Rose: Consciousness
Library of web links
Preface
The Emerging Mind
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003
You can listen here to Ramachandran's Reith lectures, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4. They provide a clear introduction to many of the issues in mind-body studies and in clinical neuropsychology.
Psyche
www.journalpsyche.org
This electronic journal covers many of the issues, particularly of a philosophical nature, and reviews many of the books published in this field.
Chapter 1: Philosophical approaches
Episteme
www.epistemelinks.com/index.aspx
One of the largest collections of links to general resources in philosophy.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
plato.stanford.edu/contents.html
An online sourcebook for general philosophical matters and terminology.
Chaper 2: The history of the mind-body problem
The Mind-Body Problem
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20050113.shtml
Listen to a discussion first broadcast on BBC Radio 4. In just 45 minutes it summarizes many of the issues covered in this chapter.
David Chalmers' site
consc.net/chalmers
The most comprehensive set of links to the philosophy of mind, its literature and ideas.
Chapter 3: The philosophy of neuroscience
There is a good article by Bickle and Mandik on the reductive point of view in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
plato.stanford.edu/entries/neuroscience
Some relevant materials can also be found on the websites of the philosophers Bill Bechtel mechanism.ucsd.edu/~bill/index.htm and Carl Craver artsci.wustl.edu/~pnp/people/craver/ and the neuroscientist Rafael Yuste (which includes some nice interactive graphics on cortical microcircuitry) www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/faculty/yuste
An interesting introduction to the brain as a multi-level phenomenon is given at:
www.thebrain.mcgill.ca
For each topic, the material is arranged not just by difficulty but also by 'level of organization': social, psychological, neurological, cellular and molecular.
Chapter 4: Recent advances in functionalism I. Homuncular functionalism
Neuropsychology Central
www.neuropsychologycentral.com
A large collection of resources on the effects of localised brain damage in humans.
General systems theory
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory
A brief introduction (with links) to progress in systems thinking over the past 50 years.
Complex systems
serendip.brynmawr.edu/complexity
An introductory website illustrating the complexity and emergence of biological, mechanical and social system properties.
Chapter 5: Recent advances in functionalism II. Teleological functionalism
Charles Darwin
pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin
The original writings of Charles Darwin can be consulted at this website.
Evolutionary philosophy
www.evolutionary-philosophy.net/
A new site with links to many relevant online papers on the applications of evolutionary theory.
Chapter 6: Representation and the physical basis of mental content
Donald Hebb
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Olding_Hebb
An introduction to the concepts of his theory
Neuroinformatics
www.hirnforschung.net/cneuro
A large set of links to research materials on the complex internal connectivity of the brain.
Chapter 7: Conscious and unconscious representation
Neuroanatomy
www.neuropat.dote.hu/
A comprehensive list of tutorial and reference sites on which you can find the anatomical locations of many of the structures mentioned in section 7.2.
Science and Consciousness Review
www.sci-con.org
Several articles on global workspace theory and other ideas can be found in this excellent online journal, edited by Baars and colleagues.
40 Hz theory
www.40hz.net
Andreas Engel's page on the theory of neural synchrony.
Chapter 8: Brain dynamics, attention and movement
Change blindness
viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/change
A site with many links to demonstrations of change detection and blindness (Side-box 8.5).
The Santa Fe Institute
www.santafe.edu
One of the world's leading centres for research on dynamic systems and complexity.
Chapter 9: Memory and perception
Illustrations of top-down knowledge in perception can be found in the many collections of visual illusions on the web. One of the most comprehensive and well-explained is at IllusionWorks:
psylux.psych.tu-dresden.de/i1/kaw/diverses%20Material/www.illusionworks.com/html/jump_page.html
Viperlib
viperlib.york.ac.uk
A growing collection of several thousand visual illustrations, effects and resources.
Project Lite
lite.bu.edu/vision
Another new interactive site full of dynamic phenomena in vision.
Chapter 10: The where and when of visual experience
The neuronal basis of consciousness
www.klab.caltech.edu/cns120/wiki/Videos
Watch videos of Christof Koch's entire lecture series, which is particularly strong on the neural bases of visual awareness.
Colour phi phenomenon
www.philosophy.uncc.edu/faculty/phi/Phi_Color2.html
A version of the display described by Dennett in his attack on the Cartesian Theatre. You can alter some of the parameters of the illusion on this site (but note that at fast rates it is obvious the changes are not synchronised with the frame refresh cycle of your computer monitor; also you can't vary the luminance or spatial parameters).