---
product_id: 34748053
title: "The Mystery of Consciousness"
brand: "new york review books"
price: "HK$270"
currency: HKD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
category: "Book"
url: https://www.desertcart.hk/products/34748053-the-mystery-of-consciousness
store_origin: HK
region: Hong Kong
---

# The Mystery of Consciousness

**Brand:** new york review books
**Price:** HK$270
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** The Mystery of Consciousness by new york review books
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The Mystery of Consciousness

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Fascinating, Frank and Occasionally Funny
  

*by R***Z on Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2014*

Drawing on material originally published in The New York Review of Books, Searle confronts what he terms the mystery of consciousness.  The mystery lies in the causal relations which lie at the base of the phenomenon.  We do not as yet have a real theory as to the operations of the brain, much less a theory as to the operation of consciousness.  As Searle puts it, in a memorable metaphor, we may be trying to understand a car engine by studying the activities of the molecules within the metal that constitutes the engine block.  Some (Crick, e.g.)  think we need to look beyond neurons to something larger (neuronal circuits, e.g.) and some (Penrose, e.g.) to something smaller (micro-tubules, e.g.).Despite its importance, consciousness is often evaded as a subject of both science and philosophy because there is the overarching fear that if we commit to the irreducible subjectivity of consciousness we are, simultaneously, committing to dualism and, thus, flying in the face of the scientific method.  There are such dualists of course, the principal exemplar being Sir John Eccles, and there are any number of materialists.  Searle argues against both, saying that consciousness is a biological phenomenon like digestion or photosynthesis, but one that we don't yet understand (though we are undeniably aware of its existence).In arguing his case he considers the works of six other scientist/philosophers: Crick, Edelman, Penrose, Dennett, Chalmers and Rosenfield.  Penrose, Dennett and Chalmers come in for the greatest criticism and the book includes interchanges between Searle, Dennett and Chalmers.While the material is complex the exposition is lucid.  I particularly enjoy it when Searle reverts to the street vernacular rather than the exclusive language of philosophy and science.  This is not what one of my philosophy teachers called `subway reading', but it is clear and accessible to lay readers.  Some reviewers have commented that Searle's explanations of the thoughts of others are considerably more accessible than their renditions of their own ideas.  Those other thinkers are likely to protest that their views have been misrepresented but at least in the case of Dennett and Chalmers they have an opportunity to defend themselves.I found particularly interesting Searle's distinctions between first-person phenomena (pain, e.g.) and third-person phenomena (gravity, e.g.).  The subjective cannot be made objective and the objective cannot be made subjective.  Similarly, while the world consists of particles in fields of force, the particles are organized into both natural systems (galaxies, mountains) and social creations (nations, currencies, football teams).  This does not entail dualism.  Consciousness, he writes, "is caused by the behavior of microelements of nervous systems, and is realized in the structures of those nervous systems.  Consciousness is not reducible in the way that other biological properties typically are, because it has a first-person ontology."  It exists when it is experienced as such.Searle also includes a look forward in which he anticipates the next steps which we need to take in order to deepen our understanding of consciousness.  This may well be the work of generations, not years.A fascinating, forthright book.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Great read.
  

*by M***U on Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2014*

John Searle doesn't really make many claims himself in this book. It's more of an overview of the (poor) state of our scientific understanding of the phenomenon of consciousness, which I think he does a fantastic job of. The only claim he makes is that "brains are sufficient for consciousness", which to anyone not named Daniel Dennett is plainly obvious. He gives an overview of other philosophers' views on consciousness and an opinion on each. It's a very good state-of-things book. Nonetheless, because of the examples he used, it really allowed me to reconceptualize how our brains work (to see the brain as an experience machine and not a computer) and lead to a better understanding of myself, which is one of the reasons I am going it five stars.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    A Cogent Defense of Naive Naturalism
  

*by D***K on Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2005*

Another excellent polemic by Searle. His contention that "consciousnes" is observable along a two-fold structure is substantively true: (1) from the scientific materialist point of view of the independently verifiable third-person perspective, and (2) from the immaterialist point of view of the unverifiable first-person perspective of things like "pain." But unlike most other contemporary theories of consciousness, Searle's it's not either/or, but and/both, and almost no one else is taking note of this. Those philosophers that are, are coming up with preposterous theories along the way. Searle wants to reposition them back into the life science of neurobiology, not their arcane logic, bogus epistemology, or reductivist materialism.Let's begin with the obvious. Both perspectives are "verifiable" from the first-person point of view: We all know and agree that the first-person experience of pain, the notions of governments, the rules of inference, and other subjective "qualia" occurs ("qualia" is just a marker for individual conscious experiences). While we can and do measure some mental phenomena by (1) their third-party reports, such as someone carrying an umbrella likely thinks it's going to rain, we have trouble when we come (2) to first-person sort of qualia, e.g., what it is like to feel "pain," what one means by the phrase "good government," who is the "best painter," what I mean by "red" house, I feel depressed, etc.According to the scientific materialist, "only" those third-party reports qualify scientifically. You know the scientific paradigm: Only that which is verifiable and not falsified is true. That's fine, except what does one do when the "activity" that people report is going on in that amorphous, first-person, thing called "consciousness?" Do we deny that people have it, such "pain," that we don't have a conception of the "best government," that we don't know what they mean when they say "I feel depressed," etc.? Well, according to Searle, one has to accept this consequence if the current theories of consciousness are on track. According to the current paradigms, all first-person reportage is spurious or nonsense or (in the case of Dennett) non-existent.Searle's defense of "naive naturalism" is a defense of all our basic intuitions. Per Searle, most of what has been written recently is contrary to these intuitions, and Searle exposes them all. It's not a pretty picture in how Searle portrays others, and they evidently have not taken to kindly to it. But it is a defense of what we think to be basically true. Upended are a myriad of characters, some lightly, some not so lightly. Besides Dennett, there's Chalmers, Penrose, and Churchland. Searle may be tactically off to the wrong start, but he's definitely on the right track. There is definitely something wrong with postulations that "consciousness" does not even exist (Dennett), or that if it does exist (Chalmers), it does so in some extreme form that doesn't even mirror want we know to be true. It's either too scientistic or too dualistic, but whatever the method, it's on the wrong foot.Searle's intuitions are certainly right, even if his modus operandi has begotten him ill-will (esp. Penrose). For those wholly unfamiliar with "consciousness" as Searle minimally conceives it, consult his "Rediscovery of the Mind." Even without that prefatory work, his arguments in this book still have cogent force and conviction. Searle's conception of what it is minimally to have "consciousness" may be off track "here and there," but his basic intuitions are obviously and instinctively on track.For the sake of science, the understanding of the mind, and of what constitutes and explains "consciousness," I hope all Searle's detractors take this neurobiological polemic to heart. Searle is right to argue that methodology doesn't outweigh reality, and whatever the methodology for the study of consciousness, let's hope philosophers get in line behind neurobiologists, who, along with psychologists, know that "intrinsically first-person ontology" exists when it comes to consciousness -- even if scientifically, it doesn't fit the paradigm. It might not fit the classical materialist paradigm, but things like "life" and "consciousness" just don't. Densely, but articulately and cogently, argued. Highly recommended.

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