belief in a personal God, and sadness. All of them are signposts in the pursuit of his life's work—to uncover the roots of consciousness.
Download or read book A Universe Of Consciousness written by Gerald M. Edelman and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2008-08-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What goes on in our head when we have a thought? Why do the physical events that occur inside a fistful of gelatinous tissue give rise to the world of conscious experience? In The Universe of Consciousness , Gerald Edelman and Giulio Tononi present for the first time a full-scale theory of consciousness based on direct observation of the human brain in action. Their pioneering work, presented here in an elegant style, challenges much of the conventional wisdom about consciousness. The Universe of Consciousness has enormous implications for our understanding of language, thought, emotion, and mental illness.
Download or read book Consciousness written by Christopher S. Hill and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-10-22 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book identifies all of the main forms of consciousness and proposes an account of each of them.
Download or read book Philosophy Neuroscience and Consciousness written by Rex Welshon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-17 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explaining consciousness is one of the last great unanswered scientific and philosophical problems. Immediately known, familiar and obvious, consciousness is also baffling, opaque and strange. This introduction to the problems posed by consciousness discusses the most important work of cognitive science, neurophysiology and philosophy of mind of the past thirty years and presents an up to date assessment of the issues and debates. The reader is first introduced to the way that consciousness has been thought about in the history of philosophy and psychology. The author then presents an informal and largely non-technical account of the properties of consciousness that are thought to be the most paradigmatic and problematic. Recent scientific work on consciousness, from neurophysiological studies of the brain and evolutionary studies of the development of consciousness to computational theories of the mind are then examined and the philosophical problems that these accounts raise are systematically introduced. The final chapters of the book consider more practical matters by addressing self-deception, neuroses, the unconscious and notions of the self, before concluding with an assessment of the future for psychology and the philosophy of mind.
Download or read book Consciousness the Novel written by David Lodge and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing with characteristic wit and brio, and employing the insight and acumen of a skilled novelist and critic, Lodge explores the representation of human consciousness in fiction (mainly English and American) in light of recent investigations in the sciences.
Download or read book Actual Consciousness written by Ted Honderich and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is it for you to be conscious? There is no consensus in philosophy or science: it has remained a mystery. Ted Honderich develops a brand new theory of consciousness, according to which perceptual consciousness is external to the perceiver.
Download or read book Neurosociology Fundamentals and Current Findings written by David D. Franks and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-02-06 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an introduction to the fundamentals of neurosociology and presents the newest issues and findings in the field. It describes the evolution of the brain and its social nature. It examines the concept of knowing and what can be known, as well as the subjective sensations we experience. Next, it explores the ubiquitousness of New Unconsciousness and the latest conclusions about mirror neurons. Additional themes and concepts described are sex differences in the brain, imitation, determinism and agency. The book brings together neuroscience and sociology, two fields that are very different in terms of method, theory, tradition and practice. It does so building on the following premise: If our brains have been forged evolutionarily over the many centuries for social life, sociologists should have the opportunity, if not the duty, to know about it whatever the reservations of some who think that any approach that includes biology must be reductionistic.
Download or read book A History of the Modernist Novel written by Gregory Castle and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-06-25 with total page 549 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A History of the Modernist Novel reassesses the modernist canon and produces a wealth of new comparative analyses that radically revise the novel's history. It also considers the novel's global reach while suggesting that the epoch of modernism is not yet finished.
Download or read book Conscious Experience written by Thomas Metzinger and published by Imprint Academic. This book was released on 1995 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributions to this book are original articles, representing a cross-section of current philosophical work on consciousness and thereby allowing students and readers from other disciplines to acquaint themselves with the very latest debate, so that they can then pursue their own research interests more effectively. The volume includes a bibliography on consciousness in philosophy, cognitive science and brain research, covering the last 25 years and consisting of over 1000 entries in 18 thematic sections, compiled by David Chalmers and Thomas Metzinger.
