Is there a theory that explains the essence of consciousness? Or is consciousness itself just an illusion? The 'last great mystery of science', consciousness is an area of cognitive psychology that was once viewed with extreme scepticism and was consequently avoided by the majority of mainstream scientific researchers. However, it has now become a significant area of research despite the complexity of the subject matter. There is no universally accepted definition of what consciousness entails, although most psychology academics would acknowledge that broadly speaking, it explores the experience of being aware of an external object or something within oneself.

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About the AuthorS

Susan Blackmore is a psychologist, lecturer, and writer researching consciousness, memes, meditation and anomalous experiences. She is a TED lecturer, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth. The Meme Machine (1999) has been translated into 16 languages; more recent books include Zen and the Art of Consciousness (2011) and Seeing Myself: The new science of out-of-body experiences (2017).

Emily T. Troscianko is a writer and researcher interested in mental health, readers' responses to literature, and how the two might be linked - as well as what both have to do with human consciousness. She is an Associate Researcher at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford, writes a blog on eating disorders for Psychology Today, and has published a monograph, Kafka's Cognitive Realism (2014), exploring the strange phenomenon we call the 'Kafkaesque'.

CONTENTS

Boxes ix
Prefaces xi
Acknowledgements xv
Introduction 1
Section One The problem 9
1 What’s the problem? 11
2 What is it like to be . . .? 32
3 The grand illusion 52
Section Two The brain 75
4 Neuroscience and the correlates of consciousness 77
5 The theatre of the mind 103
6 The unity of consciousness 128
Section Three Body and world 157
7 Attention 159
8 Conscious and unconscious 186
9 Agency and free will 218
Section Four Evolution 247
10 Evolution and animal minds 249
11 The function of consciousness 276
12 The evolution of machines 303
Section Five Borderlands 341
13 Altered states of consciousness 343
14 Reality and imagination 372
15 Dreaming and beyond 398
Section Six Self and other 433
16 Egos, bundles, and theories of self 435
17 The view from within? 464
18 Waking up 490
References 513
Index 599