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More About This Textbook
Overview
The study of conscious experience has seen remarkable strides in the last ten years, reflecting important technological breakthroughs and the enormous efforts of researchers in disciplines as varied as neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy. Although still embroiled in debate, scientists are now beginning to find common ground in their understanding of consciousness, which may pave the way for a unified explanation of how and why we experience and understand the world around us. Written by eminent psychologist Bernard J. Baars, In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind brings us to the frontlines of this exciting discipline, offering the general reader a fascinating overview of how top scientists currently understand the processes underlying conscious experience.
Combining psychology with brain science, Baars brilliantly brings his subject to life with a metaphor that has been used to understand consciousness since the time of Aristotle—the mind as theater. Here consciousness is seen as a "stage" on which our sensations, perceptions, thoughts, and feelings play to a vast, silent audience (the immensely complicated inner-workings of the brain's unconscious processes). Behind the scenes, silent context operators shape conscious experience; they include implicit expectations, self systems, and scene setters. Using this framework, Baars presents compelling evidence that human consciousness rides on top of biologically ancient mechanisms. In humans it manifests itself in inner speech, imagery, perception, and voluntary control of thought and action. Topics like hypnosis, absorbed states of mind, adaptation to trauma, and the human propensity to project expectations on uncertainty, all fit into the expanded theater metaphor.
As Baars explores our present understanding of the mind, he takes us to the top laboratories around the world, where we witness some of the field's most exciting breakthroughs and discoveries. (For instance, Baars recounts one extraordinary sequence of experiments, in which state-of-the-art PET scans—reproduced here in full color—capture in fascinating, graphic detail how brain activity changes as people learn how to play the computer game Tetris.) And throughout the book, Baars has sprinkled numerous and often highly amusing on-the-spot demonstrations that illuminate the ideas under discussion.
Understanding consciousness is perhaps the most difficult puzzle facing the sciences today. In the Theater of Consciousness offers an invaluable introduction to the field, brilliantly weaving together the various theories that have emerged as scientists continue their quest to uncover the profound mysteries of the mind—and of human nature itself.
Editorial Reviews
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Berkeley psychologist Baars offers the theater metaphor-inherited from Aristotle, developed by William James and hotly contested by leading cognitive theorists such as Daniel Dennett-as the best means of unifying the diverse mental phenomena and sensory experiences that make up conscious life. Chapters such as "On Stage" and "Behind the Scenes" cast conundrums of consciousness, such as "how do we process information we're not seemingly aware of?" first in terms of imagination-friendly metaphors (for example, the "spotlight" of conscious attention that dimly "illuminates" background information), then in terms of little thought experiments that allow the reader to isolate and experience the often hidden workings of consciousness. (Try re-reading this review while keeping the numbers 8, 25 and 47 in your mind and you'll get the idea.) Recent work in fast-changing fields such as cognitive science, neurobiology and clinical biology thus become clear, comprehensible and cogent, as the reader carves up his or her experience and tests the theories firsthand. Baars, an editor of the journal Consciousness and Cognition and a respected theorist in his own right, conveys a palpable excitement in demonstrating recent strides in understanding "the publicity organ of the brain." Whether he's quoting and lovingly explicating James and others at length, or discussing and demonstrating the nuances of tip-of-tongue syndrome or blindsight, his enthusiasm will motivate anyone who has already long forgotten freshman psych to "make your own theory," as the appendix invites us to do. (Mar.)Product Details
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Meet the Author
Bernard J. Baars is at the Wright Institute, in Berkeley, California. He is co-editor of the journal Consciousness and Cognition and author of A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness, of which Daniel C. Dennett wrote, "For those who want to join the race to model consciousness, this is the starting line."
Table of Contents