Demystifying consciousness: how subjective experience can be explained by natural brain and evolutionary processes. Consciousness is often considered a mystery. How can the seemingly immaterial experience of consciousness be explained by the material neurons of the brain? There seems to be an unbridgeable gap between understanding the brain as an objectively observed biological organ and accounting for the subjective experiences that come from the brain (and life processes). In this book, Todd Feinberg and Jon Mallatt attempt to demystify consciousness--to naturalize it, by explaining that the subjective, experiencing aspects of consciousness are created by natural brain processes that evolved in natural ways. Although subjective experience is unique in nature, they argue, it is not necessarily mysterious. We need not invoke the unknown or unknowable to explain its creation.
Feinberg and Mallatt flesh out their theory of
neurobiological naturalism (after John Searle's
biological naturalism) that recognizes the many features that brains share with other living things, lists the neural features unique to conscious brains, and explains the subjective-objective barrier naturally. They investigate common neural features among the diverse groups of animals that have primary consciousness--the type of consciousness that experiences both sensations received from the world and affects such as emotions. They map the evolutionary development of consciousness and find an uninterrupted progression over time, without inserting any mysterious forces or exotic physics. Finally, bridging the previously unbridgeable, they show how subjective experience, although different from objective observation, can be naturally explained.
揭開意識的神秘面紗:如何透過自然的大腦和進化過程解釋主觀經驗。
意識常被視為一個謎團。看似無形的意識經驗如何能夠透過大腦的物質神經元來解釋?在將大腦理解為一個客觀觀察的生物器官與解釋來自大腦(及生命過程)的主觀經驗之間,似乎存在著一個無法逾越的鴻溝。在這本書中,Todd Feinberg 和 Jon Mallatt 嘗試揭開意識的神秘面紗——將其自然化,解釋意識的主觀經驗是由自然的大腦過程以自然的方式演化而來。儘管主觀經驗在本質上是獨特的,他們主張,這並不一定是神秘的。我們不必訴諸未知或不可知的事物來解釋其產生。
Feinberg 和 Mallatt 詳細闡述了他們的神經生物學自然主義理論(基於 John Searle 的生物學自然主義),該理論認識到大腦與其他生物共享的許多特徵,列舉了意識大腦獨有的神經特徵,並自然地解釋了主觀與客觀之間的障礙。他們研究了擁有初級意識的多樣動物群體之間的共同神經特徵——這種意識能夠體驗來自世界的感官刺激以及情感等影響。他們描繪了意識的進化發展,發現這是一個隨時間不斷延續的過程,並未插入任何神秘力量或奇異物理。最後,他們成功地橋接了先前無法逾越的鴻溝,展示了主觀經驗雖然不同於客觀觀察,但可以自然地解釋。
Todd E. Feinberg is Director of the Yarmon Neurobehavior and Alzheimer's Disease Center of Mount Sinai Behavioral Health Center in New York City and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. He is coauthor of
The Ancient Origins of Consciousness (MIT Press).
Jon M. Mallatt is Clinical Associate Professor in the WWAMI Medical Education Program at the University of Washington and the University of Idaho and coauthor (with Todd E. Feinberg) of
The Ancient Origins of Consciousness: How the Brain Created Experience (MIT Press).
Todd E. Feinberg 是紐約市 Mount Sinai 行為健康中心 Yarmon 神經行為與阿茲海默症中心的主任,以及 Mount Sinai 醫學院的精神科臨床教授。他是《The Ancient Origins of Consciousness》(麻省理工學院出版社)的共同作者。
Jon M. Mallatt 是華盛頓大學和愛達荷大學 WWAMI 醫學教育計畫的臨床副教授,並與 Todd E. Feinberg 共同撰寫《The Ancient Origins of Consciousness: How the Brain Created Experience》(麻省理工學院出版社)。