Consciousness: An Introduction

Rating:
Summary: Very good
Review: Blackmore wrote a very important book, because it is the first "true" textbook on the subject. There are other texts, like Wallace's consciounsness and behaviour, and other collections, like Block et. al.s nature of consciousness, or Carters consciousness, but these could be described or used as textbooks without being textbooks per se. That is, Blackmore's book has the exercises, review questions, profiles of some important figures, that make it a real textbook. However, I am impressed more by the scope of the book. There are many different chapters on many differetn things, and the author does not forget about issues like parapsychology (Blackmore was once a psi researcher), time, animal consicousness, all issues that many other authors seem to leave aside.
The book itself is very readable, and the strenghts,like the number of different chapters, come with weaknesses, like too brief discussions of certain very important, or central, themes. Blackmoere does succeed in giving a sense of the perplexities of studying consicousness to the reader. She is also a very apt philosopher, and explains philosophical ideas much more clearly that other non-philosophers do. She is also very common-sensical and does not fall for many of the traps laid on the field of consicousness studies, save, of-course, only one. The "illusion" trap. Let me explain.
Everey time the discussion is about to climax, and the reader expects an insight, or maybe a conclusion, Blackmore seems to state that everything may just be an illusion. Visual perception? an illusion. Free will? an illusion. Binding? an illusion. qualia? an illusion. Now I do not believe that illusions do not exist, or that they cannot serve an explanatory role. Certainly, visual perception and free will might be illusions. Attentional blindeness studies, and Wegners or LIbets work suggest these possibilities. But why should perceptual binding be an illusion? it is a fairly simple conceptual question, it is empirical and many empirical studies, like the synchrony or attention- models, seem to offer not so mysterian answers. The thing is, I believe, that Blackmore got caught in the intuition pumps created by none other than Daniel Dennett, the philosopher who by the way is most quoted, discussed and brought to bear on every question posed in the book.
Blackmore seems to believe not only that there is no cartesian theather, a place where all consicousness comes together, (which is right), but that it is impossible that consicousness could be located anywhere at all. If this is so, she is wrong. Consciousness is in the brain. How, why, at what time, we still do not know. But if we can locate consicousness in a brain, why not several brain areas? we can just discard those that seem not essential for consciousness, in lesion experiments, for exapmple. Why not just couple of brain areas? now, it may not be that simple, maybe consicousness does not reside or happen at a time, maybe its just identical with those brain a reas. Why the big fuss about consicousness and everything about it as an illusion? Because Dennett is probably the most convincing philosopher, and Blackmore was convinced.
How about qualia. An illusion, Blackmore tells us. It only seems there are qualia, but there are not. The thing is, qualia ARE that seeming, and it is that seeming that needs explaining. Qualia are real, and that anything seems like anything at all is a proof of their existence. What exactly they are, I do not know. But they are not just illusions. AS if their being so would solve anything anyway.
Blackmore also got too carried daway with drawing lines. Either you are a physicalist, a functionalist, or a dualist. She also knows how to determine that. Either you believe in zombies, or not. This is by far the most simplistic analysis of the philosophical quarrels I have read lately. This is not to say she does not make some important points, however. Philosophers, nevertheless, would have a field trip in reviewing this book. Scientists woould be angered by her mysterianism and pessimism. Maybe this makes this book perfect for non-specialists.
This is all too negative. The book is very, very good and complete. It covers many, many important issues. It has an extensive bibliography, although extensive is not enough with such a complicatted subject. It is trully the first textbook, and is very accesible. For the same reason, it ends up being quite superficial at times. It is all good for the undergraduate taking a course, but the really interested reader should only see this book as a good place to start. Those familiar with the field could do without reading it, but they should anyway. Blackmore does deserve her name among those considered experts on the field.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive, Clear, Well Written
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Confusing ideas explained clearly.
Review: I used this book for a philosophy class. Blackmore took ideas that could potentially be very confusing (especially to someone new to the philosophy and explanation of consciousness), and explained them in layman's terms...this book was written clearly and thoroughly. Consciousness: An Introduction was my saving grace in that philosophy class, through this book I was able not only to understand, but become interested in learning about consciousness.

Rating:
Summary: Typical Blackmore, for students
Review: Really nothing great here as far as advancement or variety. Blackmore gives a straight up the line (biased in her favor and Dennets, note the HEAVY citing of their papers) history of consciousness research and theory. However, anyone other than the mainstream dennet followers are given a mention at best, and I was VERY surprised at the few pages she affords Chalmers. Of course, it gets preachy towards the end with Blackmore's Americanized buddhism, but overall is a good start for exploration. Aside from the heavy bias there are some cute cartoons. Seriously though, most of the research cited isn't current, challenges to Dennet and Blackmore herself dont exist in this book (or their reality) and really should be given to students with a grain of salt and a bit of surrounding information on some of the very brief topics (qualia? turing? ndes?). If we teach all students to think in this same mold we're probably going to get...more of the same! I suggest this text with supplementary readings and heavy elaboration for the suggested classroom use.

Rating:
Summary: CONSCIOUSNESS: THE HARD PROBLEM
Review: Susan Blackmore has written an excellent book dealing with one of the most challenging problems confronting human kind as we enter the 21st century: What is consciousness and how do we explain it. The book examines consciousness from myriad viewpoints;philosophical, psychological, and biological. Ms. Blackmore presents a plethora of fascinating topics such as:What is it like to be a bat?,What are we actually seeing?,What is it like to be an animal?,Could a machine be conscious?, What are the neural correlates of consciousness?, How do we distinguish between reality and imagination?, and, finally, How are Buddhism and consciousness related?

All the key players involved in the study of consciousness such as Renes Descartes, David Chalmers, Patricia Churchland, Daniel Dennett, Alan Turing,Francis Crick, Roger Penrose, John Eccles, etc. are found in this wonderful book.

Each chapter contains profiles, concepts, activities, and practices,and readings. The references are excellent. And Ms. Blackmore writes in clear, concise prose.

If you have ever wondered what consciousness may be, then this is the book for you whether you plan to use it for a college course or simply read it yourself. This is a great and fun read! Don't delay; buy a copy today and the price is right!!!

Rating:
Summary: Great, with one qualification
Review: 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, Damasion, 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


Rating:
Summary: Fishing in the stream of consciousness
Review: 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]