A Book, a Chapter, and Two Bald Heads
A book I co-authored, Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Mind and Brain, is out now. [Link to Routledge’s page for the book.] If you have a mind and/or a brain, but have not yet been introduced to them, this may be the book for you.
Also out now is The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. With a title like that, you can probably guess it was published by Blackwell. [Link to guess-who’s page for the book.] If you are conscious and in need of a companion, this may be the book for you. This book contains many excellent chapters by many excellent people. It also contains a chapter by me: “The Neurophilosophy of Consciousness.” [Link to draft of my chapter.] Here’s the abstract:
The neurophilosophy of consciousness brings neuroscience to bear on philosophical issues concerning phenomenal consciousness, especially issues concerning what makes mental states conscious, what it is that we are conscious of, and the nature of the phenomenal character of conscious states. Here attention is given largely to phenomenal consciousness as it arises in vision. The relevant neuroscience concerns not only neurophysiological and neuroanatomical data, but also computational models of neural networks. The neurophilosophical theories that bring such data to bear on the core philosophical issues of phenomenal conscious construe consciousness largely in terms of representations in neural networks associated with certain processes of attention and memory.
Regarding the books, both volumes bear handsome cover illustrations of bald heads. Until someone figures out a better way to draw a picture of the mind, we are going to be stuck with bald heads.
