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A very thought-provoking book. The Guardian
Book Description
Consciousness, 'the last great mystery for science', has now become a hot topic. How can a physical brain create our experience of the world? What creates our identity? Do we really have free will? Could consciousness itself be an illusion? Exciting new developments in brain science are opening up debates on these issues, and the field has now expanded to include biologists, neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers. This controversial book clarifies the potentially confusing arguments, and the major theories using illustrations, lively cartoons, and experiments.Topics include vision and attention, theories of self and will, experiments on action and awareness, altered states of consciousness, and the effects of brain damage and drugs.
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3.6 out of 5 stars (23 customer reviews)
66 of 71 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A very good very short introduction, Jan 17 2006
By Mark Twain - Published on Amazon.com
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This review is from: Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction (Paperback)
I have to admit that at first I dismissed this little introduction to consciousness, but then I read the book again. It's a gem. Blackmore makes it all clear right up front what the problem of consciousness is and several ways that consciousness might be defined. She considers whether consciousness is some integral feature of brain processes or something in addition to the physical features of the brain (a position that goes by the clumsy name of "epiphenomenalism"). Next she talks about a last Cartesian seduction in the thinking of some materialists called "the Cartesian theatre", a phrase coined by Daniel Dennett that means that some scientists have embraced the material operation of the brain but still believe that consciousness is something that appears at a place and time in the brain. It as if there is a little theatre in the brain where consciousness is played.Blackmore next questions the natural or intuitive idea that consciousness is present in a continuous stream: this is a grand illusion and how the brain may create this illusion is investigated. She focuses on visual perceptual consciousness and presents research that questions our natural understanding of what is going on with our brains while we experience the world. There follows a consideration of "the self" (a useful construction, it seems), conscious will, and altered states of consciousness (psychedelic drugs, meditation, and out-of-body experiences). All in all this is a brief, but very clear and stimulating discussion of consciousness. I find it remarkable that so much was packed in a little volume that left me stimulated and grateful instead of exhausted, bored, or confused.
It's just a great place to begin trying to get a grip on what the fuss is and why consciousness is such a curious and marvelous phenomenon.
45 of 50 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you read only one book on Consciousness Studies ..., Aug 1 2005
By Earle Bowers - Published on Amazon.com
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This review is from: Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction (Paperback)
No one book can cover all there is to say about the burgening field of Consciousness Studies of Consciousness Research, but this book comes as close as any one up-to-date one can; furthermore, it has all the usual physical advantages of Oxford University Press' "Very Short Introduction" titles: small enough to actually fit into a pockes yet so well bound that when carried so the spine will never crack nor pages ever fall out.Susan Blackmore's experience as a Zen meditator adds depth to the section on altered states of consciousness as well as to her final summary on the future of consciousness and consciousness research.
A minor disappointment was the abscence of any treatment of Artificial Intelligence and the philosophical problems it raises, especially unfortunate since she sha covered that subtopic well and thoroughly in a longer book. Also some cartoon drawings are rudimentary and add little to the text, but on the other hand, some photographic, do-it-yourself demonstrations of how our conciousness differs from what we believe we introspectively know it to be are excellent.
Another positive for any book but especially one suitable as an initial introduction to a topic is an excellent bibliography for further reading.
35 of 44 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great scientist takes a wrong turning, Aug 12 2007
By Peter Reeve - Published on Amazon.com
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This review is from: Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction (Paperback)
I first encountered Blackmore's work when, after searching long and hard for a scientific explanation of out-of-body experiences, I came across her book Beyond the Body. It was astonishingly well researched and offered a rational, convincing explanation for phenomena that were usually neglected by the scientific community. I became an instant fan and have followed her work ever since. But now, alas, she has aligned herself with the Dawkins/Dennett axis of drivel, and my loyalty to her is badly shaken. In this book (a shorter version of her Consciousness: An Introduction) she follows Dennett by denying the existence of consciousness and then indulging in much speculation about the properties and evolutionary history of this non-existent entity. Consciousness, she maintains, is an 'illusion', which she defines as something that exists but does not have the properties it appears to have. She then proceeds to discuss it as if it does not in fact exist, and slips into calling it a 'delusion', which she apparently regards as a synonymous term. So far, so Dennett. She follows Dawkins by labeling just about everything a 'meme' (as Poe might have said 'All that we see or seem is but a meme within a meme'), unless she happens not to approve of it, in which case it is 'a virus of the mind'. As an example, she indulges in a quite intemperate and completely irrelevant rant against religion, in which Roman Catholicism is described as a parasitic infection. Like Dennett and Dawkins, she leaves no axe unground.So why do I give the book 5 stars if I disagree with so much of it? Well, I guess you can't keep a good scientist down, and Blackmore is still a great scientist. She brings considerable knowledge and erudition to the subject, presents fair summaries of opposing views, and gives excellent descriptions of odd phenomena like Libet's Delay and the Cutaneous Rabbit. And her style is as readable as ever. I was suspicious when I saw that her son Jolyon had contributed many of the illustrations - it smacked of nepotism - but I have to say his drawings are really charming and add greatly to the text. The other illustrations are useful too - with the possible exception of a photograph of the author opening a fridge door - which isn't always the case with this series. The book ends with a very useful Further Reading list. It's thus an excellent introduction to the subject (although I think John Searle's The Mystery of Consciousness is still the best place to start).
So, I shall keep the faith and continue to read everything Susan Blackmore publishes. I just hope that one day, just as she once abandoned a belief in the paranormal, she sees the light and abandons the axis of drivel.
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