Consciousness Demystified

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.

‘How the consciousness comes into existence?’ is the second top unanswered mystery in science. The top unanswered mystery is ‘what is the universe made of?’ Physicalism or materialism finds itself quite inadequate to explain mental qualities and free will in terms of excitation of neurons and their modular connections. Untangling the mystery of consciousness has been esteemed as the proudest achievement of humankind. Consciousness is left as the last frontier in science whose explanation may perhaps require the conceptualisation of soul and god; otherwise, any divine soul or god is denied in existence, as it does not fit into the known science. This book explains consciousness by conceiving a scientific soul that leads to a plausible explanation for all aspects of consciousness and also leads to God. This book describes and explains consciousness comprehensively. Its offshoot also leads us a possible explanation for near-death-experiences, the origin of life and parapsychology. This book will lead you to know your thyself. It will awaken your spirit of inquiry for such questions as ‘who am I’ and ‘who is God’ while providing some answers also.

"Brilliant...as audacious as its title....Mr. Dennett's exposition is nothing short of brilliant." --George Johnson, New York Times Book Review Consciousness Explained is a a full-scale exploration of human consciousness. In this landmark book, Daniel Dennett refutes the traditional, commonsense theory of consciousness and presents a new model, based on a wealth of information from the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence. Our current theories about conscious life-of people, animal, even robots--are transformed by the new perspectives found in this book.

In this anthology of its groundbreaking articles, Science News brings us a riveting look at the mystery of human consciousness. Despite advances in neuroscience that have allowed us to peer into the inner workings of the brain, a deeper understanding of the mind remains elusive. From early attempts to pinpoint the exact location of consciousness to today’s ongoing explorations of communications between nerve cells, scientists have wrestled with how to define such a nebulous concept. The articles in this book, curated from the extensive Science News archive, explore the ways science attempts to explain consciousness. Studies of perception, both normal and altered, contribute to our understanding, and research on nonhuman consciousness offer insights and depth. The collection leaves us with profound and poignant questions: Is the concept of conscious decision-making an illusion? And do humans truly possess free will? Since 1921, Society for Science & the Public has facilitated global understanding of important scientific discoveries and issues. Since the first publication of the Science News-Letter in 1922, they have grown their audience to millions of readers each year. Now, Science News exposes new readers to thrilling concepts and innovative theories in Consciousness.

A central but rarely explored mystery of human existence and subjective consciousness was recognized by Blaise Pascal several centuries ago: Why am I me and not you or anyone else? Science can explain why there is (objectively) a person here, but not why that person is (subjectively) me. This relates to the more widely debated mind/body problem, more currently known as the "Hard Problem of Consciousness." Moving on to human culture, including religion and the arts, this book asks whether these are the direct result of Darwinian evolution or, rather, of the nature of human consciousness. Do the mysteries of our consciousness, of our existence, have a role to play?

Consciousness is central to the quest for being human and for what the world is made of. While there is widespread agreement on the significance of consciousness for clarifying the human condition, there is no agreement on the phenomenon in search of theorising. Although there is no shortage of theories and concepts of consciousness in current consciousness research, the dominant critical analysis of consciousness research in this study, although based on existing analyses, is (as far as I can see) new and unique in arguing for a crisis in consciousness research. This book touches on most aspects of consciousness research (the hard problem of conscious-ness, neural correlates of consciousness, brain models and consciousness, consciousness and dualistic thinking, etc.) but is a critical analysis of consciousness research. It is not an insider but a third-person perspective on current consciousness research. In this regard, it differs from most introductions and overviews where these topics are presented from a first-person perspective (the insiders' claim about their research). Representing the broad spectrum of consciousness research in terms of the theoretical framework of a neuro-ecological perspective is a new and innovative move.