Description: Explaining consciousness is one of the last great unanswered scientific and philosophical problems. Immediately known, familiar and obvious, consciousness is also baffling, opaque, and strange. How and when did we become conscious? What exactly is consciousness? A gift from God? Some kind of emergent property of our brain? A sequence of electrical sparks off electro-chemical neural activity?
Brief description: Rex Welshon is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
Review Quotes: "[Welshon] brilliantly summarizes, synthesizes, and explains the state of affairs in all of consciousness studies in a way that is accessible and engaging. His work is the ideal guide to the field, simultaneously noting all of the major features of the landscape and sharing compelling insights about each of the important subsidiary philosophical arguments and scientific developments of which the major features are comprised." The Quarterly Review of Biology