The MIT Press Podcast

Eric Schwitzgebel, “Perplexities of Consciousness” (MIT Press, 2011)


Listen Later

How much do we know about our stream of conscious experience? Not much, if Eric Schwitzgebel is right. In his new book Perplexities of Consciousness (MIT Press, 2011), Schwitzgebel argues for skepticism regarding our knowledge of the phenomenology of conscious experience. We don’t know if we dream in color or black and white, we don’t know whether tilted coins look elliptical or round, and we don’t know whether conscious experience is confined to what we are paying attention to or more abundant. Schwitzgebel’s position is based on close examination of historical philosophical texts and current psychological experiments that show radical variability in reports of experience that seem unlikely to reflect radical differences in the experiences themselves. In this wide-ranging interview, Schwitzgebel considers whether psychologist Edward Titchener was on to something with his training of expert introspectors, why current theories of the neural correlates of consciousness are question-begging, and how reports of conscious experiences may be grounded in analogies to familiar media.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

The MIT Press PodcastBy The MIT Press

  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8

4.8

20 ratings


More shows like The MIT Press Podcast

View all
Freakonomics Radio by Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Freakonomics Radio

31,993 Listeners

Planet Money by NPR

Planet Money

30,734 Listeners

The Gray Area with Sean Illing by Vox

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

10,729 Listeners

Uncanny Valley | WIRED by WIRED

Uncanny Valley | WIRED

503 Listeners

Jacobin Radio by Jacobin

Jacobin Radio

1,460 Listeners

The Michael Shermer Show by Michael Shermer

The Michael Shermer Show

937 Listeners

Physics World Weekly Podcast by Physics World

Physics World Weekly Podcast

83 Listeners

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas by Sean Carroll | Wondery

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

4,167 Listeners

The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss by Lawrence M. Krauss

The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss

502 Listeners

MIT Technology Review Narrated by MIT Technology Review

MIT Technology Review Narrated

261 Listeners

People I (Mostly) Admire by Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

People I (Mostly) Admire

2,082 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,510 Listeners

The Freakonomics Radio Book Club by Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

The Freakonomics Radio Book Club

237 Listeners

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman by iHeartPodcasts

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman

590 Listeners

Critics at Large | The New Yorker by The New Yorker

Critics at Large | The New Yorker

663 Listeners