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David J. Chalmers
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The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (Philosophy of Mind) Revised ed. Edition

by David J. Chalmers (Author)
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.
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  1. ISBN-10
    0195117891
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0195117899
  3. Edition
    Revised ed.
  4. Publisher
    Oxford University Press
  5. Publication date
    November 27, 1997
  6. Part of series
    Philosophy of Mind
  7. Language
    English
  8. Dimensions
    10.48 x 4.67 x 1.14 inches
  9. Print length
    432 pages
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Certainly one of the best discussions of consciousness in existence."--The Times Higher Education Supplement

"A startling first book....Offers an outstandingly competent survey of the field."--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

Book Description

"Eloquent, fiendishly clever, hugely informed about neuroscience." --The Sunday Times

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David J. Chalmers

David J. Chalmers

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  • Alex Vary
    5.0 out of 5 stars Conscious Mind Searches for Its Transcendent Origin
    Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2014
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    In The Journal of Consciousness Studies, David Chalmers wrote: “ Consciousness poses the most baffling problems in the science of the mind. There is nothing that we know more intimately than conscious experience, but there is nothing that is harder to explain. All sorts of mental phenomena have yielded to scientific investigation in recent years, but consciousness has stubbornly resisted.” The mystery of consciousness revolves around the question: “How can living physical bodies in the physical world acquire such phenomena?” Chalmers favors the non-reductionist, non-physical approach which may ultimately provide pivotal concepts needed to resolve the question.

    In The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory, David Chalmers introduces the notion of the hard problem of consciousness. According to Chalmers, the hard problem of consciousness is explaining how we experience it with respect to: (1) sensory inputs and the mysterious modes of their neural processing and (2) qualia - phenomena where the processing is accompanied by ineffably subjective aspects of conscious experience which apprehend the redness of red, the beauty of mathematical forms, love, the selfness experience. These have a relationship with physical brain-states, but are not identical to brain states because they are transcendent - essentially objectively unmeasurable - states of consciousness.

    Chalmers observes that subjective information processing invariably accompanies sensory and neural signal processing. We do not just retain visual sensations; we judge the quality of colors, the contrast of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field with meaningful images that are conjured up mentally, that are felt emotionally, and inspire experiential conscious thought. What unites these states of consciousness somehow transcends the physical sensory experiences.

    Empirical science and neuroscience have attempted to explain the nature of conscious experience. But to fully account for conscious experience, Chalmers suggests that we need an extra ingredient to explain and elucidate the hard problem of consciousness. That extra ingredient should explain how accumulated experiences, arising in and retained by the brain, are elaborated, interpreted, and qualified by our consciousness.

    Roger Penrose and Staurt Hameroff (Toward a Science of Consciousness), suggest that human cognition may depend on quantum wavefunction collapses in microtubules, the cytoskeletons of a neuron. Penrose and Hameroff suspect that wavefunction collapse in microtubules may be the physical basis of conscious experience. In The Conscious Mind, Chalmers writes that although “these ideas are extremely speculative . . . they could at least conceivably help to explain certain elements of human cognitive functioning.”

    Our embodiment is primarily a survival machine with no inherent consciousness, a Chalmerian zombie. In The Conscious Mind David Chalmers describes an isomorph, “A zombie [that] is just something physically identical to me but which has no conscious experience ‒ all is dark inside.” In any case, survival machines are programmed to respond to and survive their environments, to replicate and evolve, without any urgent need to assume human consciousness or engage in social intercourse.

    Chalmers argues for the transcendent nature of consciousness; insisting that “consciousness is simply not to be characterized as a functional property” and that, “No explanation given wholly in physical terms can ever account for the emergence of conscious experience.” In My Universe - A Transcendent Reality, author Alex Vary proposes a conceptual framework to help elucidate the transcendent nature of consciousness and its relation to the physical world. The proposed framework is based on deductions and information revealed primarily by distinct quantum phenomena which are demonstrably transcendent. An essential feature of the framework is the mesostratum; a signal transmission modality. The mesostratum machinery that Vary imagines offers an explanatory gap-filling linkage from a transcendent continuum to a physical neural discontinuum. Vary suggests ways to access the mesostratum, to explore it, to explain the nature of human consciousness; and cites examples of access to the mesostratum. Chalmers essentially intuits that non-physical agencies (perhaps mesostratum agencies) participated in the appearance and evolution of human consciousness. If mesostratum agencies modulate human consciousness then at least select humans should be able to reciprocally access, explore, and exploit resources of the mesostratum. Anecdotal examples are legion: prodigious savants, geniuses, virtuosos, such as Mozart, Goethe, John von Neuman.
    13 people found this helpful
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  • y pinto
    5.0 out of 5 stars A very good book. I work in the field of consciousness ...
    Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    A very good book. I work in the field of consciousness research, so I guess I'm biased with a lot of background knowledge, but I'd say, for experts this book is excellent. Chalmers approaches this problem like a mathematician. He doesn't cling to intuitions or cherished beliefs, he simply constructs arguments with cold-hearted rational thinking. His main point can actually be summarized quite simply: we, as a matter of fact, cannot deduce experiences from functional interactions. We can deduce output, and other functions, but not experiences. This then suggests a simple implication: experiences, unlike normal material entities, are not encompassed fully by functions (although they clearly correlate with it).
    I'd say you really appreciate this as someone working in the field (more maybe than if you don't), because the problems he predicts are exactly the problems that arise. Every theory of consciousness at some points hits a brick wall. Global Workspace: highlighted information is conscious; IIT: integrated information is conscious; recurrently processed information is conscious; attended or memorized information is conscious; information generating meta information is conscious; neuronal interactions at 40Hz generate consciousness, and so on.
    The problem with every theory, in the end, is that the starting point seems arbitrary and not rationally explainable. Why should 40Hz oscillations lead to experiences, but 39 Hz not? Why can information not simply be integrated unconsciously? What's so special about memory that it requires consciousness (as opposed to calculating root squares for instance)?
    These problems that we run into in the practice of consciousness research highlight Chalmers's points: there is, in our understanding, an unbridgeable gap between functions and experiences. This makes the problem of consciousness considerably more intractable then nearly all other scientific problems.
    27 people found this helpful
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  • Lia Pantoja Milhomens
    5.0 out of 5 stars Uma busca de definição científica de consciência e mente
    Reviewed in Brazil on February 20, 2020
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    Ainda não acabei de ler.
    Mas gostei, até agora, da forma de apresentação do tema principal do livro.
    Está escrito em um inglês muito correto.
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  • Mario_A
    5.0 out of 5 stars Un saggio provocatorio su un argomento affascinante
    Reviewed in Italy on February 18, 2021
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    Ho deciso di leggere "The conscious mind" di David Chalmers, dopo aver scoperto che il suo punto di vista sulla natura della coscienza umana è molto simile alle mie idee sull'argomento. Noi tutti, ogni giorno, abbiamo l'esperienza di accorgersi di esistere, siamo coscienti. Ma che cos'è la coscienza? Per le neuroscienze la coscienza è un fenomeno correlato all'attività neurologica di determinate aree del cervello. E' assente nella fase di sonno senza sogni, nel coma o sotto l'effetto di anestetici. Le neuroscienze non studiano direttamente la coscienza, bensì hanno come obbiettivo la scoperta dei "correlati neurologici della coscienza", in pratica quali aree del cervello sono attive quando la coscienza è presente e cosa cambia quando la coscienza è assente.
    In questi studi, la coscienza viene definita come stato vigile, e normalmente è basata sulle dichiarazioni dei pazienti/volontari. Nonostante che in molti articoli scientifici viene dichiarato che la coscienza è un fenomeno biologico che non richiede nessuna nuova legge fisica per essere spiegata, nessuno, finora, è mai riuscito a spiegare in modo soddisfacente come un fenomeno fisico-chimico, ormai ben conosciuto, come l'attività neuronale possa creare la coscienza. Chalmers evidenzia questo fatto per tutto il suo saggio e sostiene che la coscienza, pur essendo correlata all'attività del cervello, non possa essere spiegata in termini fisico-chimici.
    Si tratta di un libro molto impegnativo, non certo di facile lettura. Non è un testo divulgativo. Tuttavia, secondo il mio punto di vista, Chalmers avrebbe potuto esporre gli stessi concetti in modo più sintetico: spesso ho trovato molte ripetizioni degli stessi argomenti in capitoli diversi, appesantendo inutilmente il saggio.
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  • P. R. Marschall
    3.0 out of 5 stars Not the expected condition
    Reviewed in the Netherlands on June 5, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    The delivery was very fast, but I ordered the book in new condition and received it with almost all corners damaged which is probably thanks to it being poorly packaged. Thankfully this doesn't change the content, but I would've liked to have this particular book in perfect condition hence the 3 star rating.
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    P. R. Marschall
    3.0 out of 5 stars
    Not the expected condition

    Reviewed in the Netherlands on June 5, 2023
    The delivery was very fast, but I ordered the book in new condition and received it with almost all corners damaged which is probably thanks to it being poorly packaged. Thankfully this doesn't change the content, but I would've liked to have this particular book in perfect condition hence the 3 star rating.
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  • Ricardo
    5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent (but a little difficult to read) book to get into hard problem of consciousness.
    Reviewed in Mexico on April 10, 2021
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    Consciousness is still not completely understood, and many of the great minds in the history have tried to search for a theory to completely explain it but it remains difficult to achieve, up to now. David J. Chalmers makes a remarkable try in this book that is worth to read it.

    Chalmers recognize that the problem of consciousness lies uneasily at the border of science and philosophy, and is extraordinary difficult, if not impossible, to study using the scientific methods. This is a key fact that permeates the rest of the book. Chalmers recognize that the problem of consciousness may be a scientific problem but uses philosophical methods to understand it. For me, neither of both is completely true, and can not be asserted. As matter of fact, no one really knows if consciousness is something to be studied using scientific methods or philosophical methods, or even, some still-unknown method.

    The first chapters (1-4) use philosophical methods to explain Consciousness, explaining “supervenience” as key concept to define the relationship of mental states with the physical states. It was extraordinary difficult for me to read it and follow it (I'm not a philosopher), so I just skim through most of it (as suggested by Chalmers). A large part of this section is devoted to defining what is consciousness, the conscious experience, the cognitive process, functionalism, physical vs psychical states, and so on. But no final definition of consciousness is fully achieved. Also, the mind-body argument is strongly argued against many of the arguments of other authors (Rosenthal, Dennett among others).

    Then Chalmers analyze the consciousness problem using a cognitive psychology model and process approach but without really going anywhere. Then interestingly Chalmers switches to quantum mechanics theory as a possible explanation of consciousness being the “observer” entity required for quantum mechanics to work. Then later Chalmers discuss the Information Theory, as another alternative explanation of consciousness which inadvertently bring us to a “panpsychism” realm.

    This book at heart is really about an epistemic problem. For me this is an important corollary. As Chalmers himself admits: “Given the actual epistemological assumptions. We need to find a new paradigm”. I completely agree with this statement. Chalmers proposes a final theory, as a set of psychophysical laws analogous to fundamental laws in physics, but do not go into the details or the foundations of it. At the end Chalmers seems to agree with the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics: “the Everett interpretation seems in many ways the most attractive, but at the same time it is the hardest to accept.”.

    There is a lot to say about this book, but it is not my purpose and I'm not able to do a comprehensive review. This book is very technical, I'm not a philosopher, but although it takes me more time than usual to read it, it was worthwhile. I really like to read and know about the consciousness problem, and this book give me valuable answers: Consciousness is out of the scope of science method and philosophy, and we need a new epistemic approach; This book is an evocative journey to understand consciousness from quite different views, perspectives, models, methods, and though not conclusive, it is worthwhile.
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  • Stefan Olsson
    5.0 out of 5 stars I nyskick
    Reviewed in Sweden on January 28, 2025
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    Verkligen som ny. Bra köp. Kan rekommendera säljaren.
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