Exploring Consciousness [Hardcover]

Given the nature of the delivery, I was prepared for a book of glossy fluff with a vague attempt at ideas. But my first impression was wrong. As I got into swing of the book, it seemed that the whole circus was brilliantly intentional. We are made much more conscious of the book, and ourselves reading the book. That seemed appropriate under the circumstances, given its title. The writing flows logically, and is clear with many well chosen metaphors. The writing has a great deal of whimsy, and I often found myself laughing (LOL.) In the sidebars, nothing is more entertaining than seeing respected scientists taking pot-shots at each others ideas, and there is a lot of controversy. A few areas get bogged in difficult concepts so that you are forced to think a bit harder.

One aspect that makes this book interesting concerns the "easier problems" that allow an objective scientific investigation. Details of the neural pathways involved in various aspects of perception and understanding were found by many brain imaging techniques. Also brain injury such as strokes show how a suddenly damaged section of the brain affects consciousness. (Good references that also cover this aspect are Restak's "The Modular Brain" and the newer Heilman's "Matter of Mind.") There are many simple experiments that are quite surprising and revealing. The author pieces these experiments and discoveries together and shows many astonishing things that consciousness is *not*.

One particularly amazing experiment involves placing EEG sensors and telling a subject to make a hand movement spontaneously whenever he felt like it. Surprisingly the EEG measured a "Readiness Potential" that always precedes the decision by at least 0.35 seconds. In other words the experimenter knows when the subject is going to move the hand before the subject wills it. Where, then does our consciousness come from? What does this do to the concept of free will?! There are many other experiments that show just how fractured consciousness is, and how it often seems to be an illusion. Consciousness is definitely not what we first think it is.

The book covers the neurological bases of many disorders, sometimes showing maps of the neurological flow, and pinpointing where the flow is compromised. The book covers what happens in the brain for states such as Tourette's syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, multiple personalities, dreaming, advanced meditation, panic attacks, etc. All of these aspects and abnormalities of consciousness appear quite as logical, as a computer program (with bugs).

However, the "hard problem" is not what consciousness isn't. It is what consciousness is. Brain maps will not answer that question. There are many theories of the nature of consciousness and the author is very objective about not favoring one over another, but provides enough insight so that the reader can start out unbiased. Theories range from the religious and spiritual to hard scientific monism. Yes, the nature of consciousness is not understood, and the author makes no pretense of it. (Unlike Dennett's book "Consiousness Explained").

Most books on consciousness focus on an author's personal theory, and are often limited in scope. Exploring Consciousness covers the gamut from older background to the current state of the science, and unfolds everything in a fresh perspective. The whimsy, bursts of ideas, illustrations all over the place, and the extraordinary discoveries that alter the picture of just who we are, make this book a real adventure.

True, there have been many popular books on the subject, and amazingly complete collections of both philosophical and scientific issues relating to consciousness. But in most of these, researchers advance their personal theories, or philosophers argue in favour of various diferent positions, and at the end leave one with only one side of the debate, or with too specific information that one cannot put toghether into a larger picture.

This book, however, is diferent. Carter remains mostly objective, and manages to go over most of the major points of the dificult subject that is consicousness. As in any other textbook, of course, what is sacrified is detail. Everything ranging from embodiement, neuropsychology, neuroscience, the self, agency and ownerhsip, psi research and the quantum, philosophy and the hard problem, is given space and is covered adequately. All of this would be meaningless if it was not as clearly explained, and the book as clearly written, as was possible. Carter managed this and more. If the layperson was to read only one book on the subject, I am convinced it should be this one.

The layout of the book adds to its value. In between the text are various illustrations that, well, illustrate various points. There are also little esays by prominent figures in the field that go into more specific sub-issues. These are I think both helpful and flawed. Helpful, because they aquaint the newcomer with some important matters, but flawed because thay are so brief as to leave out other equaly important matters.

Not all can be praise, however. Carter first and most obvious flaw in writting is her incredibly small bibliography and citation, that gives the impression the author is not familiar with the literature. The chapter on the evolution of consicousness, for example, draws almost exclusively from work done by Nicholas Humphrey. His work is brilliant, but how forget Mandler, Denton, Donald, McPhail, among many, many others. The chapters on consicousness and the brain are good, but given that there are dozens of books on that specific issue, it seemed a bit plain. No mention of neruochemical theories, of the work of Weiskrantz, Baars, Newman, Delacour, Taylor, Cotterill, among many, many others. All of this is related as well with some little errors in content, like for example (and this is recurring) the claim that no visual consciousness can exist without v1 (area). Crick and Kotch, Lumer and ffytche, Weiskrantz, all have done experimental work that says otherwise.

Finally, there is the hard problem and psi research. Psi research should always be arround when one talks about consciousness, and so should quantum theories of consicousness. Carter almost only passingly mentions these fields, and the book is not a good introduction to these two sub-issues. Carter also constantly says not much can be said about the hard problem, about qualia. I think this is wrong, and showed to be so by data she presents in the book itself. If qualia are correlated to brain activity, transcranial stimulation of that brain area shown to cause that qualia, and damage of it shown to abolish qualia, is this not just a couple of steps away from understannding what qualia is all about? I am going to be optimistic and say that it is.

A) She explains that when an atom gains an electron it becomes positively charged... I don't know where she was during that grade 9 science class.

B) There is a diagram of the nervous system in which the left brain is attached to the left half of the body... What was the first thing you learned about the two hemispheres?

C) She explains an experiment that showed that babies are born with a fear of heights. I just saw a video of that experiment in psychology class and it actually came to the conclusion that babies are not born with a fear of heights, although they do have depth perception, but they quickly learn to be afraid of them.

It's also poorly organized and focuses mainly on the 'wacky' ideas about consciousness rather that taking an objective look at it.

There is a great book on the same subject called CONSCIOUSNESS: A USER'S GUIDE, by Zeman. The author is a neuroscientist, the book is much more organized, he covers all the scientific and philosophical arguments to date in a very clear and concise manner, it is very well written, he includes a chapter on just the nervous system for lay readers, unlike Rita Carter he sources all his information and diagrams, he gives suggestions for further reading,...