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Conversations on Consciousness | 
| Author: Susan Blackmore
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Category: Book
List Price: £9.99
Buy New: £6.49
You Save: £3.50 (35%)
New (21) Used (7) from £5.10
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 46720
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 0192806238
EAN: 9780192806239
ASIN: 0192806238
Publication Date: October 26, 2006
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Reasonably insightful, but repetitive series of expert consciousness interviews September 27, 2008
Involves about 25 conversations with leading philosophers and neuroscientists on consciousness and free will. It's inevitably rather repetitive given the format (half the people give almost identical answers to why consciousness is an important or difficult topic, and what free will is), and there are times when both Blackmore's or her interviewee's conversations are rather unintelligent or incoherent. But on the whole it was reasonably interesting, with some useful insights and clarifications.
 Very informative, directly from the best people on the field! December 24, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
You get all the different raprochements on the relation of consciousness to matter: You get the theories of those who believe in gods, of those who believe in classical laborious science and of those who suggest a quantum raprochement. I strongly suggest this book because it opens access to many other writers and books, depending on which theories included in this book persuade you best.
Brief and kept incredibly simple August 30, 2006
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Roughly the same questions are given to alot of the most interesting people in contemporary consciousness research. It spans over psychology, philosophy, neuro-science and religion - and does so without getting boring.
It's spread out into the "conversations" and it's a very good-night read - but don't expect any real depth from it. Each conversation gets about 10-15 pages (if I remember correctly) - so it's hard to be anything but superficial.
Where it REALLY wins me over is in the way it creates a map of the different ideas and thoughts within the field of consciousness. It does this REALLY well, so if you want to get a grasp of the different ideas and paths there are to explore - this would be a great place to start.
It puts focus on free will and what consciousness really "is" - and how it is formed.
If you buy this book, please remember to look at the little dictionary in the back, it's got all the terms described in a way that almost everyone can understand it.
A synopsis of current theories August 24, 2006
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is not a detailed book on consciousness. The author interviews most of the current consciousness theoreticians to get a flavour of their ideas and how they differ from each other. Each person gets about 10 pages or so, so don't expect more than a brief appreciation of each.
The language is also quite technical (-there is a glossary, but it's very short), so I would not recommend this as a first read on the subject. Being a series of interviews, the text does not flow as well as a book and is sometimes rather stacato.
Overall, this is a good synopsis on the current thinking : use it to choose the theory you find most attractive and then search for books by that author to get the real meat of their theory.
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