Consciousness Explaned: Fact or Theory?
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IXP
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I Assume you are taking about Daniel Dennet's "Consiousness Explained", (not "Explaned", which might be a book about someone throwing their brain out the window of an airliner.)
Depends on what you mean by "explained". It is an excellent book and I recommend it highly, but the title is a little optimistic. It uses the results of a lot of experiments to pretty much destroy the dualist theory. It then develops a model of consiousness as a "virtual machine" running on the brainwhich maintains a single narative composed from the many external an internal stimuli. It also presents convincing evidence that this narative is subject to post-editing. Fascinating ideas, but not the last word.
IXP
Depends on what you mean by "explained". It is an excellent book and I recommend it highly, but the title is a little optimistic. It uses the results of a lot of experiments to pretty much destroy the dualist theory. It then develops a model of consiousness as a "virtual machine" running on the brainwhich maintains a single narative composed from the many external an internal stimuli. It also presents convincing evidence that this narative is subject to post-editing. Fascinating ideas, but not the last word.
IXP
Stimpson J. Cat
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It is neither.
It is an explanation of some of the current theories on how consciousness works, combined with a basic explanation of the reasoning behind the scientific approaches being used to study consciousness. It also explains many of the intuitive misconceptions which make it difficult for people to understand how consciousness can be scientifically studied in the first place.
Dr. Stupid
It is an explanation of some of the current theories on how consciousness works, combined with a basic explanation of the reasoning behind the scientific approaches being used to study consciousness. It also explains many of the intuitive misconceptions which make it difficult for people to understand how consciousness can be scientifically studied in the first place.
Dr. Stupid
IllegalArgument
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One of the speakers at the Skeptics conference mentioned that Dennet had a few years after Dennet wrote the book. It bemoaned the fact so little progress had been made.
Bodhi Dharma Zen
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There will be not explanation until someone have a working model. All we have now are theories, primitive ones, btw.
I entreat you to visit my website. It is definitely theory, but it is an integration of prevailing ideas (B.F. Skinner, A. Maslow, W. Cannon, etc.) and new ideas (A. Damasio, R. Plutchik, R. Solomon, B. Baars, W.T.Powers, G. Henriques, etc.). And not only is it an integration of psychology and neuroscience, but it is an integration with thermodynamics and economics as well.Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
So far, it has proven to be rather robust.