Consciousness 2021-2022
Topic Chapters Pages book Page summary
The problem 1-3 11-51 1
63-68
The brain 4-6 77-96 2
103-117
128-135
138-141
143-152
Body and world 7-9 159-184 5
188-193
203-210
222-241
Evolution 10 249-274 7
Artificial consciousness 12 303-339 8
Altered states 13 343-370 9
Reality and dreaming 14 372-397 10
The self 16 420-430 11
435-459
, The problem
Chapters 1 -3, pages 11 – 51; 63 – 68
Chapter 1 & 2
Materialistic approach: thinking there’s only one kind of stuff in the world and that mind is
the workings of that stuff.
o Functionalism: equates mental states with functional states. There is no mind or
mental force, apart from matter.
Property dualism: the world is composed of one kind of substance (the physical kind), but can
be described using mental terms or physical terms.
Substance dualism: the world consists of two different kinds of stuff. The stuff of which
physical bodies are made of, and the stuff minds are made of. Cartesian theatre was an
example of substance dualism.
Monism approaches: claim that the world is all made of one kind of stuff, something that
cannot be classified as either mental or physical.
Descartes theory on conscious mind and body: the world consists of two different kinds of
stuff. The extended stuff of which bodies are made, and the unextended, thinking stuff of
which minds are made.
Panpsychism: all material things have awareness or mental properties, however primitive.
Easy problems: understanding the computational or neural mechanisms involved in attention,
behaviour control and the sleep/wake cycle.
Hard problem: how physical processes in the brain cause a subjective experience
Definition consciousness: consciousness is subjectivity, what it is like to be
Phenomenal consciousness: an experience, there is something ‘it is like’ to be in that state
Access consciousness: available for use in reasoning and rationally guiding speech and action.
Qualia: a quality or property as perceived by a person, subjective experience.
Physicalism: purely about the physical properties. Colour, shape, texture etc.
The philosopher’s zombie: a creature that is indistinguishable from a conscious one. The
question is if such a zombie is logically or physically possible? First came up by Chalmers.
o Controversial opinion: zombie would go unnoticed, only when it comes to culture it
will fail.
Thinking about cognition as 4E: embodied, enactive, embedded and extended.
Explanatory gap: a metaphysical gap between physical phenomena and conscious experience.
Interactionism: the belief that the self does control its brain.
Mysterianism: believe there is a hard problem, and agree that we will never solve it. A
naturalistic position rather than a supernaturalist one.
Predictive processing: the idea that brains are prediction machines, trying to match incoming
sensory inputs with their own expectations or predictions.
Chapter 3
Change blindness: the in ability to notice (obvious) changes in the visual field. Driving car, not
able to distinguish changes because splatter appeared.
Inattentional blindness: ‘we rarely see what we are looking at unless our attention is directed
to it’. When one’s focused on a specific point, they are less likely to notice something
unexpected out of that focus point. The example of dancing people and the gorilla.
2
Topic Chapters Pages book Page summary
The problem 1-3 11-51 1
63-68
The brain 4-6 77-96 2
103-117
128-135
138-141
143-152
Body and world 7-9 159-184 5
188-193
203-210
222-241
Evolution 10 249-274 7
Artificial consciousness 12 303-339 8
Altered states 13 343-370 9
Reality and dreaming 14 372-397 10
The self 16 420-430 11
435-459
, The problem
Chapters 1 -3, pages 11 – 51; 63 – 68
Chapter 1 & 2
Materialistic approach: thinking there’s only one kind of stuff in the world and that mind is
the workings of that stuff.
o Functionalism: equates mental states with functional states. There is no mind or
mental force, apart from matter.
Property dualism: the world is composed of one kind of substance (the physical kind), but can
be described using mental terms or physical terms.
Substance dualism: the world consists of two different kinds of stuff. The stuff of which
physical bodies are made of, and the stuff minds are made of. Cartesian theatre was an
example of substance dualism.
Monism approaches: claim that the world is all made of one kind of stuff, something that
cannot be classified as either mental or physical.
Descartes theory on conscious mind and body: the world consists of two different kinds of
stuff. The extended stuff of which bodies are made, and the unextended, thinking stuff of
which minds are made.
Panpsychism: all material things have awareness or mental properties, however primitive.
Easy problems: understanding the computational or neural mechanisms involved in attention,
behaviour control and the sleep/wake cycle.
Hard problem: how physical processes in the brain cause a subjective experience
Definition consciousness: consciousness is subjectivity, what it is like to be
Phenomenal consciousness: an experience, there is something ‘it is like’ to be in that state
Access consciousness: available for use in reasoning and rationally guiding speech and action.
Qualia: a quality or property as perceived by a person, subjective experience.
Physicalism: purely about the physical properties. Colour, shape, texture etc.
The philosopher’s zombie: a creature that is indistinguishable from a conscious one. The
question is if such a zombie is logically or physically possible? First came up by Chalmers.
o Controversial opinion: zombie would go unnoticed, only when it comes to culture it
will fail.
Thinking about cognition as 4E: embodied, enactive, embedded and extended.
Explanatory gap: a metaphysical gap between physical phenomena and conscious experience.
Interactionism: the belief that the self does control its brain.
Mysterianism: believe there is a hard problem, and agree that we will never solve it. A
naturalistic position rather than a supernaturalist one.
Predictive processing: the idea that brains are prediction machines, trying to match incoming
sensory inputs with their own expectations or predictions.
Chapter 3
Change blindness: the in ability to notice (obvious) changes in the visual field. Driving car, not
able to distinguish changes because splatter appeared.
Inattentional blindness: ‘we rarely see what we are looking at unless our attention is directed
to it’. When one’s focused on a specific point, they are less likely to notice something
unexpected out of that focus point. The example of dancing people and the gorilla.
2
