Sentience
The Invention of Consciousness
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Product details:
- Publisher OUP Oxford
- Date of Publication 25 April 2024
- ISBN 9780198858546
- Binding Paperback
- No. of pages256 pages
- Size 196x130x19 mm
- Weight 227 g
- Language English
- Illustrations 20 707
Categories
Short description:
Conscious sensations ground our sense of self, but is it only humans who feel this way? Do other animals? Will future machines? Nicholas Humphrey tells the story of his quest to understand the evolutionary history of consciousness and explains the startling answers he has come to.
MoreLong description:
We feel therefore we are. Conscious sensations ground our sense of self. They are essential to our idea of ourselves as psychic beings: present, existent, and mattering. But is it only humans who feel this way? Do other animals? Will future machines? To answer these questions we need a scientific understanding of consciousness: what it is and why it has evolved. Nicholas Humphrey has been researching these issues for fifty years. In this extraordinary book, weaving together intellectual adventure, cutting-edge science, and his own breakthrough experiences, he tells the story of his quest to uncover the evolutionary history of consciousness: from his discovery of blindsight after brain damage in monkeys, to hanging out with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, to becoming a leading philosopher of mind. Out of this, he has come up with an explanation of conscious feeling?'phenomenal consciousness'?that he presents here in full for the first time. Building on this theory of how phenomenal consciousness is generated in the human brain, he turns to the morally crucial question of whether it exists in non-human creatures. His conclusions, on the evidence as it stands, are radical. Contrary to both popular and much scientific opinion, he argues that phenomenal consciousness is a relatively recent evolutionary innovation, present only in warm-blooded creatures, mammals and birds. Invertebrates, such as octopuses and bees, for all their intelligence, are in this respect unfeeling zombies. And for now, but not necessarily for ever, so are man-made machines.
Sentience is full of provocative ideas, as well as lively anecdotes from decades of pondering these issues. Humphrey's thesis offers a great deal to think about.
Table of Contents:
Prologue
Sentience and Consciousness
Foothills
Phosphenes: The Touch of Light
Blythe Spirits
What the Frog's Eye Tells the Monkey's Brain
Blindsight
Sight Unseen
Red Sky at Night
Nature's Psychologists
On the Track of Sensations
Evolving Sentience
The Road Taken
The Phenomenal Self
Theoretical Misprisions
Coming to Be
Devising a Test
Panpsychism
Sentience All the Way Down?
Mapping the Landscape
Getting Warmer
Testing, Testing
Qualiaphilia
The Self in Action
Taking Stock
Machina ex Deo
Closer to the Truth
Acknowledgements
References and Notes
