Consciousness: Table of Contents

This post will be a permanent placeholder for links to all of my consciousness posts. It will expand until I finish posting on the topic.

(1) Creationists take aim at consciousness: It begins by mentioning that the Creationists have finally discovered consciousness, but mostly focuses on why real scientists should take consciousness seriously as an object of (scientific) study.

(2) Introducing Mr B: A look at the methods of your garden-variety biologist, and what distinguishes a biological approach from other perspectives (like that of the physicist).

(3) Mr B's first take on consciousness: In his first look at the evidence, Mr B concludes that neuronal processes are necessary and sufficient for consciousness in humans.

(4) Leveling with Mr B: We examine the different spatial and temporal levels of organization in the nervous system, and pinpoint the levels most relevant for consciousness.

(5) Switching Voices: Discusses the reasons I will begin referring to Mr B in the first person.

(6) Reversible Figures: Shows and discusses several reversible figures to illustrate perceptual ambiguity and bistable perception.

(7) More Ambiguous Figures: finishing our tour of ambiguous visual stimuli.

(8) From perception to interpretation: starts to explore the claim that perception involves stimulus interpretation. Focus is on determining just what interpretation is.

(9) From texts to the grotesque cinema: to help make precise the claim that perception is stimulus interpretation, we examine the question, 'What is a stimulus?' in some detail.

(10) Contents and Vehicles: starts exploring the analogies between linguistic interpretation and visual perception. First up: there is a content/vehicle distinction.

(11) Ambiguity and context: a continuation of post 10. I examine ambiguity and contextual influences in perception and language interpretation.

(12) What the brain thinks it knows: continuing the previous two posts. I examine the effects of background knowledge and assumptions in perception and language interpretation.

(13) The interpreter versus the scribe: summary of the view that perception is stimulus interpretation.

(14) Interpretation mechanics: Discussion of the view that perception involves unconscious inference. Representations introduced.

(15) Opening the time capsule: quotations, from some great thinkers, that tie together the previous nine posts.