Daniel Bor is a research fellow at the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science and the Department of Informatics at the University of Sussex. Previously he spent more than a decade working as a cognitive neuroscientist in the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at the University of Cambridge. In this episode of Little Atoms we discuss Daniel’s book The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning.
Posted in: Little Atoms
David Roemer
November 2, 2012
Consider knowing that this page is white. This means more than that light is entering your eye and a signal is going to the brain. It means an awareness or consciousness of this. What is this awareness? Daniel Bor mentioned only two theories: Cartesian dualism and materialism. The theory that is supported by the evidence is that consciousness is a mystery. We can comprehend consciousness because we have it. But we can’t define or explicate it. A way of expressing this is to say that humans are embodied spirits or that the human soul is spiritual.
Dor’s statement that “consciousness is generated by the brain†is absurd because he does not explain what consciousness is.
Self-consciousness is another matter because in self-consciousness there is a metaphysical explication: It is the ability to turn in on yourself and catch yourself in the act of your own existence. There is also a scientific definition of self-consciousness that applies to all species: It is the ability to recognize yourself in a mirror.