Consciousness and the Social Brain, Michael Graziano, Review

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Shaun Johnston:
In modern times we've made two revolutionary discoveries. One is, how changes in physical matter can be accounted for in terms of physical laws that can predict precisely what will happen next. Having given rise to science (how this can be studied) and industry (how it can be applied) this revolution is well under way.

The second revolution is, how emergence of species of living creatures can be accounted for in terms of them evolving from one another. This revolution, despite its promise of how much it could tell us about ourselves, remains stillborn through the mistaken application to it of principles coming out of the first revolution--reductive physicalism.

For this second revolution to advance it should be taken from under the wing of science and studied on its own terms. Tip: one recent product of evolution is creatures with minds. Minds are better studied through methods of the humanities than through those of science. Tell me, does this interest you?

Details: Written by Shaun Johnston Shaun Johnston; Published: August 8, 2014 August 8, 2014; Hits: 2597 2597

"Awareness is a description of attention.… I use the word [attention] in a neuroscientific sense. I am referring to a mechanistic process in the brain.... According to the theory, the statement “X is conscious” means “a brain (or other computational device) constructed an informational model of consciousness and attributed it to X.” Thus begins my review of Graziano's book.