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Conscious sensations ground our sense of self, but is it only humans who feel this way? Do other animals? Will future machines? Nicholas Humphrey tells the story of his quest to understand the evolutionary history of consciousness and explains the startling answers he has come to.
List of contents
- Prologue
- 1: Sentience and Consciousness
- 2: Foothills
- 3: Phosphenes: The Touch of Light
- 4: Blythe Spirits
- 5: What the Frog's Eye Tells the Monkey's Brain
- 6: Blindsight
- 7: Sight Unseen
- 8: Red Sky at Night
- 9: Nature's Psychologists
- 10: On the Track of Sensations
- 11: Evolving Sentience
- 12: The Road Taken
- 13: The Phenomenal Self
- 14: Theoretical Misprisions
- 15: Coming to Be
- 16: Devising a Test
- 17: Panpsychism
- 18: Sentience All the Way Down?
- 19: Mapping the Landscape
- 20: Getting Warmer
- 21: Testing, Testing
- 22: Qualiaphilia
- 23: The Self in Action
- 24: Taking Stock
- 25: Machina ex Deo
- 26: Closer to the Truth
- Acknowledgements
- References and Notes
About the author
Nicholas Humphrey is a theoretical psychologist based in Cambridge, who studies the evolution of intelligence and consciousness. His interests are wide-ranging. He was the first to demonstrate the existence of 'blindsight' after brain damage in monkeys, did research on mountain gorillas with Dian Fossey in Rwanda, proposed the celebrated theory of the 'social function of intellect' and has investigated the evolutionary background of religion, art, healing, death-awareness, and suicide. His honours include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, the Pufendorf Medal and the International Mind and Brain Prize. His most recent books are Seeing Red and Soul Dust.
Summary
Conscious sensations ground our sense of self, but is it only humans who feel this way? Do other animals? Will future machines? Nicholas Humphrey tells the story of his quest to understand the evolutionary history of consciousness and explains the startling answers he has come to.
