Actual Consciousness

Actual Consciousness PDF Author: Ted Honderich
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198714386
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
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.

Actual Consciousness

Actual Consciousness PDF Author: Ted Honderich
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198714386
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
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.

Actual Consciousness

Actual Consciousness PDF Author: Ted Honderich
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191023868
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
What is it for you to be conscious? There is no agreement whatever in philosophy or science: it has remained a hard problem, a mystery. Is this partly or mainly owed to the existing theories not even having the same subject, not answering the same question? In Actual Consciousness, Ted Honderich sets out to supersede dualisms, objective physicalisms, abstract functionalism, externalisms, and other positions in the debate. He argues that the theory of Actualism, right or wrong, is unprecedented, in nine ways. (1) It begins from gathered data and proceeds to an adequate initial clarification of consciousness in the primary ordinary sense. This consciousness is summed up as something's being actual. (2) Like basic science, Actualism proceeds from this metaphorical or figurative beginning to what is wholly literal and explicit—constructed answers to the questions of what is actual and what it is for it to be actual. (3) In so doing, the theory respects the differences of consciousness within perception, consciousness that is thinking in a generic sense, and consciousness that is generic wanting. (4) What is actual with your perceptual consciousness is a subjective physical world out there, very likely a room, differently real from the objective physical world, that other division of the physical world. (5) What it is for the myriad subjective physical worlds to be actual is for them to be subjectively physical, which is exhaustively characterized. (6) What is actual with cognitive and affective consciousness is affirmed or valued representations. The representations being actual, which is essential to their nature, is their being differently subjectively physical from the subjective physical worlds. (7) Actualism, naturally enough when you think of it, but unlike any other existing general theory of consciousness, is thus externalist with perceptual consciousness but internalist with respect to cognitive and affective consciousness. (8) It satisfies rigorous criteria got from examination of the failures of the existing theories. In particular, it explains the role of subjectivity in thinking about consciousness, including a special subjectivity that is individuality. (9) Philosophers and scientists have regularly said that thinking about consciousness requires just giving up the old stuff and starting again. Actualism does this. Science is served by this main line philosophy, which is concentration on the logic of ordinary intelligence—clarity, consistency and validity, completeness, generality.

The Mystery of Consciousness

The Mystery of Consciousness PDF Author: John R. Searle
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 9780940322066
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
It has long been one of the most fundamental problems of philosophy, and it is now, John Searle writes, "the most important problem in the biological sciences": What is consciousness? Is my inner awareness of myself something separate from my body? In what began as a series of essays in The New York Review of Books, John Searle evaluates the positions on consciousness of such well-known scientists and philosophers as Francis Crick, Gerald Edelman, Roger Penrose, Daniel Dennett, David Chalmers, and Israel Rosenfield. He challenges claims that the mind works like a computer, and that brain functions can be reproduced by computer programs. With a sharp eye for confusion and contradiction, he points out which avenues of current research are most likely to come up with a biological examination of how conscious states are caused by the brain. Only when we understand how the brain works will we solve the mystery of consciousness, and only then will we begin to understand issues ranging from artificial intelligence to our very nature as human beings.

Actual Consciousness

Actual Consciousness PDF Author: Ted Honderich
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780191782794
Category : Cognitive science
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
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.

Mind

Mind PDF Author: Ted Honderich
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780238754
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
What is mind? Still harder, what is consciousness? In this radical new book, eminent philosopher Ted Honderich tackles this great mystery in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience—and the rest of life. He proposes to replace all competing theories of consciousness with actualism that rests on data you share yourself. Unlike other theories, actualism differentiates among the three sides of consciousness—consciousness that is seeing, consciousness that is thinking, and consciousness that is wanting. Consciousness in seeing is not an image or picture in your head, but the existence out there of a real but subjective thing, dependent on both the objective physical world out there and on you as a person. In its attention to the concrete, actualism is becoming increasingly popular among philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists who had previously declared an urgent need for a new theory. Honderich’s readable, understandable, and unpretentious writing lays out these bold concepts and complex thoughts with clarity and verve. He reinvents our understanding of ourselves, our consciousness, and our mind.

Consciousness as a Scientific Concept

Consciousness as a Scientific Concept PDF Author: Elizabeth Irvine
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400751737
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
The source of endless speculation and public curiosity, our scientific quest for the origins of human consciousness has expanded along with the technical capabilities of science itself and remains one of the key topics able to fire public as much as academic interest. Yet many problematic issues, identified in this important new book, remain unresolved. Focusing on a series of methodological difficulties swirling around consciousness research, the contributors to this volume suggest that ‘consciousness’ is, in fact, not a wholly viable scientific concept. Supporting this ‘eliminativist‘ stance are assessments of the current theories and methods of consciousness science in their own terms, as well as applications of good scientific practice criteria from the philosophy of science. For example, the work identifies the central problem of the misuse of qualitative difference and dissociation paradigms, often deployed to identify measures of consciousness. It also examines the difficulties that attend the wide range of experimental protocols used to operationalise consciousness—and the implications this has on the findings of integrative approaches across behavioural and neurophysiological research. The work also explores the significant mismatch between the common intuitions about the content of consciousness, that motivate much of the current science, and the actual properties of the neural processes underlying sensory and cognitive phenomena. Even as it makes the negative eliminativist case, the strong empirical grounding in this volume also allows positive characterisations to be made about the products of the current science of consciousness, facilitating a re-identification of target phenomena and valid research questions for the mind sciences.​

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind PDF Author: Julian Jaynes
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547527543
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Book Description
National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry

Objectivity, Simulation and the Unity of Consciousness

Objectivity, Simulation and the Unity of Consciousness PDF Author: Christopher Peacocke
Publisher: Proceedings of the British Aca
ISBN: 9780197261675
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
What is it to be capable of thoughts about an objective world? What is involved in the unity of consciousness? How is the ability to attribute attitudes to other persons to be understood? The three symposia in this volume develop new approaches to these central questions in the philosophy of mind. The contributors include leading philosophers of the middle and younger generation working in Britain. All the issues discussed have an interdisciplinary dimension, and each symposium contains a contribution from a noted psychologist working in the same field. The volume will be of interest not only to philosophers of mind, but also to those concerned with metaphysics, epistemology, developmental pscychology, animal psychology, and the nature of consciousness.

Conscious Recovery

Conscious Recovery PDF Author: TJ Woodward
Publisher: Balboa Press
ISBN: 150439187X
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
Conscious Recovery is a ground breaking and eective approach to viewing and treating addiction that will transform your life. Author and spiritual teacher TJ Woodward is changing the conversation about addiction, because he recognizes that underneath all addictive behavior is an essential self that is whole and perfect. TJ Woodward's Conscious Recovery moves beyond simply treating behaviors and symptoms. It focuses on the underlying root causes that drive destructive patterns, while providing clear steps for letting go of core false beliefs that lead to addictive tendencies. Whether it is unresolved trauma, spiritual disconnection, or toxic shame, these challenges need to addressed in order to achieve true and permanent freedom. Conscious Recovery oers a pathway toward liberation that can assist you in creating a life lled with love and connection. It explores methods for changing the ways of thinking that keep you stuck in a pattern of hopelessness, so you can come into alignment with an existence overowing with compassion and purpose. TJ Woodward calls this the "great remembering" reclaiming the truth of who and what you essentially are.

Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience

Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience PDF Author: Michael S A Graziano
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393652629
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
“A first-class intellectual adventure.” —Brian Greene, author of Until the End of Time Illuminating his groundbreaking theory of consciousness, known as the attention schema theory, Michael S. A. Graziano traces the evolution of the mind over millions of years, with examples from the natural world, to show how neurons first allowed animals to develop simple forms of attention and then to construct awareness of the external world and of the self. His theory has fascinating implications for the future: it may point the way to engineers for building consciousness artificially, and even someday taking the natural consciousness of a person and uploading it into a machine for a digital afterlife.