Short description
How can a physical brain create our experience of the world? What creates our identity? Do we really have free will? Could consciousness itself be an illusion? Developments in brain science are opening up debates on these issues. Using illustrations and lively cartoons, Susan Blackmore clarifies the arguments and illuminates the major theories.
Long description
Consciousness, 'the last great mystery for science', has now become a hot topic. How can a physical brain create our experience of the world? What creates our identity? Do we really have free will? Could consciousness itself be an illusion? Exciting new developments in brain science are opening up debates on these issues, and the field has now expanded to include biologists, neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers. This controversial book clarifies the potentially confusing arguments, and the major theories using illustrations, lively cartoons, and experiments. Topics include vision and attention, theories of self and will, experiments on action and awareness, altered states of consciousness, and the effects of brain damage and drugs.
Review
A vert thought-provoking book. The Guardian
Table of contents
- Why the mystery
- The Human Brain
- Time and Space
- A Grand Illusion
- The Self
- Conscious Will
- Altered States of Consciousness
- The Evolution of Consciousness