The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (Philosophy of Mind) [Hardcover]

David J. Chalmers (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195105532 | ISBN-13: 978-0195105537 | Publication Date: May 9, 1996 | Edition: 1st

What is consciousness? How do physical processes in the brain give rise to the self-aware mind and to feelings as profoundly varied as love or hate, aesthetic pleasure or spiritual yearning? These questions today are among the most hotly debated issues among scientists and philosophers, and we have seen in recent years superb volumes by such eminent figures as Francis Crick, Daniel C. Dennett, Gerald Edelman, and Roger Penrose, all firing volleys in what has come to be called the consciousness wars. Now, in The Conscious Mind, philosopher David J. Chalmers offers a cogent analysis of this heated debate as he unveils a major new theory of consciousness, one that rejects the prevailing reductionist trend of science, while offering provocative insights into the relationship between mind and brain.
Writing in a rigorous, thought-provoking style, the author takes us on a far-reaching tour through the philosophical ramifications of consciousness. Chalmers convincingly reveals how contemporary cognitive science and neurobiology have failed to explain how and why mental events emerge from physiological occurrences in the brain. He proposes instead that conscious experience must be understood in an entirely new light--as an irreducible entity (similar to such physical properties as time, mass, and space) that exists at a fundamental level and cannot be understood as the sum of its parts. And after suggesting some intriguing possibilities about the structure and laws of conscious experience, he details how his unique reinterpretation of the mind could be the focus of a new science. Throughout the book, Chalmers provides fascinating thought experiments that trenchantly illustrate his ideas. For example, in exploring the notion that consciousness could be experienced by machines as well as humans, Chalmers asks us to imagine a thinking brain in which neurons are slowly replaced by silicon chips that precisely duplicate their functions--as the neurons are replaced, will consciousness gradually fade away? The book also features thoughtful discussions of how the author's theories might be practically applied to subjects as diverse as artificial intelligence and the interpretation of quantum mechanics.
All of us have pondered the nature and meaning of consciousness. Engaging and penetrating, The Conscious Mind adds a fresh new perspective to the subject that is sure to spark debate about our understanding of the mind for years to come.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Chalmers (philosophy, Univ. of California at Santa Cruz) analyzes the mind-body problem in terms of that elusive relationship between the physical brain and conscious events. Focusing on subjective experience as such, he rejects all reductive (materialist) explanations for conscious experience in favor of a metaphysical framework supporting a strong form of property dualism. His theory is grounded in natural supervenience, the distinction between psychological and phenomenological properties of mind, and a novel view of the ontological status of consciousness itself. Chalmers uses thought experiments (e.g., zombie worlds, silicon chips, a global brain, and inverted spectra) and discusses such issues as causation, intentionality, and epiphenomenalism. Even so, the critical reader is left asking, How can physical facts be relevant to the emergence of consciousness beyond an evolutionary naturalist worldview. Ongoing neuroscience research may provide a sufficient explanation of consciousness within a materialistic framework. Nevertheless, as a scholarly contribution to modern philosophy, this is suitable for all academic and large public libraries.?H. James Birx, Canisius Coll., Buffalo, N.Y.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Offers an outstandingly competent survey of the field and because its author, a mathematician versed in computer science, rejects materialism of all kinds in favor of a surprisingly old-fashioned dualism."--The Economist

"Chalmers shakes up the reductionist world of neurological research by asserting that scientists need to approach the conscious experience as a basic, nonphysical component of the world, similar to time, space, and matter."--Science News

"David Chalmers is widely credited for posing the so-called hard problem of consciousness:...What is the nature of subjective experience? Why do we have vividly felt experiences of the world? Why is there someone home inside our heads?"--The New York Times

"Certainly one of the best discussions of consciousness in existence. Chalmers has done about as good a job as could be done on this most intractable of problems." --Colin McGinn, The Times Higher Education Supplement

"Taking as his starting point some very intuitive notions about consciousness, David Chalmers arrives at strange and startling conclusions about what this central knot of human existence really is. This is a grand exploration of the topic, brilliantly argued by someone who knows the territory inside out. Though I personally can't go everywhere Chalmers wants to take me, he's certainly one of the best possible guides."--Douglas Hofstadter, Indiana University

"This splendid book is essential reading for anyone interested in the place of consciousness in the natural world. Chalmers argues persuasively and eloquently that standard reductive approaches in cognitive science and in philosophy of mind inevitably address only the easier problems associated with consciousness while ignoring the hard and central problem of explaining the phenomenal ("what it's like") qualities of experience--and that there is no hope of explaining these features reductively.... The book is lucidly and engagingly written and is accessible to a wide audience of readers."--Terence E. Horgan, The University of Memphis

"Consciousness is the challenge to the physicalist orthodoxy in current cognitive science and philosophy of mind. This book is a brilliant presentation of that challenge. In addition, it is a major essay in the philosophy of mind that has much to teach us whatever our allegiances."--Frank Jackson, Australian National University

"In my view, The Conscious Mind will likely be considered the best of the many books that have appeared on the topic of consciousness in the past several years. Unlike many recent writers, Chalmers does not evade the problem of consciousness by redefining the problem away; he faces the problem squarely and is prepared to take the consequences. The book is written with admirable and refreshing clarity, and brims with enthusiasm and a sense of excitement."--Jaegwon Kim, Brown University

"In theorizing about the 'hard' problem of consciousness, Chalmers adopts the most sensible approach among contemporary philosophers. Unlike most of his colleagues, he embraces the phenomenal reality of consciousness as given and attempts to explain it within a scientific framework. His book goes a long way towards establishing the seemingly obvious: consciousness is a real phenomenon of the natural world that cries out for a rational, naturalistic explanation."--Christof Koch, California Institute of Technology

"The most comprehensive book to date on consciousness. It presents an exciting new theory that expands our conception of the natural world without being reductive or non-naturalistic."--Owen Flanagan, Duke University

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1st edition (May 9, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195105532
• ISBN-13: 978-0195105537
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,118,582 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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100 of 113 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An honest look at the "hard problem" of consciousness, November 30, 1998

By 

Willam Penn (Westbury, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (Philosophy of Mind) (Hardcover)

The basic problem with any materialist theory of consciousness is that there is no room for consciousness to *do* anything -- it is caused by certain material processes but does not itself cause anything. The firing of a neuron can always be explained in terms of the firing of other neurons, the impingement of a photon on a photoreceptor, or some other objectively observable cause. At no point is it necessary to say that "this neuron fired because the brain it was part of had such-and-such a subjective experience". Thus consciousness is not logically necessary in our objective description of the material world, so we can at least conceive of a world where David Chalmers' zombie twin writes papers and books about the mind-body problem without ever having any subjective experience itself. This seems absurd but the absurdity is inherent in all the various flavors of functionalism or property dualism. And "new physics" won't change the picture at all -- string theory, quantum gravity, quantum multiverses, and any as yet unconcieved of physical theory are all simply more of the same kind of "ontological stuff" that we already have -- objective procedures for predicting the behavior of objectively measurable things.

Some functionalists attempt to make the problem go away simply by declaring conscious states a matter of definition -- "pain" is some set of states of an information processing system, "pleasure" is some other, etc. Thus whether a robot that makes a convincing whine when you hit it actually experiences pain is a matter of definition. Few would deny that there is indeed a correlation between neural states and subjective experience, but anyone who has actually experienced pain knows that it is more than a matter of definition -- your pain won't go away just because everybody else on the planet has redefined your neural state as pleasure.

Finally, substance dualism, for good reasons not considered seriously by most philosophers, doesn't solve any of the problems but merely hides them behind a black screen.

Chalmers recognizes the absurdities inherent in all theories of consciousness. He refuses to sweep the problems under a rug; he argues for a form of property dualism while being honest enough to point out that it leads to the bizarre conclusion that we puzzle about the nature of consciousness for reasons that have nothing to do with the fact that we actually *are* conscious. Like me you probably won't be willing to go as far as Chalmers wants to take you, but his book makes it plain that all the apparent avenues of escape lead to pitfalls at least as bad as the ones on the road he takes. If Chalmers is right, and consciousness must be added as an "extra feature" in our description of reality, it is devilishly hard to see how we will ever have a good theory of it. How will we be able to convincingly determine whether that poor robot really hurts?

The book is very clearly written; you don't need a formal education in philosophy to follow his arguments. Overall this is one of the best books on the mind-body problem I've read.

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Team Consciousness, March 26, 2007

By 

Owen Flanagan "owen flanagan" (durham nc) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (Philosophy of Mind Series) (Paperback)

A bunch of us (PS Churchland, PM Churchland, Dan Dennett, Frank Jackson, Colin McGinn, Joe Levine ,Tom Nagel, John Searle, Jaegwon Kim, and many others) have been writing about how to understand how talk of *mind* and talk of *brains* connect and if, and in what sense, mind *is* brain. Dave Chalmers breaks out of the crowd & makes us rethink everything. I am on record as not thinking the *hard problem* is as hard as Dave does; but read Chalmers for the argument that I (& most others underestimate) the difficulty. I think also that the move from conceivability (of zombies) to possibility is a problem. The fact remains that this is the most important work in consciousness studies in recent years.

One small thing: one reviewer of my *Consciousness Reconsidered* complains that I don't respond to Chalmers. This is true. My defense: my book appeared 4 or 5 years before Dave's. It would have been hard to respond to him.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tremendous introduction to analytic philosophy, June 23, 2006

By 

Randall McCutcheon (Bexley, OH) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (Philosophy of Mind Series) (Paperback)

As a mathematician trying to get in step with mainstream analytic philosophy, I've found this book more useful than any other. Many of the issues Chalmers has helped me to get clear about have little to do with philosophy of mind. For example, his quick rendition of 2-dimensional semantics, while paying its due respects to Kripke, Putnam et al., quietly makes the dogmatic style of, say, Naming and Necessity or The Meaning of Meaning look pretty silly, things that many of us felt but couldn't clearly express. (I don't actually subscribe to any of this 2-d stuff, but that's beside the point. That Chalmers can so effortlessly demythologize a basically empty doctrine by characterizing it from within a far more cogent system is just wonderful.) Not all of that is his, but some of it is, and his modal judgment is absolutely outstanding...actually, I would prefer to see a book about just this from Chalmers, as therein lies his principal expository strength (more so than mind). His references, meanwhile, manage to be copious without the usual pretension.

Something else to consider--Chalmers was like 28 when he wrote this book, and it's probably fair to say he was something of a prodigy (bit of trivia--he was also a medalist at the International Mathematical Olympiad). At any rate, what's here is brilliant, if a bit on the sterile side. In short, the technique is way ahead of the art. Focus on the technique and reap the rewards.