[.ca] The Race for Consciousness (ISBN 0262700867)

From Amazon.com:
Incorporating centuries of thought and decades of research into one model of consciousness is no easy feat, but neural network guru John Taylor puts it all together in The Race for Consciousness. Suggesting early on that no scientific endeavor has ever succeeded without a clear goal in sight, he takes care to specify the aims he thinks consciousness researchers should have in mind when pursuing their work; his definitions and boundaries, while not uncontroversial, are thought-provoking. From there he outlines previous stabs at theories and is unrelenting in exposing their strengths and weaknesses. Taylor builds a theory of his own on this sturdy foundation--he proposes a relational model in which interactions between different brain states inevitably create the subjective feeling that we call consciousness. His command of the field of research is impressive, drawing on physics, computer science, philosophy, biology, and medicine, but he is always scrupulous when acknowledging gaps in the data or potential challenges to his ideas. The reader must be prepared to be flexible and patient; Taylor's ideas take time to build and his model is much stronger for it. The rewards of persistence are rich, though--this just might be the groundbreaking work from which our next scientific Renaissance grows. Taylor admits he has only taken the first step toward his goal, but expects there to be many more runners in the race for consciousness. --Rob Lightner

some objections, but also some praise.:
O.K, I have tried to review this philosophically and have edited the result many times. I will now base my critiques on some evidence. First, Taylor proposes that posterior consciousness (phenomenal) emerges from circuits all in posterior cortex. These are suficient for posterior consciousness in his model. Now, experiments of decortication in monkeys of all but posterior regions make these animals (presumably-I will not go into reportability and animal consciousness issues) visually unconcious, and do not even retain blindsight. Second, imaging studies of visual (phenomenal) concsciousness show activation not only in posterior cortex, but also in anterior (Brodmn. Areas 46, 47, dorsolateral PFC). Taylors main model is the 'relational' paradigm, that is for something to be conscious, its imput must be intermingled with past mamories and processing. Now some cases of severe amnesia are caused just because of inability to relate present imput to past memories or experiences. These patients are nevertheles conscious, even if they cannot remember the imput after some minutes. Relational-model necesary for memory, recolection, recognition, maybe even recall, but not apparently for consciousnes sin general. In fact, Taylor seems at times to equate consciousness in general with working memory, and this does not hold up completely. Finally, he tries to explain qualia with "bubbles" of activity in cortex, his argument being that these phenomena have apparent similarity to the properties of qualia itself. But why must something in the brain be like qualia for it to be able to explain it? Are language areas like language? MT like motion? V4 milticolored? The amygdala fearfull? this is the fallacy of isomorphism. It is no argument to say that since something in the brain resembles a phenomenon, then that something is the correlate of the phenomenon. The model is nevertheless quite complete -that is, he tries to explain a lot, and considers many pieces of evidence. I belive Taylor has gotten many things right, but not explained consciousness in a satisfactory way. Good read nevertheless.