Consciousness Demystified

Consciousness Demystified
Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
Total Pages : 220
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780262038812
ISBN-13 : 0262038811
Rating : 4/5 (12 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Consciousness Demystified by : Todd E. Feinberg

Download or read book Consciousness Demystified written by Todd E. Feinberg and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demystifying consciousness: how subjective experience can be explained by natural brain and evolutionary processes. Consciousness is often considered a mystery. How can the seemingly immaterial experience of consciousness be explained by the material neurons of the brain? There seems to be an unbridgeable gap between understanding the brain as an objectively observed biological organ and accounting for the subjective experiences that come from the brain (and life processes). In this book, Todd Feinberg and Jon Mallatt attempt to demystify consciousness—to naturalize it, by explaining that the subjective, experiencing aspects of consciousness are created by natural brain processes that evolved in natural ways. Although subjective experience is unique in nature, they argue, it is not necessarily mysterious. We need not invoke the unknown or unknowable to explain its creation. Feinberg and Mallatt flesh out their theory of neurobiological naturalism (after John Searle's biological naturalism) that recognizes the many features that brains share with other living things, lists the neural features unique to conscious brains, and explains the subjective–objective barrier naturally. They investigate common neural features among the diverse groups of animals that have primary consciousness—the type of consciousness that experiences both sensations received from the world and affects such as emotions. They map the evolutionary development of consciousness and find an uninterrupted progression over time, without inserting any mysterious forces or exotic physics. Finally, bridging the previously unbridgeable, they show how subjective experience, although different from objective observation, can be naturally explained.


Consciousness Demystified Related Books

Consciousness Demystified
Language: en
Pages: 0
Authors: Todd E. Feinberg
Categories: Psychology
Type: BOOK - Published: 2024-10-01 - Publisher: MIT Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Demystifying consciousness: how subjective experience can be explained by natural brain and evolutionary processes. Consciousness is often considered a mystery.
The Ancient Origins of Consciousness
Language: en
Pages: 387
Authors: Todd E. Feinberg
Categories: Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016-03-25 - Publisher: MIT Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How consciousness appeared much earlier in evolutionary history than is commonly assumed, and why all vertebrates and perhaps even some invertebrates are consci
Toward a Science of Consciousness
Language: en
Pages: 820
Authors: Stuart R. Hameroff
Categories: Medical
Type: BOOK - Published: 1996 - Publisher: MIT Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This text originates from the second of two conferences discussing the concept of consciousness. In 15 sections, this book demonstrates the broad range of field
Feeling & Knowing
Language: en
Pages: 257
Authors: Antonio Damasio
Categories: Psychology
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-10-26 - Publisher: Vintage

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From one of the world’s leading neuroscientists: a succinct, illuminating, wholly engaging investigation of how biology, neuroscience, psychology, and artific
The Feeling of Life Itself
Language: en
Pages: 277
Authors: Christof Koch
Categories: Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-09-24 - Publisher: MIT Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A thought-provoking argument that consciousness—more widespread than previously assumed—is the feeling of being alive, not a type of computation or a clever