U.C. Berkeley philosopher Alva Noë challenges the assumptions underlying neuroscientific studies of consciousness in Out of Our Heads. According to Noë, consciousness arises from interactions with out surroundings and is not something that simply happens inside of our brains.
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Alva Noë
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Comments [6]
fascinating. a new paradigm is certainly called for, since the notion that consciousness is merely the product of neurological events is certainly wanting. we can't even locate within the brain what we mean by the number 2, much less the works of Shakespeare.
i wonder if his ideas would explain why in a photograph (or painting) the areas in the shade have such a different color from the sunlit areas -- yet, when we are seeing the actual scene itself, we don't notice this.
Lovely dream? Think about that for a moment.
I am so interested in what he has to say but he speaks so quickly I cannot follow him. My consciousness?
how would Dr. Noe connect the fact that cognitive processse have evolved by addition only?
would not consciosuness then evolve as a mechanism to turn off superfluous sensory information? would not this mean consciousness is in fact beyond experience?
I'm a computer programmer, and the guest's comment about one's past experience (we would call it current state) being immediately brought to bear when viewing graffiti is very much in keeping with the idea that the brain works very much like a computer, not just storing information but maintaining complex relationships amongst different things that were "committed to memory".
Artificial intelligence is usually approached as a software (not a hardware) problem because of this.
Don't let the doctor off the hook! He has not coherently explained how he knows this isn't all a lovely dream...
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