Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience

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W. W. Norton & Company, Sep 17, 2019 - Science - 256 pages

“A first-class intellectual adventure.” —Brian Greene, author of Until the End of Time

Illuminating his groundbreaking theory of consciousness, known as the attention schema theory, Michael S. A. Graziano traces the evolution of the mind over millions of years, with examples from the natural world, to show how neurons first allowed animals to develop simple forms of attention and then to construct awareness of the external world and of the self. His theory has fascinating implications for the future: it may point the way to engineers for building consciousness artificially, and even someday taking the natural consciousness of a person and uploading it into a machine for a digital afterlife.

 

Contents

Elephant in the Room
The Central Intelligence of a Frog
The Cerebral Cortex and Consciousness
Social Consciousness
Yoda and Darth How Can We Find Consciousness
The Hard Problem and Other Perspectives
Conscious Machines
Uploading Minds
HOW TO BUILD VISUAL CONSCIOUSNESS
NOTES
INDEX
Copyright

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About the author (2019)

Michael S. A. Graziano is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton University. The author of four previous neuroscience books, he lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

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