The Conscious Mind And The Material World

In recent years the nature of consciousness—our immediately known experiences—has taken its place as the most profound problem that science faces. Now in this brilliant and thoroughly accessible new book Colin McGinn takes a provocative position on this perplexing problem. Arguing that we can never truly "know" consciousness—that the human intellect is simply not equipped to unravel this mystery—he demonstrates that accepting this limitation in fact opens up a whole new field of investigation. In elegant prose, McGinn explores the implications of this Mysterian position—such as the new value it gives to the power of dreams and introspection—and challenges the reader with intriguing questions about the very nature of our minds and brains.

What makes us who we are? From a scientific viewpoint, any individual's existence is improbable at best. Consciousness as an actuality is inarguable; its nature, however, remains elusive. This work argues the view of self as a field of pure consciousness, debating the existence of a continuing self and drawing conclusions about this entity and its relation to the physical body and the physical world. Beginning with an exploration of the relationship between mind and matter, it discusses ostensible psi phenomena such as extra-sensory perception and psychokinesis and their implications for our understanding of the mind and the cosmos. Additional topics include the perennial mind-body problem; the role of consciousness in quantum mechanics (and conversely the role of quantum mechanics in the study of consciousness); the anthropic principle; and evidence for Intelligent Design. Quasi-religious questions such as the survival of consciousness after death are also addressed.

We have seen remarkable progress in our detailed understanding of the physical world, from the smallest constituents of atoms to the remotest distances seen by telescopes. However, we have yet to explore the phenomenon of consciousness. Can physical things be conscious or is consciousness something else, forever outside the range of physics? And ho

In this stimulating and timely book, Amit Goswami, PhD, shatters the widely popular belief held by Western science that matter is the primary "stuff" of creation and proposes instead that consciousness is the true foundation of all we know and perceive. His explanation of quantum physics for lay readers, called "a model of clarity" by Kirkus Reviews, sets the stage for a voyage of discovery through the common ground of science and religion, the entwined nature of mind and body, and our interconnectedness with all of creation.

WHAT HAS MODERN SCIENCE SWEPT UNDER THE RUG? This pioneering work, which sparked intense controversy when it was first published two decades ago, suggests that modern science, in the name of rigor and objectivity, has arbitrarily excluded the role of consciousness in the establishment of physical reality. Drawing on the results of their first decade of empirical experimentation and theoretical modeling in their Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) program, the authors reach provocative conclusions about the interaction of human consciousness with physical devices, information-gathering processes, and technological systems. The scientific, personal, and social implications of this revolutionary work are staggering. MARGINS OF REALITY is nothing less than a fundamental reevaluation of how the world really works.

Writing in a rigorous, thought-provoking style, the author takes us on a far-reaching tour through the philosophical ramifications of consciousness, offering provocative insights into the relationship between mind and brain.

Four major puzzles of consciousness philosophical materialism must confront after rejecting the phenomenal concept strategy. We are material beings in a material world, but we are also beings who have experiences and feelings. How can these subjective states be just a matter of matter? To defend materialism, philosophical materialists have formulated what is sometimes called "the phenomenal-concept strategy," which holds that we possess a range of special concepts for classifying the subjective aspects of our experiences. In Consciousness Revisited, the philosopher Michael Tye, until now a proponent of the the phenomenal-concept strategy, argues that the strategy is mistaken. A rejection of phenomenal concepts leaves the materialist with the task of finding some other strategy for defending materialism. Tye points to four major puzzles of consciousness that arise: How is it possible for Mary, in the famous thought experiment, to make a discovery when she leaves her black-and-white room? In what does the explanatory gap consist and how can it be bridged? How can the hard problem of consciousness be solved? How are zombies possible? Tye presents solutions to these puzzles—solutions that relieve the pressure on the materialist created by the failure of the phenomenal-concept strategy. In doing so, he discusses and makes new proposals on a wide range of issues, including the nature of perceptual content, the conditions necessary for consciousness of a given object, the proper understanding of change blindness, the nature of phenomenal character and our awareness of it, whether we have privileged access to our own experiences, and, if we do, in what such access consists.