Main description:

This book discusses consciousness from the perspectives of neuroscience, neuropsychiatry and philosophy. It develops a novel approach in consciousness studies by charting the pathways in which the brain challenges the self and the self challenges the brain. The author argues that the central issue in brain studies is to explain the unity, continuity, and adherence of experience, whether it is sensory or mental awareness, phenomenal- or self-consciousness. To address such a unity is to understand mutual challenges that the brain and the self pose for each other. The fascinating discussions that this book presents are: How do the brain and self create the conspiracy of experience where the physicality of the brain is lost in the subjectivity of the self?

Contents:

Preface.- 1.Brain and Self: A Preamble.- 2.Beginnings: Biological and Philosophical Accounts of Consciousness.- 3.The Not-so-rigid Brain: Philosophical Riddles and Experiential Ironies.- 4.Body-sense and Self-Sense: Why is Minimalism Insufficient? 5.Boundaries of Self: Displacement, Meaning, and Purpose.- 6.The Feel Factor:Qualia and the Affective Markers of Experience.- 7.Beyond Brain:Final Frontiers of Consciousness.- Bibliography.- Glossary.