Sentience
eBook - ePub

Sentience

The Invention of Consciousness

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Sentience

The Invention of Consciousness

About this book

We feel, therefore we are. Conscious sensations ground our sense of self. They are crucial 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? Weaving together intellectual adventure and cutting-edge science, Nicholas Humphrey describes in Sentience his quest for answers: from his discovery of blindsight in monkeys and his pioneering work on social intelligence to breakthroughs in the philosophy of mind.

The goal is to solve the hard problem: to explain the wondrous, eerie fact of "phenomenal consciousness"—the redness of a poppy, the sweetness of honey, the pain of a bee sting. What does this magical dimension of experience amount to? What is it for? And why has it evolved? Humphrey presents here his new solution. He proposes that phenomenal consciousness, far from being primitive, is a relatively late and sophisticated evolutionary development. The implications for the existence of sentience in nonhuman animals are startling and provocative.

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Yes, you can access Sentience by Nicholas Humphrey in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Biowissenschaften & Geist & Körper in der Philosophie. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. COVER
  2. CONTENTS
  3. PROLOGUE
  4. 1: SENTIENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS
  5. 2: FOOTHILLS
  6. 3: THE TOUCH OF LIGHT
  7. 4: BLYTHE SPIRITS
  8. 5: WHAT THE FROG’S EYE TELLS THE MONKEY’S BRAIN
  9. 6: BLINDSIGHT
  10. 7: SIGHT UNSEEN
  11. 8: RED SKY AT NIGHT
  12. 9: NATURE’S PSYCHOLOGISTS
  13. 10: ON THE TRACK OF SENSATIONS
  14. 11: EVOLV ING SENTIENCE
  15. 12: THE ROAD TAKEN
  16. 13: THE PHENOMENAL SELF
  17. 14: THEORETICAL MISPRISIONS
  18. 15: COMING TO BE: SENTIENCE AND BODY SENSE
  19. 16: SENTIENCE ALL THE WAY DOWN?
  20. 17: MAPPING THE LANDSCAPE
  21. 18: GETTING WAR MER
  22. 19: TESTING, TESTING
  23. 20: QUALIAPHILIA
  24. 21: THE SELF IN ACTION
  25. 22: TAKING STOCK
  26. 23: MACHINA EX DEO
  27. 24: ETHICAL IMPER ATIVES
  28. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  29. REFERENCES AND NOTES
  30. INDEX