| Consciousness is personal. Indeed it is so close to the core of our being that it has puzzled thinkers from the beginnings of recorded history. What is it? What does it do? How does it relate to the physical world and to the workings of our bodies and brains? At the dawn of the new millennium answers to these questions are beginning to emerge. However there is not one mind/body problem, but many. Some of the problems are empirical, some are conceptual, and some are both. This book deals with some of the deepest puzzles and paradoxes.
In the nine years or so following the completion of the first edition of this book I have had the opportunity to debate and discuss the ideas presented here with many gifted scientists and philosophers, some sympathetic and some with competing views. Although I believe that my original analysis remains secure, these engagements have allowed me to clarify, deepen and update the argument at many points. To accommodate areas in which there has recently been considerable progress I have also added some new chapters and chapter sections, for example on the neural causes and correlates of consciousness, the potential (but disputed) relevance of quantum mechanics, the vexed problem of free will, and the rather mysterious fact that the phenomenal world seems to be out-there in space, when according to reductionist science it ought to be inside the brain. As before, this book charts a path through the mind/body labyrinth that incorporates these and many other seemingly disparate topics in what (I hope) is a simple, connected way. |
