Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts

361 Pages·2014·8.88 MB·English

by  Stanislas Dehaene

ALSO BY STANISLAS DEHAENE
Reading in the Brain
The Number Sense

VIKING
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First published by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2014
Copyright © 2014 by Stanislas Dehaene
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Excerpt from Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding of Consciousness by Daniel Dennett. Copyright © 1996 by Daniel Dennett. Reprinted by permission of Basic Books, a member of the Perseus
Books Group.
Definition of consciousness from The International Dictionary of Psychology by N. S. Sutherland (Continuum, 1989; Crossroad, 1996).
Illustration credits appear here.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Dehaene, Stanislas.
Consciousness and the brain : deciphering how the brain codes our thoughts / Stanislas Dehaene.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-698-15140-6
1. Consciousness. 2. Brain. 3. Cognitive neuroscience. I. Title.
QP411.D44 2014
612.8'2—dc23
2013036814
Version_1
To my parents, and to Ann and Dan, my American parents
Consciousness is the only real thing in the world
and the greatest mystery of all.
—Vladimir Nabokov, Bend Sinister (1947)
The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.
—Emily Dickinson (ca. 1862)
CONTENTS
Also by Stanislas Dehaene
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Introduction: The Stuff of Thought
1 Consciousness Enters the Lab
2 Fathoming Unconscious Depths
3 What Is Consciousness Good For?
4 The Signatures of a Conscious Thought
5 Theorizing Consciousness
6 The Ultimate Test
7 The Future of Consciousness
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Illustration Credits
INTRODUCTION: THE STUFF OF THOUGHT
D
eep inside the Lascaux cave, past the world-renowned Great Hall of the
Bulls, where Paleolithic artists painted a colorful menagerie of horses, deer, and
bulls, starts a lesser-known corridor known as the Apse. There, at the bottom of
a sixteen-foot pit, next to fine drawings of a wounded bison and a rhinoceros,
lies one of the rare depictions of a human being in prehistoric art (figure 1). The
man is lying flat on his back, palms up and arms extended. Next to him stands a
bird perched on a stick. Nearby lies a broken spear that was probably used to
disembowel the bison, whose intestines are hanging out.