The Ego Tunnel (Paperback)

Thomas Metzinger

ISBN 10: 0465020690 / ISBN 13: 9780465020690

Published by Basic Books, New York, 2010

About this Item

Paperback. We're used to thinking about the self as an independent entity, something that we either have or are. In The Ego Tunnel , philosopher Thomas Metzinger claims otherwise: No such thing as a self exists. The conscious self is the content of a model created by our brain,an internal image, but one we cannot experience as an image. Everything we experience is a virtual self in a virtual reality." But if the self is not real," why and how did it evolve? How does the brain construct it? Do we still have souls, free will, personal autonomy, or moral accountability? In a time when the science of cognition is becoming as controversial as evolution, The Ego Tunnel provides a stunningly original take on the mystery of the mind. Examine the inner workings of the mind and learn what consciousness and a sense of self really means - and if it even exists. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780465020690

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Ego Tunnel (Paperback)
• Publisher: Basic Books, New York
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0465020690
• ISBN 13: 9780465020690
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

A "groundbreaking" (Booklist) investigation of the mind and consciousness that asks whether the self even exists

In The Ego Tunnel, philosopher and cognitive scientist Thomas Metzinger argues that neuroscience’s picture of the “self” as an emergent phenomenon of our biology―and the attendant fact that the self can be manipulated and even experimentally controlled―raises novel and serious ethical questions. If, as Metzinger contends, our conception of the self is a sort of tunnel-vision-like experience of the world, with little left in and much left out, can there be better or worse states of consciousness? And if so, what should we do to try to achieve them?

In a time when the science of cognition is becoming as controversial as the science of evolution, The Ego Tunnel provides a step toward a morally sensitive philosophy of the mind.
 

About the Author

Thomas Metzinger was director of the Theoretical Philosophy Group at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. From 2018 to 2020 Metzinger worked as a member of the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence. In 2021 he was awarded the Pufendorf Medal, and in 2022 he was elected to the German National Academy of Science. He has written and edited several books, among them Bewusstseinskultur, The Elephant and the Blind, Being No One, Conscious Experience, and Neural Correlates of Consciousness. He lives in Germany.