Topics covered and not covered on the consciousness exam

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Topics covered on the Consciousness exam (Leiden university - 2019)

Descartes’ theory on the relationship between conscious mind and body
Materialist approaches to consciousness The relationship between epiphenomenalism and functionalism
Qualia
Mary, color scientist
Philosophers’ zombie
Milner & Goodale on the relationship between conscious perception and action
Global Workspace Theory of Baars
The concept of a “Cartesian Theatre”
Dennett’s multiple-drafts theory
Libet’s stimulation of the brain of patients
Libet’s theory of conscious experience
How rich, complete are internal representations of the visual environment
The sensorimotor theory of O’Regan and Noë
Split-brain patients
Hume’s concept of the self
Bundle theory of the self
William James and the “stream of consciousness”
Libet and the relative timing of conscious willing and overt action
Wegner and the relationship between consciously perceived will and voluntary action
The neural correlates of conscious experience in monkeys and humans
Phantom pain and Ramachandran’s technique
The binding problem
Crick & Koch and how the brain solves binding problem
Blindsight  Sensory substitution in blind people
Darwin’s theory of natural selection
Darwin and Lamarck
Consciousness as “health”
Humphrey’s evolutionary theory of consciousness
Are animals conscious?
Can animals speak?
Alternatives to Strong AI
Turing test
Searle’s Chinese Room thought experiment
The impact of unconscious signals
Hallucinations
Visual forms in drug-induced hallucinations
Psi phenomena
Parapsychological studies and methodological shortcomings
Impact of Altered State of Consciousness
How drugs affect cognitive processes
Hobson’s AIM model of sleep
The Retro-Selective Theory of Dreams
Out-Of-Body Experience
Near-Death Experience

Topics not covered:

Orwellian and Stalinesque revisions (p. 83)
Filling the gaps (p. 88-94)
Multiple personality (p. 107-112)
Memes (p. 233-236)
Quantum consciousness (p. 285-289)
Lucid dreams (p. 394-399)
Mystical experiences (p. 414-417)
Chapters 25-27

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Consciousness- Questions and Answers

Online Practice Questions - Consciousness - Blackmore (2^nd edition)

What's the problem? CH.1

1.1 What is meant by the 'mind-body problem'?

1.2 Which philosophical movement emphasizes the view that there is only matter?
            A: epiphenomenalism
            B: dualism
            C: materialism
            D: panpsychism

1.3a What is meant by the philosophical movement 'dualism'?
1.3b Who is a known proponent of dualism?
1.3c From which two movements does dualism exist?

1.4 From which three parts does the subconscious exist according to Freud?

1.5 What are two well-known names that are linked to behaviorism?
            A: Wundt and Skinner
            B: Skinner and Watson
            C: Wundt and Watson
            D: James and Skinner

What is it like to be a...? CH.2

2.1 Block makes a distinction between which two forms of consciousness?
            A: phenomenality and access awareness
            B: qualia and access awareness
            C: phenomenality and subjectivity
            D: qualia and subjectivity

2.2a What are qualia?
2.2b In what way can the added value of qualia be investigated?

2.3 What does the thought experiment of a zombie involve?

2.4 In which four ways can scientists respond to Chalmers' idea that there is a hard problem when we talk about consciousness?

2.5 What are three possible reasons for ignoring the difficult problem?

How do conscious and unconscious activities differ from each other? CH.3

3.1a From which two visual systems can a distinction be made according to Milner and Goodale?
3.1b Milner and Goodale state that a distinction can be made on the basis of fundamentally different tasks performed by the brain. Which categories do they think play an important role in this?

3.2 In which categories can operations be classified in general?

3.3 Which two representational theories exist and what do these theories mean?

3.4 Who designed the 'global workspace theory' (GWT)?
            A: Libet
            B: Milner and Goodale
            C: Perch
            D: Castello

How can the mind be seen as theater? CH.4

4.1 What is meant by the theater as a metaphor?

4.2 What does 'global workspace theory' (GWT) mean (in terms of the mind as theater)?

4.3 What does the 'neural global workspace' model mean?
            A: The model states that we become aware of an event when neurons
            firing for a certain period of time.
            B: The model represents your joy, worries, ambitions, your sense of personal identity
            and free will are nothing more than the coming together of nerve cells.
            C: The model states that conscious experiences are similar to brain activity.
            D: The model states that unconscious processes are being fought for access
            get to the limited capacity of the memory.

4.4 What is the idea of the multiple drafts model?

4.5a What does Dennett's 'myth of double transduction' theory entail?
4.5b Does this theory involve a Cartesian theater (CT)?

What do attention and timing

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Book Summary of Consciousness: An Introduction - by Susan Blackwell

What is the problem of consciousness? - Chapter 1
Summary edition an supporting materials
Summary of chapter 2 to 26

What is the problem of consciousness? - Chapter 1

What is the world made of?

The problem of consciousness is related to some of the oldest questions of philosophy: what does the world consist of? Who am I? It relates to the mind-body problem: what is the relationship between the physical and the mental?

Despite the fact that we are learning more and more about the functioning of the brain, consciousness remains a mystery. In the past, they used the term 'élan vital' to explain how non-living things could be made alive. Nowadays this concept is no longer used, since we know that biological processes are responsible for this. Some scientists believe that the same will also happen with the term consciousness. Once we understand how brain processes create a sense of consciousness, then we might not need to use this term anymore.

Consciousness requires some sort of dualism: objectivity vs. subjectivity, inner vs. outer, mind vs. body...

For example: Take a pencil in your hand and look at it. You see the pencil from your own unique perspective, which you cannot share with others. The pencil is part of the outside world, your experience with the pencil is part of your inner world.

Philosophical theories

The way philosophers view the consciousness problem can generally be divided into monist theories, which suggest that there are one kind of things in the world, and dualist theories, which suggest that there are two kinds of things. Some theories state that the mental world is fundamental and some theories state that the physical world is fundamental.

Monism

Monistic theories assume that the world consists of only one kind of matter (body or mind). Some monistic theories state that everything consists of the mind, according to these theories we only have ideas and perceptions of a pencil. We do not know if a pencil really exists. People who assume this are called mentalists or idealists. Berkeley supported this principle. The disadvantage of this perspective is that we can never know for certain whether objects with fixed characteristics exist.

Materialists are also monists. They believe that there is only matter. An example for this is the identity theory, which states that mental experiences are the same as physical experiences. Another example is functionalism, which assumes that mental experiences are the same as functional experiences.

Epiphenomenalism assumes that physical processes cause mental events, but that mental events have no effect on physical events. Huxley was a supporter of this idea. He did not deny that consciousness or subjective experiences existed, but stated that they have no (causal) connection with physical processes. He used the concept of 'conscious automata' to indicate that people and animals

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