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It is a question that may seem, at once, simple yet profoundly
complicated: What is consciousness? And from where in the body, or
mind, does it arise? In his work, Esteemed Harvard scholar Simeon
Locke, M.D. brings us the debate over substance and source in
consciousness, and offers what he sees as the resolution to this
debate, with accessible text explaining the neurologist's thinking
on how to define, measure and explain consciousness, from a variety
of field's perspectives. "Efforts to understand consciousness -
perhaps the supreme manifestation of self-consciousness - continue.
Books are written. Predictions are made. Physicists, psychologists,
biologists, and philosophers participate. The brain is studied, but
an understanding of consciousness eludes us," explains Locke.
"Still, the quest continues. We are not looking in the wrong place,
for surely consciousness is a function of the nervous system. But
we may be looking for the wrong thing," Locke adds. "Quest implies
we are looking for something, and consciousness is not a something.
It is a process, or so-called distributed function of the brain."
In this work, Locke explains how the nervous system plays a primary
role in consciousness. Although scholars and scientists have
debated the source of consciousness for more than a century,
advances in brain science have brought the question to the
forefront now, launching events from the Toward a Science of
Consciousness convention in 2006, to the 11th Annual Association
for the Scientific Study of Consciousness convention in 2007.
Across the nation, scholars and students are working to determine
answers about consciousness, at sites from California's John F.
Kennedy University degreeprogram in Consciousness and
Transformative Studies, to Vermont's Goddard College degree program
in Consciousness Studies. And in this work, a patriarch in the
field of Neurology explains his science and its vital role in
consciousness, and how it makes us human.
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