Theoretic Approaches to Consciousness Dualism (mind does not equal body) Materialism (mind equals body) Neither approach satisfies

Refinements Higher order thought (HOT) theories (Rosenthal) Brain has a neural state corresponding to being aware of a separate first order neural state, example: first order state is the neural correlate of looking at a red object, second order state is that associated with being aware of “red”

Refinements Functionalism (Searle) Pain example: Pain understood as the collection of the input of noxious stimuli; behaviors resulting,such as withdrawal, crying etc: to expressed desires for the pain to go away. Any machine that replicated these functions would be in pain. Exact neural state does not matter.

Refinements Global workspace theory (Baars) Analogy to theatre in the mind. A spot light reveals what is conscious and this feeds back to rest of unconscious mind.

Refinements Dynamic core (Edelman) Connections of neural states feeding back and forth between cortex and thalamus

Refinements Computational (Pinker) String Theory Panpsychism or variants

Refinements Quantum Theories (Hamerhoff) DISCUSSION (Joe Brophy)

Why do we need a theory about brains and mind? Jeff Hawkins wkins_on_how_brain_science_will_change _computing.html _

Further Reading Max Velmans Christof Koch Stuart Hameroff Paula Churchland Dan Dennett Paul Davies Stephen Priest Douglas Hofstadter Steven Johnson Howard Gardner Gerald Edelman Oliver Sacks Daniel Levitin Jonah Lehrer John Searle Rita Carver

Further Reading Antonio Damasio John Holland Michael Gazzaniga Francis Crick Bernard Baars V. Ramachandran Adam Zeman Stephen Pinker Nicholas Humphrey Joseph Ledoux Guilio Tononi David Chalmers Semir Zeki William Calvin Anthony Damasio Roger Penrose

Compendia Blackwell Companion to Consciousness ed Max Velmans and Susan Schneider 2007 Essential Sources in the Scientific Study of Consciousness Bernard Baars, William Banks, and James Newman eds 2003

Useful Web Sites Skeptic.com Sciencenews.org Mindhacks.com (BBC All in the Mind) gateway.org/index.shtml

Useful Web Sites UCTV.edu

Useful Web Sites n2008.htmhttp:// n2008.htm me/index.htm

Useful Web Sites s/visual/index-e.htmlhttp:// s/visual/index-e.html (huge bibliography) dmattershttp:// dmatters (huge reference list)

Useful Web Sites ndex html

Useful Web Sites