Consciousness

1. A Very Short Introduction

 My friend is studying psychology in college.
When I said to her that I was interested in it, she recommended a book.
・Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (Amazon)

This is a very short introduction, but a good introduction.
So I'd like to write about 'consciousness'.

2. Consciousness is fundamental?

 What's consciousness?

 David Chalmers distinguished "hard problem" and "easy problem" (p. 4).
・David Chalmers: How do you explain consciousness? | TED Talk
・デイヴィッド・チャーマーズ: あなたは意識をどう説明しますか？ (YouTube)

In this movie, he said that consciousness may be fundamental like space, time and mass.
As he said, this is one of crazy ideas, but I also think it's interesting.

3. Consciousness is illusion?

 Dan Dennett claims "there is no centre in the brain which could correspond to this notion, for the brain is radically parallel processing system with no central headquarters" (p. 15).
・Dan Dennett: The illusion of consciousness | TED Talk

4. Emotion

 "Historically, many thinkers have admired rationality at the expense of the emotion".
"This is what neuroscientist Antonio Damasio calls 'Descartes Error'" (p. 53).
・Antonio Damasio: The quest to understand consciousness | TED Talk
・アントニオ・ダマシオ：意識の理解はどこまで進んだか (YouTube)

5. My opinion

 I think consciousness is illusion.
Human is a system of a lot of organs, tissues and cells.
Human activity is networking and interaction of them each other.

 Exactly, logical thinking and rationality is one of the greatest abilities of human being.
But emotion and irrationality is one of the essential factors of human being.
Historically, passion has driven us and changed our lives.

 Psychologically, consciousness is illusion, but the complex system of human is a living thing.
A lot of living things are interacting each other, and evolving even now.

Dear friend,
You recommended a very good book. Thank you.