Document Type

Book

Publication Date

2009

Abstract

Consciousness – What is it? How does it arise? These are perhaps the two most perplexing questions on the minds of researchers extending across a broad spectrum of disciplinary enquiry. Consider the interested disciplines of cognitive science notably psychology, philosophy, linguistics, quantum mechanics, artificial intelligence and the neurosciences. Cognitive science is the study of intelligence and intelligent systems. Cognitive science attempts to organize and unify views of thought as developed within these distinct disciplines (Sheedy & Chapman, 1995:ix). The concept of consciousness is in one sense readily recognized, putatively held to be that which makes humans different from the rest of the animal kingdom. Consciousness is thought to be what makes us what we are, that enables us to feel and sense things - those attributes of phenomenal experience collectively termed qualia. The concept of qualia derive their meaning from the sensory qualities representative of human phenomenal experience at least on the one hand from non-materialist perspectives, due to this thing called consciousness. The sense of pain, for instance, is a quale thought to be a property of consciousness. Although, on the other hand from a purely reductive materialist perspective, in what sense can the neurochemical activity equally be responsible for producing pain in the body? In other words, how does consciousness arise from a network of interconnected neurons and glial cells of the brain? This sort of question leads one to wonder whether every individual neuron is conscious. If not, what then, is the critical threshold of neurochemical activity for consciousness to arise? No one has a definitive answer or one even close enough to make sense out of the question. (From Author's Introduction)

ISBN: 978-3838322377

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Due to copyright restrictions this book is unavailable for download.

The author's post print of Table of Contents, Acknowledgements and Introduction are available for download.

Further information about The Primacy of Consciousness: A Triple Aspect Ontology may be accessed from Amazon here

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