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Consciousness: An Introduction (Paperback)

~ Susan Blackmore (Author) "The problem of consciousness is related to most of the oldest questions of philosophy: What is the world made of?..." (more)
Key Phrases: zombie earth, conscious inessentialism, neuronal adequacy, New York, Miss Beauchamp, Chinese Room (more...)
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Editorial Reviews

From Scientific American

If you’ve ever driven along a highway and suddenly realized that you have no memory of how you just got to a certain point, then you have some idea of what it’s like to be "in" and "out" of consciousness. Understanding the difference is the crux of Consciousness: An Introduction, which examines the scientific nature of subjective experience. Susan Blackmore, a former lecturer in psychology at the University of the West of England in Bristol, casts a wide net in exploring what she calls "the last great mystery of science." She painstakingly documents the evolution of consciousness studies, from the pioneering work of William James to the controversial, contemporary work of Daniel C. Dennett of Tufts University, who maintains that consciousness is a complex of "memes"—verbal and written information that is transferred from person to person. Then she marches through a host of other topics, including how subjective experiences arise from objective brain processes; altered states; and mystical experiences and dreams. To offset this weightiness, Blackmore periodically invites the reader to participate in interesting practice exercises with titles such as "Was this decision conscious?" and activities such as "Blind for an hour" that sharpen selfawareness. "Some of you will enjoy the self-examination and find the science and philosophy hard," she writes of her approach. "Others will lap up the science and find the personal inquiry troubling or trivial. I can only say this: both are needed." Blackmore also strikes a balance in showing how Western and Eastern philosophies view consciousness. Parts of this discussion may seem too difficult to grasp, but she is not after black-and-white conclusions; she is bold enough to leave some questions unanswered. Blackmore’s best chapters come in the latter part of the book. Her analyses of the effects of brain damage on consciousness are fascinating in their human detail. She does get sidetracked by devoting three short chapters to the possibility of consciousness in robots, even though a machine’s total lack of subjectivity would appear to make a prolonged analysis beside the point. But she redeems herself with an amusing anecdote that underscores how even the best intentioned scholars can get carried away by their own theories. When computer scientist John McCarthy of Stanford University claimed that his thermostat had a belief system, philosopher John Searle of the University of California at Berkeley immediately asked, "John, what beliefs does your thermostat have?" McCarthy’s reply was both clever and courageous: "My thermostat has three beliefs. My thermostat believes that it’s too hot in here, it’s too cold in here and it’s just right in here."

Robert Rorke



Review

One day, all consciousness textbooks will be made this way. Susan Blackmore's Consciousness is an invaluable addition to the area of consciousness research. It is balanced, scholarly and yet student-friendly: no undergraduate course on consciousness should be without it. This book will prove to be the benchmark by which future consciousness-course texts are judged. Blackmore's title concentrates on the theory and practice of consciousness by asking you to do some thinking for yourself...she invites you as the reader to join in the speculations by taking part in various illustrative activities. These provide far more insight than words and references ever could on their own. This book can be read by anyone at any level of interest, from the most casual browser to the full-time psychology professional. -- Focus 20030901 Blackmore provides a very student-friendly way in to the often complex debates about consciousness -- Mr A Stone, South Bank University 20030601 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 480 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (October 16, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 019515343X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0195153439
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #129,609 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Susan J. Blackmore
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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The problem of consciousness is related to most of the oldest questions of philosophy: What is the world made of? Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
zombie earth, conscious inessentialism, neuronal adequacy, ego theorist, bundle theorist, workspace theory, skin stimulus, pearl view, idea that consciousness, change blindness, dualist interactionism, magic difference, inattentional blindness, narrative gravity, subjective referral, studying consciousness, visuomotor control, reflexive model, consciousness studies, conscious machine, ego theories, global workspace, machine consciousness, binocular rivalry, ego theory
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Miss Beauchamp, Chinese Room, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Eve White, Hui Neng, Consciousness Explained, Global Workspace Theory, Eve Black, Oxford University Press, Ansel Bourne, Grey Walter, John Searle, Second World War, David Chalmers, Global Workspace Theories, Professor of Psychology, The Seventh Sally, American Sign Language, Charles Darwin, Daniel Wegner, Ernest Hilgard, Francisco Varela, Gilbert Ryle, Has Trurl
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84 of 87 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive, Clear, Well Written, October 29, 2003
By meno "meno" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
I am glad to find a complete book dealing with all aspects of consciousness in CLEARLY written format, with graphs and tables to facilitate comprehension. The book covers everything I had seen before from Artificial Intelligence to Philosophy to Neurology to Evolutionary Biology.
Say one wants to get an idea of Dan Dennett's theory of consciousness (without having to get through Dennett's circuitous, unfocused and evasive prose) or Searle's Chinese room argument or Turing's test or Chalmer's position or Churchland's neurophilosophy or a presentation of research on the neural correlates of consciousness...Everything I could think about is there.
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45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great, with one qualification, November 23, 2004
By T. Bachman (Victoria, BC) - See all my reviews
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This book is a must-buy for the student or layman interested in consciousness. Blackmore guides the reader on an exhilarating crashcourse through all the issues relevant to the problem of consciousness, from Descartes to the thought of contemporary scientists and philosophers.

This book has a number of unique strengths. Most importantly, Blackmore has managed to distill to their essences the various features of what is often a baffling subject, and writes in clear, lively prose. This alone would justify the book's purchase.

Another strength is her focus not just on the speculative, but on the hard science relevant to consciousness. She frequently makes reference to (and explains) experiments illuminating the characteristics and activities of the mind/brain.

Blackmore also does a good job at introducing prominent thinkers in the area of consciousness by including photos, mini-bios, and explaining their work and why it is important.

Blackmore seems very clever, and overall is quite fair in her assessment of the competing strands of thought within this field. There is only one peculiarity (whether it is a fault or not depends on perspective) that concerns me: almost every discussion of any aspect of consciousness seems to include, and often concludes with, entirely uncritical descriptions of what Tufts philosopher Daniel Dennett thinks about the issue. This is odd, because virtually everyone else's ideas are subjected to tough questioning by Blackmore. As if to punctuate this seemingly uncritical embrace of Dennett, Blackmore even uses photos of - guess who? - Daniel Dennett to construct a montage demonstrating blind spots (see page 82).

As a kind of prima facie indicator of whether there was indeed a dramatically lopsided reliance on, or deference to, Dennett, I turned to the index to count up the number of pages in which various scientists and philosophers were referred to or discussed in the book. To be generous, I disregarded thinkers mentioned only in passing, and focused on eleven prominent names (Chalmers, Churchland, Dawkins, Damasio, etc.). The average number of index pages for each thinker was fourteen, while the total number of pages for Dennett was....71! No one else even comes close to half the citations.

Despite the real achievements of this book, Blackmore's handling of Dennett might be of concern to some readers, who, like I have, have gotten the sense that at this point, it is far too early for the construction and reinforcement of any orthodoxy or dogma; while many theories have been proposed, we all still seem to be feeling about largely in the dark vis-à-vis this most mysterious of fields.

However, as is again made clear in quotations from him in the book, Dennett seems (sometimes gleefully) predisposed to dogmatic, Cardinal Ratzinger-like pronouncements about almost every aspect of this science (note, for example, the telling title of his 1991 book, "Consciousness Explained" [sigh]). He often seems to advance his arguments using rhetorical features that place them stylistically in with arguments made by people like Jimmy Swaggart and Pat Robertson. (Perhaps this is an inevitable consequence of a commitment to any fundamentalist, absolutist world-explaining ideology [whether theist or atheist, like Dennett embraces]; but since, as I mentioned, this is only the dawn of consciousness studies, who knows? Perhaps future research will finally reveal whether the relentless arrogance and dogmatism of Dawkins and Dennett and Swaggart and Robertson are indeed attributable to identical neurological processes in the brain, showing all four humans to be of the same unique type, no matter how much they might all loathe being associated with each other; and depending on how the free will debate turns out, we might even be able to find out whether any of them can even be held accountable for the general intolerability of their pedadogical styles).

This is not to say that Dennett is wrong about everything; he may turn out to be right about everything. All I mean to say is that, given the current less-than-airtight evidence for Dennett's ideas, and a modus operandi that suggests he may not exactly be open-minded, Blackmore's attachment to Dennett ought to be considered by readers. If we buy a book called "Economics: An Introduction", and we see that of all the economic authorities cited, Karl Marx has over five times the average amount of citations and is the only one treated uncritically, we would have every reason to suspect that possibly a prior commitment by the author has inhibited her ability, or even desire, to evaluate or present Marx's ideas sans bias, or even sans what psychologist Daniel Goleman calls mental lacunae.

If, as seems indisputable, Blackmore thinks Dennett is closer to the truth on everything than everyone else, can we see the requisite hard evidence that he is? And if this evidence does not exist yet, should Blackmore's endorsement of Dennett not just be made explicit so we can take that into consideration as we try to form our own conclusions about things?

In fairness, I should say that Dennett, for better or for worse, is a leading voice in consciousness studies, so one might as well become familiar with his ideas (I won't spoil the surprise).

Despite the Dennett issue (Blackmore and Dennett might argue "because" of it), the truth is that this book is still by far the best that I know of for introducing the emerging science of consciousness. Blackmore might be twitterpated with the chest-thumping Dennett, but she's very smart and a very good writer, and covers pretty much all the bases that need to be covered in an intelligible way. That's why I'm giving this book five stars.

Good luck
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39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Fishing in the stream of consciousness, November 26, 2004
By Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
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You have to wonder when an author declares her intention to perplex you. With any book about the human mind, you have a right to expect information and clarification. There's a great deal of information here, and it's presented with clarity. However, while you will learn much from this book, at the end you will be aware of how much remains to be done. That situation, as Blackmore explains, is due to the nature of the subject. Not only are the issues of consciousness difficult to explain, but, a definition - the very foundation of discussion - is lacking. With such a frail base, what can an author give the enquiring reader? Blackmore summarises the advances made in attempting to define "consciousness". Her approach, although formatted as a textbook, is accessible to anyone wishing to delve into studies of the mind. She's to be applauded for synopsising a very dynamic topic with apparent ease.

The study of consciousness is inevitably contentious. With so little firm information available on the workings of the brain, theories of "how the mind works" abound. Blackmore skilfully guides the reader through the many theories of mind that have emerged over many centuries. Blackmore uses those theories to organise her presentation, describing a theorist and his/her idea as a discussion focus. Inevitably, it is Descartes and "dualism" that provide the opening scenario. The structure allows the author to post some "assignments" that may look like academic exercises, but are couched in terms any reader can understand and use. After all, we all have ideas about what "consciousness" means. Why should we not test our assumptions? Blackmore helps us do this as each chapter offers another step in contrasting our own views with that of the philosophers.

With over two millennia of thinkers on thinking, ideas proposed and overturned, it would seem this book might be a Rogue's Gallery of theories and theorists. Blackmore is too even-handed to render summary judgements, especially condemnatory ones. There are few heroes in this tale - with the exception of William James. He's frequently lauded, not only for founding the science of psychology, but for the lengthy list of insights into the human mind he discerned. Blackmore's tributes to James are low-key and not effusively laudatory. But there are few chapters that aren't introduced by a Jamesian quotation. James' successors, from Chalmers to Searle, address Cartesian dualism in various ways. Dennett, the most scathing critic of the "Cartesian theatre" in which a virtual little "person" sits in our brain viewing the world, crops up repeatedly. That's only right and proper, since many of those claiming to have dumped dualism, secretly harbour it. The hints are often well camouflaged, but Blackmore shows how Dennett's discerning gaze penetrates any obscuring verbiage to triumphantly expose it to public scrutiny.

As Blackmore guides us through most of the prevailing concepts of consciousness, she introduces some of the novelties that distort our perception of it. Nearly half the book is composed of descriptions of things that mislead us. Various dream states, and their impact on the body are presented. The "phantom limb" syndrome, amnesia and perceptions of spirits and fairies all make their appearance. Blackmore parades these anomalies before us, accompanied by explanations of their real nature - which runs from cryptic neurotransmitter behaviour to outright fraud.

Although this book appears as a university text, and will likely be welcomed in many classrooms, its readership will not be confined to academic halls. The mysteries of consciousness are of concern to us all. That alone should lead to it being placed on countless shelves. These are issues that continue to intrigue us. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars This is a textbook for students
I am not a student and wanted to read a somewhat in-depth overview of consciousness. I am very disappointed by this book, despite liking the author's book The Meme Machine... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Jackal

3.0 out of 5 stars We never used it
My professor made us buy this book, and we never used it. The class was okay, and when I peered inside the book, it seemed like simple reading. So I'm not really sure.
Published 12 months ago by K. Yang

4.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive
Blackmore provides a readable, comprehensive introduction to the field. A great book for getting grounded in philosophy of consciousness.
Published 14 months ago by Jenessa M. Strickland

5.0 out of 5 stars A WORTHWHILE BOOK DESPITE STRICT MATERIALIST BIAS

Shortly after read THE MEME MACHINE, I had a dream in which I was arguing with Susan Blackmore about her denial of the existence of a self. Read more
Published on June 2, 2006 by Peter Payne

4.0 out of 5 stars What is Consciousness
Susan Blackmore has written a textbook on "consciousness". Do not be put off, it is eminently suitable as a reference. Read more
Published on March 11, 2006 by Neil Bowey

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating read for the layback person
I decided to order this book after reading an article from Susan Blackmore on the web.
I am half way through the book.
God, it is so good. Read more
Published on February 24, 2006 by JYC

5.0 out of 5 stars A lot of hard work ahead, but well worth the effort
Don't kid yourself. Reading this book will be a lot of hard work, as each chapter takes a lot of thinking and reflecting.
But is also lots of fun. Read more
Published on September 24, 2005 by Simon Laub

4.0 out of 5 stars Good text book
We use this text in my Levels of Conscienciousness class. Great illustrations, very detailed. It is a bit deep, so you must know some Psychology and have an interest and desire... Read more
Published on September 18, 2005 by Jennie Beam-Sloan

4.0 out of 5 stars Scientific approach is necessary
I tried to start with basics - asked ar definition of consciousness. This is what i got:
No reference to definition of consciousnes in this book. Read more
Published on August 30, 2005 by Imants Vilks

3.0 out of 5 stars Old school
I found this book to be disappointing. Although it provides a decent summary of past research into human consciousness, the author clearly is biased towards a materialistic view... Read more
Published on June 4, 2005 by Martijn

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