My Review and Summary
The strength of this book is perhaps not so much in her own opinion on things, but in the questions she puts center stage. She does not claim to know the answers. Instead she puts the questions to us, the reader, challenging us to fully understand the evidence and the (often conflicting) interpretations.
And she has practical tests for the reader that are plain fun (and great for helping you learn about your own consciousness).
Consciousness: an Introduction, by Susan Blackmore
The best line ever:
Warning: studying consciousness will change your life.
Why read a book about consciousness?
A whole lot, let me tell you. I've been reading up on neurology and psychology for years - but even for me this book has eye opening information and exercises.
The central question Susan J. Blackmore asks
Some quotes on the question of consciousness
"Even with all my understanding of brain function, I cannot understand how subjective, private, ineffable suchness of experiences, arises from an objective world of actual pencils and living brain cells. These subjective and objective worlds seem to be too different from each other to be related at all. This is my own version of the problem of consciousness - my own sticking point."
(on p. 242)
"When we look at the brain side ... we see nothing but complexity and diversity. At any given time countless different processes are all going on at once, and in different areas...
However, when we look at the mind side ... things seems to be unified. It seems as though, right now, there is only one 'me' and one more or less continuous stream of experiences happening to me now."
Rate it, if you dare...
Consciousness experiment
Ten Zen Questions
Alongside her research on consciousness and memes, Susan Blackmore has been practising Zen for over twenty-five years; not as a Buddhist, but as a scientist who longs to understand the mind. Many neuroscientists and philosophers believe that we need first-person approaches as well as third-person scientific research in order to fully comprehend consciousness. In Ten Zen Questions, she brings the two together for the first time.
Seeking to understand whether personal experience can help penetrate the scientific mystery of consciousness, she uses traditional techniques of calming the mind and looking directly into experience as she delves into ten great questions, including "How does thought arise?", "Am I conscious now?", and the Zen koan "There is no time. What is memory?"
Featuring the ten questions, a critical response from her Zen master, and lively illustrations, Ten Zen Questions offers a revolutionary way to try to understand who we are. This is not the kind of book that provides final - or easy - answers, but instead offers an inspiring exploration of how intellectual enquiry and meditation can tackle the questions behind some of today's greatest scientific mysteries.
Ten Zen Questions
Amazon Price: $13.57 (as of 11/28/2009)
'Consciousness: an introduction' is a college text book.
'Ten Zen Questions' is aimed at 'normal' people interested in consciousness, probably also meant for Zen Buddhists who want to know what cutting edge science has to say about their experiences.
Given that Susan Blackmore has an easy to read writing style, I think this is a book that many people will enjoy.
What's the difference?
How can a conscious decision guide our actions, when we are hardly conscious of what we do?
Is what we pay attention to the same thing that is in our consciousness? In other words: is our consciousness the same thing as attention? Are the two related? Dus attention control consciousness? Or does consciousness direct attention? These are some of the questions chapter 4 is about. And the answers aren't as clearcut as they may seem.
Susan Blackmore sums it up with another question (p. 54) (did I mention the book is full of questions?)
Did I consciously attend to that, or did it grab my attention?
Table of contents of Consciousness: an introduction
- The Problem
- What does consciousness do?
- What is it like to ...?
- The world
- Attention and timing
- Theater of the mind (is there one?)
- The grand illusion...
- The Self
- Egos, bundles (re: Buddhism), multiple selves
- Theories of self
- Agency and free will
- Evolution
- The evolution of consciousness
- Functioning of consciousness
- Animal minds
- Artificial consciousness
- Minds and machines
- Could a machine be conscious?
- How to build a conscious machine
- The brain
- The neural correlates of consciousness
- The unity of consciousness
- Damaged brains
- Borderlands
- Unconscious processing
- The paranormal
- Reality and imagination
- Altered states of consciousness
- Drugs and altered states
- Sleep, dreams and hypnotic states
- Exceptional human experience (EHE)
- First person approaches
- The view from within
- Meditation and mindfulness
- Buddhism and consciousness
Susan J. Blackmore on Wikipedia
Susan Jane Blackmore (born 29 July 1951) is an English freelance writer, lecturer, and broadcaster on psychology and the paranormal, perhaps best known for her book The Meme Machine.
Missing in the book: terminology / abbreviations list
This is to be expected of course: it's a college level text book on a difficult issue.
However, it would have been a lot easier if a list of all the abbreviations has been included in the book. The index is decent, but some abbreviations have been included, while others' haven't.
Some sentences are therefore very difficult to read. If I were studying this in college now, and expected to pass a test on it, I'd be making a list of the abbreviations. Perhaps I should do that anyhow?
Conscious, Unconscious and TIME
In the field of consciousness study however it is used for the effect that our body can experience something, which we aren't conscious of. That we don't become conscious of. For instance: if we feel something for less than half a second, we never consciously feel it - even though our brain registers it. (p. 58, 59) There is a timelag before we register it consciously. But if a sense experience lasts longer than that, our brain will register it with the half a second added to the time it's consciously felt, retroactively. So our subjective experience of it is correct, even though for half a second we didn't consciously know anything was happening.
It would be nice to assume our unconscious knew something was happening the whole time. But this isn't clear. What is clear is that (p. 61)
... "experienced time and clock time are not the same thing."
Susan J. Blackmore's official site
don't miss it!
- Dr. Susan Blackmore
- To find out about me try Who am I? or Curriculum Vitae.
You can see future and past presentations, and there are many online papers in the list of Publications, or watch and listen to podcasts.
If you want to find a specific topic try Research, or use the links at the top of the page.
Neurology & spirituality
"[The] lessons learned from other worldly experiences cannot be ... lightly dismissed. Those who are trained in the use of hallucinogenic drugs learn things that no novice has any inkling of. Experienced travelers learn to look calmly into their worst fears, face up to death, confront or lose themselves, and many other lessons. Special skills are needed for exploring the worlds revealed this way, and those who acquire this kind of wisdom recognize it in others. Understanding all these phenomena is not helped by drawing a sharp line between reality and imagination."
About meditation (Blackmore has been meditating for years) she says:
"Meditation might be summed up in the words 'pay attention and don't think' "
Your turn
Write a review, add a comment, or debate someone who disagrees with you.
What did you think?
Fetching blurbs now... please stand byLove it! Great read.
spirituality says:
She would not deny any of that. That we AREN'T (consciously) in control is proven in this book again and again.
But as a scientist it's her job to stand by only that which is proven. Doesn't have to stop the rest of us from believing in the Divine, or reincarnation, or any of it.
Posted February 12, 2009
julcal says:
Why does she need to prove things that cannot be proven? Under
what model would she prove it? I'll repeat a quote I used
elsewhere in this group:
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are
dreamt of in your philosophy" ~ Hamlet
(insert science for philosophy) I have no need for anyone to
prove or disprove my experience of the unconscious - silliness!
I hate to tell her, but without doing some depth work, her
conscious mind doesn't even have it's hands on the steering
wheel. Our conscious mind is in control of hardly anything.
If it were, we would have the lives we dream of having. Instead
we live out of our unconscious complexes. We marry the wrong
men (over and over), we are unhappy, etc. you get my point. And instead of trying to dive into the personal unconscious to see
who IS at the steering wheel, we blame the world for being
unfair, or are parents, or are ex-spouses.
About the world in being an illusion, the Hindus call it Maya,
yes? I like to think of us as unique expressions of the Tao,
each and every one of us. I believe the Tao is impersonal and
is the source of everything, where there is no split between
opposites. I believe that we are born of the Tao, and our
personal unconscious is a little piece of it. I think a cat
is an expression of the Tao. But a cat cannot become conscious
of itself. We are naturally born limited. We are only a piece
of the Tao, so we are not, and never will be, whole, until
the day we die.
I like to think of a continuum between pure energy (Tao) and
pure material (our bodies) and the more conscious of our
unconscious we become, the more towards the middle we "grow."
I also believe that the Tao needs us in order to evolve, AND
in order to see itself, to know that it exists (because the
Tao is not capable of consciousness). We mirror the Tao.
So what if it's illusion? We're here to do God's work, to look
inside, to become conscious, that is why we were born. I'm lucky
I'm an introvert, it makes my job that much easier :)
thanks for the thoughtful duel!
Posted February 12, 2009
spirituality says:
Part of the trouble is what she calls the Cartesian Theater. In other words: we insist on talking about a conscious self - what if it's an illusion we spin for ourselves?
I think she's as unclear about that as the rest of us though. The illusion is there - how do we explain it? But what if it isn't an illusion? What if reincarnation IS a fact? What difference would that make to the theory? More questions I don't yet know the answer to...
Posted February 12, 2009
spirituality says:
Wow - someone who has read the book!
Your points are right up my alley :)
What I think the author would say is that the distinction between conscious and unconscious is artificial: dependent on what is asked of us. As a teacher of math I know that learning math isn't just about practicing and learning by heart. It's not even (for most people) just about understanding. It sometimes takes students (as it did me, I'm no genius) a while to understand: it helps to let what you've learned germinate a bit. That is: take a look at the same subject a month later and you will understand more.
Our conscious likes to feel in control - but is it? That's really the main point I got from this book (aside from a lot of interesting facts).
But yes, clairvoyance and parapsychology is where Blackmore parts ways with what I personally believe. But then: she has to stick to what has been proved to be true. She says about various parapsychological things that they haven't been proved yet, but they haven't been disproved either.
Posted February 12, 2009
julcal says:
But, i'm not really on the same page as she is. I have to
disagree with the following:
It would be nice to assume our unconscious knew something was happening the whole time. But this isn't clear. What is clear is that (p. 61)
I do believe our conscious selves are the tip of the iceberg, the iceberg being the personal unconscious, which is aware of
everything going on with us, past, present and future. What
else would explain my clairvoyance? My prophetic dreams. And
I swear to you I am no flake. I'm educated as a scientist. I've
just had real experience.
Jung says this: My life is a story of the self-realization of the unconscious. Everything in the unconscious seeks outward manifestation, and the personality too desires to evolve out of its unconscious conditions and to experience itself as a whole. I cannot employ the language of science to trace this process of growth in myself, for I cannot experience myself as a scientific problem.
What we are to our inward vision, and what m an appears to be sub specie aeternitatis, can only be expressed by way of myth. Myth
is more individual and expresses life more precisely than
does science. Science works with concepts of averages which are
far too general to do justice to the subjective variety of an
individual life.
I remember when I started my Jungian analysis, my analyst asked
me if I had ever had the experience of driving to a place,
reached my destination, and never really remembered the drive.
(similar to Blackmore's example). My analyst explained this
as a perfect example of the unconscious taking over while our
conscious mind drifts.
OR - maybe I'm missing Blackmore's point. Educate me :)
Posted February 11, 2009
spirituality says:
I started this review when I had hardly read 3 chapters. That's how fascinating this is. I recommend this to anybody with a reasonable educational background interested in consciousness. Really - this contains eye opening stuff.
Posted February 09, 2009
Sorry, not my cup of tea.
Buy the book: Consciousness: An Introduction
Consciousness: An Introduction
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More books by Susan Blackmore
Conversations on Consciousness: What the Best Minds Think about the Brain, Free Will, and What It Means to Be Human
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Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
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In Search of the Light: The Adventures of a Parapsychologist
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