Being in Time: Dynamical Models of Phenomenal Experience

Advances in Consciousness Research #88

by Shimon Edelman (Editor), Tomer Fekete, Neta Zach

Given that a representational system's phenomenal experience must be intrinsic to it and must therefore arise from its own temporal dynamics, consciousness is best understood — indeed, can only be understood — as being in time. Despite that, it is still acceptable for theories of consciousness to be summarily exempted from addressing the temporality of phenomenal experience. The chapters comprising this book represent a collective attempt on the part of their authors to redress this aberration. The diverse treatments of phenomenal consciousness range in their methodology from philosophy, through surveys and synthesis of behavioral and neuroscientific findings, to computational analysis. This collection's broad scope and integrative approach, characterized by the view of the brain as a dynamical system that computes the mind's representation space, will be of interest to researchers, instructors, and students in the cognitive sciences wishing to acquaint themselves with the current thinking in consciousness research. Series B.

261 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

If one takes the death of Stalin to mark the end of the first, darker half of
the 20th century, I was born just as its second half was getting under way, in the
evil empire that he built and that managed to survive for thirty-odd years after the
emperor kicked the bucket. In 1973, just ahead of the Yom Kippur War, my family
emigrated to Israel, where I graduated from high school. I was drafted into the
army and underwent basic training, then got a B.S. in electrical engineering and
returned to the army for five more years (not counting reserve duty). After
discharge (highest rank attained: major, reserve), I went back to school and
earned an M.Sc. and a Ph.D. in computer science. Since then, I taught and
worked in research at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, at MIT, at the
University of Sussex at Brighton in the UK, and at Cornell University, where I
have been a tenured full professor of psychology since 1999. I have also held
visiting positions at Brown University, at MIT, at Tel Aviv University, and at Korea
University in Seoul.

My long-standing research and teaching interests focus on understanding
the brain/mind – a problem that, in my view, encompasses the entirety of the
human condition. It is because of my desire to understand, both scientifically and
intuitively, what makes us human that my research projects are so diverse: I
have worked on specific problems in visual perception, in robotics and AI, in
motor control, in language acquisition, in memory, and in consciousness, striving
at all times to integrate “extracurricular” interests such as my love of nature and
of literature with the science that I am engaged in. My work has led to over a
hundred refereed publications, three edited volumes, and two monographs,
including Computing the Mind: How the Mind Really Works (Oxford University
Press, 2008). Of these, the last one, The Happiness of Pursuit (Basic Books,
2012) is a trade book, which became a Kirkus Reviews starred selection and
“Must-Read in new nonfiction” when it came out.