Colin McGinn's The Mysterious Flame

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Early in The Mysterious Flame, (1)., philosopher Colin McGinn's breezy but provocative discussion of the relationship between consciousness and the brain, McGinn presents a telling vignette from a science fiction story in which aliens are discussing their observations of humans:

"These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat. . . .They're meat all the way through."

"No brain?"

"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat."

"So . . .what does the thinking?"

"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat."

"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal. Are you getting the picture?" (1).

It is this apparent contradiction, that initially insensate organic material can create consciousness, a phenomenon without apparent material content or spatial location, which McGinn sets out to explain. Many philosophers and scientists have undertaken this journey before him, but McGinn contends that this long road of philosophical inquiry is actually a blind alley. While McGinn believes that the mind is indeed a product of the material qualities of the brain, he argues that the mind (or brain) does not itself possess the ability solve what philosophers denominate "the mind-body problem," (although "mind-brain problem" might be more accurate).

McGinn begins by rejecting both traditional materialism and dualism. Materialists propose that the brain and consciousness are one and the same: thus, brain waves not only correlate with consciousness, they are consciousness. McGinn faults this position for ignoring the very nature of co...

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This paper discusses the limits of human knowledge, with an emphasis on Chomsky's theories.

http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/consciousness97/papers/ProblemOfPhilosophy.html

This paper discusses the need to discover new properties of space to better understand consciousness, and impossibility of doing so

http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/consciousness97/papers/ConsciousnessSpace.html

A review of Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works, in which McGinn elaborates on his theory of the mind.

http://www.2think.org/htmw_review.shtml

Reviews of The Mysterious Flame

http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/07/11/reviews/990711.11strawst.html

http://peterama.tripod.com/strawson.htm

http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/16/24/cog00001624-00/thesciences.htm

www.the-scientist.com/yr1999/may/research_990510.html

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