Move over Descartes: Neuroscientists have joined philosophers in searching for the origin of consciousness

Vedantam, Shankar. "Move Over, Descartes: Neuroscientists have joined philosophers in searching for the origin of consciousness." In "Science Lab" section of The Washington Post Weekly Edition. 27 May-2 June 2002: 35.

A brief but provocative survey of some notable recent investigations of "'the hard problem'" of the origins and nature of human consciousness, most specifically the relationship between the physical processes of the human brain and subjective experience. The discussion ranges from David Chalmer's speculation "that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe—like space, time[,] or gravity—and therefore not reducible" to the thoroughly reductionist views of Daniel C. Dennet, that "'It's all just brain mechanisms and their activity.'" Deals with D. Wegner's The Illusion of Conscious Will and T. Deacon, The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain, q.v., this Category. See also in this Category the works cited under Descartes, Réne (mechanism: cosmological, biological)[1]

RDE, Title, 29Aug19