This book brings together an international group of neuroscientists and philosophers who are investigating how the content of subjective experience is correlated with events in the brain. The fundamental methodological problem in consciousness research is the subjectivity of the target phenomenon--the fact that conscious experience, under standard conditions, is always tied to an individual, first-person perspective. The core empirical question is whether and how physical states of the human nervous system can be mapped onto the content of conscious experience. The search for the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) has become a highly active field of investigation in recent years. Methods such as single-cell recording in monkeys and brain imaging and electrophysiology in humans, applied to such phenomena as blindsight, implicit/explicit cognition, and binocular rivalry, have generated a wealth of data. The same period has seen the development of a number of theories about NCC location. This volume brings together the leading experimentalists and theoreticians in the field. Topics include foundational and evolutionary issues, global integration, vision, consciousness and the NMDA receptor complex, neuroimaging, implicit processes, intentionality and phenomenal volition, schizophrenia, social cognition, and the phenomenal self. Contributors: Jackie Andrade, Ansgar Beckermann, David J. Chalmers, Francis Crick, Antonio R. Damasio, Gerald M. Edelman, Dominic ffytche, Hans Flohr, N. P. Franks, Vittorio Gallese, Melvyn A. Goodale, Valerie Gray Hardcastle, Beena Khurana, Christof Koch, W. R. Lieb, Erik D. Lumer, Thomas Metzinger, Kelly J. Murphy, Romi Nijhawan, Joelle Proust, Antti Revonsuo, Gerhard Roth, Thomas Schmidt, Wolf Singer, Giulio Tononi.
Thomas Metzinger (*1958 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany) is currently Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz and an Adjunct Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Study.
In 2008 he received prestigious one-year Fellowship at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Berlin Institute for Advanced Study), is past president of the German Cognitive Science Society and was president of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness from 2009 to 2010.
His focus of research lies in analytical philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophical aspects of the neuro- and cognitive sciences as well as connections between ethics, philosophy of mind and anthropology.
In the English language, he has edited two collections on consciousness ("Conscious Experience", Paderborn: mentis & Thorverton, UK: Imprint Academic, 1995; "Neural Correlates of Consciousness", Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000) and one major scientific monograph developing a comprehensive, interdisciplinary theory about consciousness, the phenomenal self, and the first-person perspective ("Being No One - The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity", Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).
In 2009, he published a popular book, which addresses a wider audience and also discusses the ethical, cultural and social consequences of consciousness research ("The Ego Tunnel - The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self", New York: Basic Books).
Details at http://www.philosophie.uni-mainz.de/metzinger/ET.html
There are a number of videos on YouTube, German as well as English.
