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This book brings together an international group of neuroscientists
and philosophers who are investigating how the content of subjective
experience is correlated with events in the brain. The fundamental
methodological problem in consciousness research is the
subjectivity of the target phenomenon--the fact that
conscious experience, under standard conditions, is always tied to an
individual, first-person perspective. The core empirical question is
whether and how physical states of the human nervous system can be
mapped onto the content of conscious experience. The search for the
neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) has become a highly active
field of investigation in recent years. Methods such as single-cell
recording in monkeys and brain imaging and electrophysiology in
humans, applied to such phenomena as blindsight, implicit/explicit
cognition, and binocular rivalry, have generated a wealth of data. The
same period has seen the development of a number of theories about NCC
location. This volume brings together the leading experimentalists and
theoreticians in the field. Topics include foundational and
evolutionary issues, global integration, vision, consciousness and the
NMDA receptor complex, neuroimaging, implicit processes,
intentionality and phenomenal volition, schizophrenia, social
cognition, and the phenomenal self.
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