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The Conscious Mind by David Chalmers

【书名】The Conscious Mind

【作者】David Chalmers （Department of Philosophy，University of California）

【出版情况】Oxford University Press，1996 （但上传的这本为未正式出版前的样子，和原书内容上是相同的，只是没有封面）

【格式】PDF

【图片】

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【简介】

The book is an extended study of the problem of consciousness. After setting up the problem, I argue that reductive explanation of consciousness is impossible (alas!), and that if one takes consciousness seriously, one has to go beyond a strict materialist framework. In the second half of the book, I move toward a positive theory of consciousness with fundamental laws linking the physical and the experiential in a systematic way. Finally, I use the ideas and arguments developed earlier to defend a form of strong artificial intelligence and to analyze some problems in the foundations of quantum mechanics.

【相关书评】

"Certainly one of the best discussions of consciousness in existence."--The Times Higher Education Supplement
"A startling first book....Offers an outstandingly competent survey of the field."--The Economist
"Chalmers shakes up the reductionist world of neurological research by asserting that scientists need to approach the conscious experience as a basic, nonphysical component of the world, similar to time, space, and matter."--Science News
"David Chalmers is widely credited for posing the so-called hard problem of consciousness:...What is the nature of subjective experience? Why do we have vividly felt experiences of the world? Why is there someone home inside our heads?"--The New York Times

【目录】

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Taking Consciousness Seriously

PART I: FOUNDATIONS

• Chapter 1: Two Concepts of Mind
  • What is consciousness?
  • The phenomenal and the psychological concepts of mind
  • The double life of mental terms
  • The two mind-body problems
  • Two concepts of consciousness
    
• Chapter 2: Supervenience and Explanation
  • Supervenience
  • Reductive explanation
  • Logical supervenience and reductive explanation
  • Conceptual truth and necessary truth
  • Almost everything is logically supervenient on the physical

PART II: THE IRREDUCIBILITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS

• Chapter 3: Can Consciousness be Reductively Explained?
  • Is consciousness logically supervenient on the physical?
  • The failure of reductive explanation
  • Cognitive modeling
  • Neurophysiological explanation
  • The appeal to new physics
  • Evolutionary explanations
  • Whither reductive explanation?
    
• Chapter 4: Naturalistic Dualism
  • An argument against materialism
  • Objection from a posteriori necessity
  • Other arguments for dualism
  • Is this epiphenomenalism?
  • The logical geography of the issues
  • Reflections on naturalistic dualism
    
• Chapter 5: The Paradox of Phenomenal Judgment
  • Consciousness and cognition
  • The paradox of phenomenal judgment
  • On explaining phenomenal judgments
  • Arguments against explanatory irrelevance
  • The argument from self-knowledge
  • The argument from memory
  • The argument from reference

PART III: TOWARD A THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS

• Chapter 6: On the Coherence between Consciousness and Cognition
  • Toward a nonreductive theory
  • Principles of coherence
  • More on the notion of awareness
  • The explanatory role of coherence principles
  • Coherence as a psychophysical law
    
• Chapter 7: Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia
  • The principle of organizational invariance
  • Absent qualia
  • Fading qualia
  • Inverted qualia
  • Dancing qualia
  • Nonreductive functionalism
    
• Chapter 8: Consciousness and Information: Some Speculation
  • Toward a fundamental theory
  • Aspects of information
  • Some supporting arguments
  • Is experience ubiquitous?
  • The metaphysics of information
  • Open question

PART IV: APPLICATIONS

• Chapter 9: Strong Artificial Intelligence
  • Machine consciousness
  • On implementing a computation
  • In defense of strong AI
  • The Chinese room and other objections
  • External objections
  • Conclusion
    
• Chapter 10: The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
  • Two mysteries
  • The framework of quantum mechanics
  • Interpreting quantum mechanics
  • The Everett interpretation
  • Objections to the Everett interpretation
  • Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography