I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been wondering what of mine would go down well with the group. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like the chance, if it fits our timetable, to make two presentations.<\/p>\n
1. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to give a brief overview of what I believe consciousness IS, how it AFFECTS US, and why it has been DESIGNED to do this.<\/p>\n
The conclusion of this will be that nothing other than first-person methods can provide us, as natural scientists, with the crucial evidence as to why consciousness MATTERS.<\/p>\n
I suspect several of you may be suspicious that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m really a third-person wolf in first-person clothing (especially if you read the comment on Jack\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s statement that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve posted). Well, maybe. But perhaps you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be better disposed to my approach to things if I quote what Dan Dennett had to say in a recent review of my book “Seeing Red”:<\/p>\n
“Humphrey .. can be seen to be pioneering a unique method of inquiry, moving through the treacherous terrain with a different agenda, not trying to build an irrefutable fortress of theory on a massive foundation of empirical results (or a priori principles), but cherry-picking for useful treasures, accepting clues from all kinds of sources often left unutilized\u00e2\u20ac\u201cfaint hunches and feelings, the putative insights of poets and artists, turns of phrase and old metaphors. He is almost embarrassingly open to suggestions from all sides: anecdotes, tidbits of deeply personal and possibly idiosyncratic introspective memory, daring interpretations of case histories of pathology, and phenomenological exercises for the reader to perform.”<\/p>\n
2. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to give a version of a paper I presented last year at the Royal Society, titled “The Society of Selves”. In this paper I do my best to exploit precisely this “embarrassingly open to suggestions” methodology to get to grips with what I see as a central issue – the privacy of consciousnness.<\/p>\n
Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an abstract of the paper: “Human beings are not only the most sociable animals on earth, they are also the only animals who have to ponder the separateness that comes with having a conscious self . The philosophical problem of “other minds” nags away at people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sense of who \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and why \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they are. But the privacy of consciousness has an evolutionary history \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and maybe even an evolutionary function. Evolutionary psychologists, besides celebrating the advantages to humans of mind-reading and psychic transparency, should start thinking about the consequences of being \u00e2\u20ac\u201c ultimately \u00e2\u20ac\u201c psychically opaque.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been wondering what of mine would go down well with the group. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like the chance, if it fits our timetable, to make two presentations. 1. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to give a brief overview of what I believe consciousness IS, … Continue reading