Toward a Science of Consciousness: The First Tucson Discussions and Debates (Complex Adaptive Systems)

Toward a Science of Consciousness: The First Tucson Discussions and Debates (Complex Adaptive Systems)
Stuart R. Hameroff,Alfred W. Kaszniak,Alwyn C. Scott | 1996-03-26 00:00:00 | The MIT Press | 832 | Mental Health
"The exploration of consciousness is one of the most challenging problems of the human mind, where bold new concepts are required. This book provides the reader with exciting new ideas from a variety of scientific disciplines and thus serves as a highly useful basis for future research in this field." -- Hermann P. J. Haken, Professor of Theoretical Physics and Synergetics, University of Stuttgart

Scientists and philosophers are focusing more intensely than ever on the nature of our human experience, resulting in a newly coalescing field of Consciousness Studies that has become a worldwide and highly interdisciplinary phenomenon. Toward a Science of Consciousness marks the first major gathering -- a landmark event -- devoted entirely to unlocking the mysteries of consciousness. It explores the whole spectrum of approaches from philosophy of mind and dream research, to neuropsychology, pharmacology, and molecular dynamics, to neural networks, phenomenological accounts, and even the physics of reality. The aim is to lay a sound scientific foundation for future research while also reaching consensus on many scattered areas of inquiry. Following an overview, fifty-five chapters are divided into ten sections: philosophy, cognitive science, medicine/pathology, neurology, neural networks, subneural biology, quantum theory, non-locality in space and time, hierarchical organization, and phenomenology. In addition to the editors, who are, respectively, an anesthesiologist, a psychologist, and an applied mathematician, contributors include such luminaries as David Chalmers, Michael Conrad, Avshalom Elitzur, Owen Flanagan, David Galin, John Kihlstrom, Christof Koch, Benjamin Libet, Roger Penrose, Karl Pribram, Gary Schwartz, Petra Stoerig, John Taylor, Andrew Weil, Fred Wolf, and many others.
Reviews
This book is a landmark in consciousness studies. If anyone doubts that consciousness studies are multidiciplinary almost by definition, let him read this book. There is a little bit of everything for everyone. Quantum physics, neurology, cognitive science, psychology, plain out parapsychology. One cannot agree with everything one reads, but as a survey of the field as it stood in the 90's this is a jewel. A must for people interested in the study of consciousness, scientific or otherwise. I generalize these comments to the other 2 books, Towards a Science of Consciouness 2 and 3. This one is the most complete, however, and one can do without them.

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