It's a bold statement and one that invites debate. The title of
this volume of essays refers to new developments in the field of
perceptual consciousness that question our automatic assertion that
what we see represents a full and complete picture of the world
around us. A thought-provoking collection of academic propositions
examine every conceivable aspect of this field of study,
demonstrably proving - as the editor asserts in her stimulating
introduction - that there are important implications here for
various subjects, principally philosophy, psychology and
consciousness studies. Although the essays are collated as the
latest edition in the Journal of Consciousness Studies - and thus
with a specifically erudite audience in mind - any interested
reader who browses through will certainly find much here to
stimulate them. 'What we see fully and richly represents exactly
what is': essentially a simple premise that some academics
staunchly maintain and others hotly refute. People normally express
their perceptions of the visual world in terms of great intensity,
yet in recent years this prevailing wisdom has come into contention
within the developing field of consciousness studies. Demonstrating
the notorious unreliability of our perceptive faculties - such as
the eye's blind spot or our inability to register change unless we
literally see it moving before our eyes - many argue that our
complacent assumption about what we perceive is fundamentally
inaccurate and requires revision. Each essay included here posits a
particular question and then seeks to either assert culpability or
refute criticism. In the intriguingly titled 'Tinkerbell Effect',
for example, the susceptibility of consciousness to persuasion is
demonstrated paralleling the collective efforts of the audience in
reviving the dying fairy in JM Barrie's story Peter Pan. Using a
variety of illustrative examples that help clarify many of the more
finely detailed points, academics from the UK and US investigate
the subject in exhaustive detail, deeply probing visual perception
in an attempt to seek objective truths that will withstand rigorous
scrutiny. (Kirkus UK)
There is a traditional scepticism about whether the world 'out
there' really is as we perceive it. A new breed of hyper-sceptics
now challenges whether we even have the perceptual experience we
think we have. According to these writers, perceptual consciousness
is a kind of false consciousness. This view grows out of the
discovery of phenomena like change blindness and inattentional
blindness. Such radical scepticism has acute and widespread
implications for the study of perception and consciousness.
Contributors include: psychologists Susan Blackmore, Arien Mack and
Bruce Bridgeman and philosophers Daniel Dennett, Andy Clark,
Jonathan Cohen, and Charles Siewert.
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