Conundrums of Consciousness

Consciousness is widely regarded as one of the final frontiers of the human intellectual journey. Despite efforts in psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science, many issues remain elusive and intractable. This book identifies ten problems, five “easy” and five “hard,” and navigates the challenging terrain of these issues.

The so-called easy problems are by no means straightforward; they are only relatively easy in the sense that current scientific methods can make steady progress on them. Topics covered in the first half of this book include attention, cognition, neural correlates, neural mechanisms, and perceptual perspectives. The so-called hard problems are those that cannot be readily tackled by current standard scientific methods. Those in the second half of the book include subjectivity, objectivity, reasons, persons, and freedom of the will. Each chapter deals with one topic and is coupled with one specific research question. In answering these questions, the author proposes several non-fundamental theories which are not intended to be definitive.

This book provides an intellectual roadmap for novices and experts alike and will stimulate further interdisciplinary research programmes in consciousness studies.