Seeing Red: A Study in Consciousness (Mind/brain/behavior Initiative) - Hardcover

Humphrey, Nicholas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674021797 ISBN 13: 9780674021792

Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006

Synopsis

"Consciousness matters. Arguably it matters more than anything. The purpose of this book is to build towards an explanation of just what the matter is."

Nicholas Humphrey begins this compelling exploration of the biggest of big questions with a challenge to the reader, and himself. What's involved in "seeing red"? What is it like for us to see someone else seeing something red?

Seeing a red screen tells us a fact about something in the world. But it also creates a new fact--a sensation in each of our minds, the feeling of redness. And that's the mystery. Conventional science so far hasn't told us what conscious sensations are made of, or how we get access to them, or why we have them at all. From an evolutionary perspective, what's the point of consciousness?

Humphrey offers a daring and novel solution, arguing that sensations are not things that happen to us, they are things we do--originating in our primordial ancestors' expressions of liking or disgust. Tracing the evolutionary trajectory through to human beings, he shows how this has led to sensations playing the key role in the human sense of Self.

The Self, as we now know it from within, seems to have fascinating other-worldly properties. It leads us to believe in mind-body duality and the existence of a soul. And such beliefs--even if mistaken--can be highly adaptive, because they increase the value we place on our own and others' lives.

"Consciousness matters," Humphrey concludes with striking paradox, "because it is its function to matter. It has been designed to create in human beings a Self whose life is worth pursuing."

About this title

About the Author

Nicholas Humphrey is School Professor in the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science at the London School of Economics.

Reviews

In this extended answer to the question, "Can one's consciousness survive after one dies?"-asked by philosopher Thomas Reid in 1775 and Joe King, a disabled country singer, in 2003-Humphrey concedes he is working to "develop a concept of consciousness which we, as theorists, can do business with." He argues perception is neither solely nor necessarily a product of sensation, and, in fact, the two may exist independently of one another. Humphrey simplifies these intellectually rigorous discussions by returning to a central example of a person staring at a red screen. (Thus creating a "red sensation.") Humphrey's conversational prose-the book is based on his lectures-is an odd fit for the scholarly material, but his approach makes his 30 years of experience in "consciousness studies" accessible to casual readers.
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Humphrey's History of the Mind: Evolution and the Birth of Consciousness (1992) elaborates the ideas distilled in this digestible precis. Based on the author's Harvard University lectures, it directly addresses the reader as a fellow contemplator of consciousness. That every person knows what it is but cannot give a convincing description of it, is the nettle Humphrey grasps as he explains his view of the problem. Figuratively seating the reader in his darkened lecture hall, Humphrey illuminates a monochromatic screen--red in this case. By what psychological pathway does the viewer experience the redness of the screen? Humphrey classifies the experience of initial stimulation as a subjective "sensation," which through internal feedback loops becomes an objective "perception" of the screen as red. Holding that this cognitive process may be the origin of self-awareness, Humphrey parries criticisms of the theory, and follows the allusion to the academic debate with a narrative of his sensation/perception mechanism evolving from microbe to mankind. Illustrating his argument with the musings of poets and painters, Humphrey stylishly inspires curiosity about consciousness. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674021797
• ISBN 13: 9780674021792
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160