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Title: Consciousness: An Introduction by Susan Blackmore ISBN: 0-19-515343-X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: CONSCIOUSNESS: THE HARD PROBLEM
Comment: Susan Blackmore has written an excellent book dealing with one of the most challenging problems confronting human kind as we enter the 21st century: What is consciousness and how do we explain it. The book examines consciousness from myriad viewpoints;philosophical, psychological, and biological. Ms. Blackmore presents a plethora of fascinating topics such as:What is it like to be a bat?,What are we actually seeing?,What is it like to be an animal?,Could a machine be conscious?, What are the neural correlates of consciousness?, How do we distinguish between reality and imagination?, and, finally, How are Buddhism and consciousness related?
All the key players involved in the study of consciousness such as Renes Descartes, David Chalmers, Patricia Churchland, Daniel Dennett, Alan Turing,Francis Crick, Roger Penrose, John Eccles, etc. are found in this wonderful book.
Each chapter contains profiles, concepts, activities, and practices,and readings. The references are excellent. And Ms. Blackmore writes in clear, concise prose.
If you have ever wondered what consciousness may be, then this is the book for you whether you plan to use it for a college course or simply read it yourself. This is a great and fun read! Don't delay; buy a copy today and the price is right!!!
Rating: 4
Summary: Very good
Comment: Blackmore wrote a very important book, because it is the first "true" textbook on the subject. There are other texts, like Wallace's consciounsness and behaviour, and other collections, like Block et. al.s nature of consciousness, or Carters consciousness, but these could be described or used as textbooks without being textbooks per se. That is, Blackmore's book has the exercises, review questions, profiles of some important figures, that make it a real textbook. However, I am impressed more by the scope of the book. There are many different chapters on many differetn things, and the author does not forget about issues like parapsychology (Blackmore was once a psi researcher), time, animal consicousness, all issues that many other authors seem to leave aside.
The book itself is very readable, and the strenghts,like the number of different chapters, come with weaknesses, like too brief discussions of certain very important, or central, themes. Blackmoere does succeed in giving a sense of the perplexities of studying consicousness to the reader. She is also a very apt philosopher, and explains philosophical ideas much more clearly that other non-philosophers do. She is also very common-sensical and does not fall for many of the traps laid on the field of consicousness studies, save, of-course, only one. The "illusion" trap. Let me explain.
Everey time the discussion is about to climax, and the reader expects an insight, or maybe a conclusion, Blackmore seems to state that everything may just be an illusion. Visual perception? an illusion. Free will? an illusion. Binding? an illusion. qualia? an illusion. Now I do not believe that illusions do not exist, or that they cannot serve an explanatory role. Certainly, visual perception and free will might be illusions. Attentional blindeness studies, and Wegners or LIbets work suggest these possibilities. But why should perceptual binding be an illusion? it is a fairly simple conceptual question, it is empirical and many empirical studies, like the synchrony or attention- models, seem to offer not so mysterian answers. The thing is, I believe, that Blackmore got caught in the intuition pumps created by none other than Daniel Dennett, the philosopher who by the way is most quoted, discussed and brought to bear on every question posed in the book.
Blackmore seems to believe not only that there is no cartesian theather, a place where all consicousness comes together, (which is right), but that it is impossible that consicousness could be located anywhere at all. If this is so, she is wrong. Consciousness is in the brain. How, why, at what time, we still do not know. But if we can locate consicousness in a brain, why not several brain areas? we can just discard those that seem not essential for consciousness, in lesion experiments, for exapmple. Why not just couple of brain areas? now, it may not be that simple, maybe consicousness does not reside or happen at a time, maybe its just identical with those brain a reas. Why the big fuss about consicousness and everything about it as an illusion? Because Dennett is probably the most convincing philosopher, and Blackmore was convinced.
How about qualia. An illusion, Blackmore tells us. It only seems there are qualia, but there are not. The thing is, qualia ARE that seeming, and it is that seeming that needs explaining. Qualia are real, and that anything seems like anything at all is a proof of their existence. What exactly they are, I do not know. But they are not just illusions. AS if their being so would solve anything anyway.
Blackmore also got too carried daway with drawing lines. Either you are a physicalist, a functionalist, or a dualist. She also knows how to determine that. Either you believe in zombies, or not. This is by far the most simplistic analysis of the philosophical quarrels I have read lately. This is not to say she does not make some important points, however. Philosophers, nevertheless, would have a field trip in reviewing this book. Scientists woould be angered by her mysterianism and pessimism. Maybe this makes this book perfect for non-specialists.
This is all too negative. The book is very, very good and complete. It covers many, many important issues. It has an extensive bibliography, although extensive is not enough with such a complicatted subject. It is trully the first textbook, and is very accesible. For the same reason, it ends up being quite superficial at times. It is all good for the undergraduate taking a course, but the really interested reader should only see this book as a good place to start. Those familiar with the field could do without reading it, but they should anyway. Blackmore does deserve her name among those considered experts on the field.
Rating: 5
Summary: Comprehensive, Clear, Well Written
Comment: I am glad to find a complete book dealing with all aspects of consciousness in CLEARLY written format, with graphs and tables to facilitate comprehension. The book covers everything I had seen before from Artificial Intelligence to Philosophy to Neurology to Evolutionary Biology.
Say one wants to get an idea of Dan Dennett's theory of consciousness (without having to get through Dennett's circuitous, unfocused and evasive prose) or Searle's Chinese room argument or Turing's test or Chalmer's position or Churchland's neurophilosophy or a presentation of research on the neural correlates of consciousness...Everything I could think about is there.
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Title: The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach by Christof Koch ISBN: 0974707708 Publisher: Roberts and Co. Pub. Date: 01 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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Title: Wider than the Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness by Gerald M. Edelman ISBN: 0300102291 Publisher: Yale University Press Pub. Date: 10 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: The Birth of the Mind: How a Tiny Number of Genes Creates the Complexities of Human Thought by Gary Marcus ISBN: 0465044050 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 16 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Essential Sources in the Scientific Study of Consciousness (Bradford Books (Paperback)) by Bernard J. Baars, William P. Banks, James B. Newman ISBN: 0262523027 Publisher: Bradford Book Pub. Date: 30 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $60.00 |
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Title: The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore, Richard Dawkins ISBN: 019286212X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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