Talk:Consciousness Studies

About

 * Started: 21 June 2005
 * Size: 97,500 words (Apr 2009)

Various
The general layout of the book is in four sections. The first two are a historical review and a discussion of the problems thrown up by the empirical data. These have been merged but could be separated. The third is a presentation of neuroscience as it relates to consciousness and the fourth is about theories that attempt to explain consciousness.

There is a problem with the second section, "the problems raised by the empirical data". In some ways this section could be called 'a hundred ways in which nineteenth century materialism fails to account for consciousness'. This will not be popular with a large caucus of philosophers but scientists need to see that the problem of consciousness, like all unresolved scientific problems, is about a failure of popular theory to account for the empirical data. Scientists must decide where theory fails to provide an elegant description of observation so that they can evolve new theories.

Functionalists and Eliminativists do not need a textbook about consciousness. A sentence will do stating that no-one should doubt that the universe is described by functional presentism hence consciousness can only be reflexive. But eliminativists and functionalists, on reflection, nearly always end up with 'non-reductivism' or 'emergentism' - there are things about consciousness that are not explained by the theory. Given this failure of the nineteenth century approach it is better to be 'up front' and describe "the problems raised by the empirical data" before assuming any theories.

The philosophical explanations of consciousness are hypotheses and need to go at the end of the book. The philosophers who are proponents of philosophical hypotheses may believe that they have argued their validity and hence elevate them above scientific hypotheses but this is largely a scientific textbook and philosophical blarney is no better than protoscience. RobinH 08:22, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

The historical review has now been separated. RobinH 09:23, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Orphanded pages
I found some orphaded pages that seem to be connected with this book
 * Consciousness studies :Other explanations
 * This page was created in error by a new user of Wikimedia and its content is now at: and can be deleted.


 * Consciousness studies:The philosophical problem - Appendixr
 * This page has been integrated into and was used as a place holder for a while, it can also be deleted. Best wishes User:RobinH

--Derbeth talk 13:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

free will
Is "free will" something that needs to be discussed in this book? (see Paul Davies' Really Dangerous Idea ).
 * Interesting article. The big problem is that type 2 "freedom" is deterministic except for chaotic events and these are not "willed". It is doubtful whether type 2 free will qualifies as free will at all according to the intuitions of free will held by ordinary people. The type 2 free will component of a book on consciousness studies would be a module in the access consciousness section. The type 1 free will component would depend upon speculations about the physical nature of phenomenal consciousness. RobinH 11:03, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

New comments go at the bottom
This book has been hjacked by cranks and people who don't really know what they are talking about. It needs to be peer reviewed.


 * The section on the neuroscience of vision is straighforward textbook physiology. As are many of the other sections, including those on philosophy. It is natural for anyone committed to the mid to late twentieth century idea that consciousness is entirely access consciousness to consider the treatment of phenomenal consciousness to be "cranky". Please could you be specific about your problem? RobinH 11:38, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Audition
I'd love to see a section in part III on the neuroscience of hearing. I know a little about it and there are many interesting auditory anomalies/illusions that could shed some light on this important aspect of consciousness. Music and it's affects, it's role as perhaps "higher" language may prove interesting here also. I'm also certainly not knowledgeable enough to initiate such a section. I'm fairly new to Wikipedia so I hope I've not stepped on any toes. 203.52.129.250
 * I concur, as it is so hard to find credible scientific peer reviewed articles oni the net about subject as the neural correlate of music, and of the perception of music by dogs, alternatives harmonies and such. maybe this book can over it.

Is that really consciousness? It seems like that doesn't fit under the topic. Please explain. I guess if you are talking about hearing only, it fits fine, but if it becomes very music-specific, I think it would better fit under music theory, or something like that. I like the idea though. Marky1991 23:19, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Link to consciousness survey project at canonizer.com?
The consciousness survey project has as its goal a comprehensive concise and quantitative survey of what are the most well accepted theories of consciousness. Would it be OK to add a link to this, perhaps in the history section of this page, since this is a real time survey, including now more than 2 years of history of a kind of a consensus horse race that is obviously just getting started? The more people that participate in the survey process (canonize their views, if you will) the more comprehensive it becomes. Brent.Allsop (talk) 22:53, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

PDF error
after page 94 the PDF has a display error, preventing further reading..--Diza 11:07, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * thanks - now fixed RobinH 12:53, 18 January 2007 (UTC)