Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction PDF

# Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction ## Susan Blackmore ### Second Edition ### Contents - List of illustrations - Why the mystery? - The "hard problem" - The human brain - A big brain - Time and space - Consciousness - Conscious will - Altered states of consciousness - The evolutio...

# Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction ## Susan Blackmore ### Second Edition ### Contents - List of illustrations - Why the mystery? - The "hard problem" - The human brain - A big brain - Time and space - Consciousness - Conscious will - Altered states of consciousness - The evolution of consciousness - Further reading - Index ### List of illustrations 1. The great chasm 2. Descartes' theory of reflexes 3. The philosopher's zombie 4. The Cartesian theatre 5. A Necker cube 6. Hemifield neglect 7. Two visual streams 8. Blindsight 9. The cutaneous rabbit 10. The spotlight of attention 11. Global workspace theory 12. A visual illusion 13. Finding the blind spot 14. Change blindness 15. Split brain experiment 16. The teletransporter 17. Brain areas involved in volition 18. Libet's experiment on deliberate action 19. The illusion of conscious will 20. The old hag 21. The right temporo-parietal junction 22. Mapping states of consciousness 23. What is it like to be a bat? 24. Chimp and mirror 25. Looking in the fridge ### Why the mystery? #### The "hard problem" - The "hard problem" is that consciousness is at once the most obvious thing to investigate and the most difficult. - We seem to either use consciousness to investigate itself or extricate ourselves from the thing we want to study. - Consciousness is seen as the most difficult problem in philosophy and science. - It is not clear how the firing of neurons in the brain can produce subjective, conscious experiences. - The question is asked: *"what is it like to be a bat?"* #### Defining consciousness - There is no generally agreed definition of consciousness. - *What it’s like to be…*: if there is something it is like to be for an animal, then it's conscious. - *Subjectivity or phenomenality*: consciousness means subjective experience or phenomenal experience (the way things seem). - *Qualia*: the ineffable subjective qualities of experience, such as the redness of red or the smell of turpentine. - *The hard problem*: how do subjective experiences arise from objective brains? #### The theatre of the mind - The mind is envisioned as a private theater inside our head where we sit looking out through our eyes. - It is a multi-sensational theater with touches, smells, and emotions. - The "contents of our consciousness" are these thoughts and impressions. - The self is the audience of one who experiences them. - This is a common image, but difficult to reconcile with the idea of a brain as a parallel network of neurons. - There is no central headquarters in the brain, and there is no place where "I" could sit and watch things pass through my consciousness. ### The human brain - A human brain is the most complex object in the known universe, at nearly 1.5 kg or 3 lbs. - The brain is made up of 100 billion neurons and trillions of synapses. - This results in a brain that is three sizes larger than it should be. - The central nervous system is made up of the brain and the spinal cord. - Neurons are connected to the brain stem and the midbrain. - The cerebellum is also very important and is responsible for fine movement control. - The cerebral cortex is the outer layer of the brain and is divided into lobes. - The occipital lobe is at the back, the temporal lobes are above the ears, the parietal lobe is at the top, and the frontal lobes are at the front. - Each lobe has distinct functions. - The somatosensory cortex deals with touch. - The motor cortex is in charge of the action when the body is touched.