Consciousness Studies

Consciousness studies embraces the neuroscience and philosophy of consciousness.

Contents

Introduction

• Introduction
• A note on Naive Realism
• Intended audience and how to read this book

Part I: Historical review

• Early Ideas
• Medieval Concepts
• Seventeenth And Eighteenth Century Philosophy
• Nineteenth To Twenty First Century Philosophy

Part II: The problem of consciousness

• What needs to be explained: the description and definition of phenomenal consciousness
• The conflict - where, when and what?
  • The regression argument
  • The subject-object paradox
  • The homunculus argument
  • Phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness
  • Direct Realism
  • Indirect Realism
  • Dualism
  • Idealism
  • Panpsychism
• Breaking down the philosophical and scientific problems
  • The philosophical problem of phenomenal consciousness
  • Epiphenomenalism and the problem of change
  • The problem of time
  • The problem of space
  • The problem of qualia
  • Elementary Information and Information Systems Theory
    • Classification, signs, sense, relations, supervenience etc.
  • Qualia and Information
    • Absent and fading qualia
    • Putnam's twin earth thought experiment
    • The Inverted Qualia Argument
    • The Knowledge Argument
  • The problem of machine and digital consciousness
• Measurement in physics and the preferred basis problem

Part III: Neuroscience of consciousness

• The neuroscience of consciousness
  • Introduction
  • The substrate of experience
  • Neuroanatomy
  • Topological mapping and cortical columns
• The neurophysiology of sensation and perception
  • Vision
  • Depth perception
• The cortex and thalamus
  • The cortex and consciousness
  • Perception, Imagination, Memory and Dreams
  • More about Models
  • Blindsight
  • The Role of the Thalamus
  • General Anaesthesia and the Thalamus
  • The function of consciousness
• Perceptual "filling in"
• Rivalries and synchronisation
  • Binocular Rivalry, Pattern Rivalry and Binocular Fusion
  • Synchronisation of Neural Processes
  • EEG and synchronisation
  • Event related potentials
  • The integration delay
• Global Workspace Theory
• The "cognitive map" and the neural basis of perceptual space
• Behaviourism And Consciousness
• Models Of Access Consciousness
  • Neural networks
  • Quantum information processing

Part IV: Explanations of Consciousness

• Contemporary explanations of consciousness
  • The identity theory of mind
    • Scientific theories
  • Functionalism
  • Dualism
  • Intentionalism
  • Higher order thought
  • Eliminativism
  • Mysterianism
  • Idealism and panpsychism
• Other explanations of consciousness
  • Consciousness-only
  • BioPsychoSociology Model 1 BPS Model

Appendices

Some physical science for consciousness studies:

• Ontology of Newtonian physics: kinetic energy and magnetism
• The origin of the metric tensor
• Action, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Mechanics
• Index
• Notes for the Contributors
• Contributors