What do you think?
Rate this book
Discognition
What is consciousness? What is it like to feel pain, or to see the color red? Do robots and computers really think? For that matter, do plants and amoebas think? If we ever meet intelligent aliens, will we be able to understand what they say to us? Philosophers and scientists are still unable to answer questions like these. Perhaps science fiction can help. In Discognition, Steven Shaviro looks at science fiction novels and stories that explore the extreme possibilities of human and alien sentience.
300 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2016
24 people are currently reading
597 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 6, 2019
An excellent, thought-provoking, and fun book marred by one ill-informed attack on the so-called “New Atheists.” Shaviro brings up and then dismisses the thinking of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris, claiming their arguments against religion’s toxic influence is based on a presupposition that these thinkers are “entirely rational, logical, and free of illusions.” This is a typical, and embarrassingly incorrect cartoon version of their varied stances. Dawkins, of course, knows enough about biological evolution to know pure rationality is impossible for a creature descended from primates. Hitchens was well-steeped in philosophy and literature and made no claims to be above the influence of affection. And Harris has made it the better part of his work to not only examine, but to experientially engage with the super-rational (particularly through meditation). Their “brutal” attacks on religion are not founded on the assumption that pure rationality is the only basis for a healthy society, but rather on the obviously true observation that existing religions, for all their “affective” uses, have chained societies to vicious attitudes, ideas, and practices. Shaviro’s little dismissal of them seems to betray an unwillingness to actually engage with their work. It’s as if he’d brought up and then dismissed the ideas of Foucault, Derrida, and the rest of the post-structuralists by claiming their rejection of the transcendental signified equals a desire to reduce humanity to bloody anarchism and irrationality.
An embarrassing flaw, but not enough to substantially detract from an otherwise beautiful book.
An embarrassing flaw, but not enough to substantially detract from an otherwise beautiful book.
December 12, 2021
Hard to write a review on this one - because it is such a favorite.
While I have just started reading his new 2021 Extreme Fabulations: Science Fictions of Life I realised I had to pay my due to this one.
Here are a number of things that might make Discognition unavoidable reading for our times. Of course, you could just read Steven Shaviro's short dense book as a direct shortcut to key 'thought experiments' in mind philosophy (hard problem of consciousness, Mary's room or the knowledge argument, cognitive eliminativism etc) and the various philosophical responses to them (Churchland, Nagel, Churchland, Dennett, Brandom, Brembs, etc.) as well as Shaviro's own. If you are interested in the original volume with a lot of the original essays that he uses as source materials feel free to check There's Something about Mary: Essays on Phenomenal Consciousness and Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument.
What makes Discognition completely different from most cognitive science & countless mind philosophy books is that he will make us enjoy mind philosophy as an exercise in science fiction (or paraliterature as Samuel "Chip" Delany calls it). And if we manage that, we will rather sooner (than later) realize that mind philosophers can hardly keep up with speculative fiction's proclivity and SF's daring adventures in matters of cognition, consciousness, affect, physicalism, subjectivity, reason, sentience etc. in devising thought experiments that would be practically impossible as a program for cognitive sciences or within the preserve of cognitivist paradigm.
Steven Shaviro makes no secret about his own pan-psychist leanings, or rather his pan-experientialism orientation (in line with both William James pragmatism or what Alfred North Whitehead metaphysics tried to probe), yet this position comes forth after giving due attention to many other perspectives or philosophical currents. Speculative realism and object-oriented ontology, as in his previous books The Universe of Things: On Speculative Realism, remains a point of reference.
The title "DISCOGNITION" is a great way by Steven Shaviro to try to discourage our overly cerebrated (yet perforce dualist and disembodied) capacities. One has to try and circumvent the heavy toll of constraining cognition as well as switch tables on our faltering human exceptionalism. Cognitivism has been listing a growing list of human biases and fallacies, confirmed by research - all largely expanding on critical philosophy's founding gestures: Kant's categories and forms of thought. Yet the fundamental tenants of cognitivism (u could also call them metaphysical presuppositions) get more entrenched than ever. As 'neurobullocks' has been infusing much of neuro pop from TV series to criminal psychology - or be it advertising and neuro -marketing, nowadays only neurodivergence manages to question the neuropolitical underpinnings of neuronormativity.
In the end, we have nothing to lose (he seems to tell us with every chapter) - but our embittered speciesism, a narrowing cognitivism-only path that allows only brains, higher functions of the human mind or consciousness to act like proper scientific models, exquisite literary presences or proper philosophic objects - at the dispense of everything else, with the risk of ignoring various instantiations of "what would be thinking like": a machine, an artificial intelligence, a computer, a murderer, a slime mold, an alien etc. (a list that could go on indefintely).
We are bound to central nervous systems, and yes, sapience is a wonderfully rare thing, yet this comes at a heavy price of ignoring the largest majority of our experience as well as other (for us largely speculative) modes of thought. Recent SF, carefully chosen examples by S. Shaviro - put consciousness in proportion and show how human thinking processes might be themselves just a narrow sliver - a wonderful but limited and limiting way to even define experience as such.
He brings all these examples to roost and many others - including Ted Chiang's The Lifecycle of Software Objects or Peter Watts Blindsight or R Scott Bakker's Neuropath.
To his merit, Shaviro always emphasizes that he is neither a philosopher nor a science fiction writer - though to my knowledge, he is uniquely poised to enjoy doing what he does and never make the authors and thinkers he reads cry (as Deleuze said). He is one of those very rare raconteurs that never disparages his material, offering an attentive mind and affective stance that takes science fiction and philosophical speculative bets very seriously, pushing them to their ultimate ends. He is never tone-deaf, never forcing himself on the medium but letting it speak loudly and clearly. His close-reading discipline works almost as a direct how-to example in treating extrapolations & imaginative jumps graciously. Meanwhile he is helping delineate difficult questions, redefining complex relations and successfully attempts making difficult distinctions by contrasting philosophy with science fiction or with science proper. There are always differences as well as deep resonances whenever such matters are at stake, and there is always the potentiality of mutual learning and unlearning what we thought we knew:
>>Fictions and fabulations are often contrasted, or opposed, to scientific methods of understanding the world. But in fact, there are powerful resonances between them; they are both processes of speculative extrapolation. In other words, constructing and testing scientific hypotheses is not entirely different from constructing fictions and fabulations, and then testing to see whether they work or not, and what consequences follow from them. For science is far more than just a passive process of discovery, or a compiling of facts that are simply “out there.” Rather, science must actively approach things and processes in the world. This is the reason for making hypotheses. Science needs to solicit and elicit phenomena that would not disclose themselves to us otherwise. It must somehow compel these phenomena to respond to our questions, by giving us full and consistent answers. All this is necessary, precisely because things in the world are not cut to our measure. They have no reason to conform to our presuppositions, or to fit into any categories that we seek to impose.(Steven Shaviro, Introduction)<<
While I have just started reading his new 2021 Extreme Fabulations: Science Fictions of Life I realised I had to pay my due to this one.
Here are a number of things that might make Discognition unavoidable reading for our times. Of course, you could just read Steven Shaviro's short dense book as a direct shortcut to key 'thought experiments' in mind philosophy (hard problem of consciousness, Mary's room or the knowledge argument, cognitive eliminativism etc) and the various philosophical responses to them (Churchland, Nagel, Churchland, Dennett, Brandom, Brembs, etc.) as well as Shaviro's own. If you are interested in the original volume with a lot of the original essays that he uses as source materials feel free to check There's Something about Mary: Essays on Phenomenal Consciousness and Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument.
What makes Discognition completely different from most cognitive science & countless mind philosophy books is that he will make us enjoy mind philosophy as an exercise in science fiction (or paraliterature as Samuel "Chip" Delany calls it). And if we manage that, we will rather sooner (than later) realize that mind philosophers can hardly keep up with speculative fiction's proclivity and SF's daring adventures in matters of cognition, consciousness, affect, physicalism, subjectivity, reason, sentience etc. in devising thought experiments that would be practically impossible as a program for cognitive sciences or within the preserve of cognitivist paradigm.
Steven Shaviro makes no secret about his own pan-psychist leanings, or rather his pan-experientialism orientation (in line with both William James pragmatism or what Alfred North Whitehead metaphysics tried to probe), yet this position comes forth after giving due attention to many other perspectives or philosophical currents. Speculative realism and object-oriented ontology, as in his previous books The Universe of Things: On Speculative Realism, remains a point of reference.
The title "DISCOGNITION" is a great way by Steven Shaviro to try to discourage our overly cerebrated (yet perforce dualist and disembodied) capacities. One has to try and circumvent the heavy toll of constraining cognition as well as switch tables on our faltering human exceptionalism. Cognitivism has been listing a growing list of human biases and fallacies, confirmed by research - all largely expanding on critical philosophy's founding gestures: Kant's categories and forms of thought. Yet the fundamental tenants of cognitivism (u could also call them metaphysical presuppositions) get more entrenched than ever. As 'neurobullocks' has been infusing much of neuro pop from TV series to criminal psychology - or be it advertising and neuro -marketing, nowadays only neurodivergence manages to question the neuropolitical underpinnings of neuronormativity.
In the end, we have nothing to lose (he seems to tell us with every chapter) - but our embittered speciesism, a narrowing cognitivism-only path that allows only brains, higher functions of the human mind or consciousness to act like proper scientific models, exquisite literary presences or proper philosophic objects - at the dispense of everything else, with the risk of ignoring various instantiations of "what would be thinking like": a machine, an artificial intelligence, a computer, a murderer, a slime mold, an alien etc. (a list that could go on indefintely).
We are bound to central nervous systems, and yes, sapience is a wonderfully rare thing, yet this comes at a heavy price of ignoring the largest majority of our experience as well as other (for us largely speculative) modes of thought. Recent SF, carefully chosen examples by S. Shaviro - put consciousness in proportion and show how human thinking processes might be themselves just a narrow sliver - a wonderful but limited and limiting way to even define experience as such.
He brings all these examples to roost and many others - including Ted Chiang's The Lifecycle of Software Objects or Peter Watts Blindsight or R Scott Bakker's Neuropath.
To his merit, Shaviro always emphasizes that he is neither a philosopher nor a science fiction writer - though to my knowledge, he is uniquely poised to enjoy doing what he does and never make the authors and thinkers he reads cry (as Deleuze said). He is one of those very rare raconteurs that never disparages his material, offering an attentive mind and affective stance that takes science fiction and philosophical speculative bets very seriously, pushing them to their ultimate ends. He is never tone-deaf, never forcing himself on the medium but letting it speak loudly and clearly. His close-reading discipline works almost as a direct how-to example in treating extrapolations & imaginative jumps graciously. Meanwhile he is helping delineate difficult questions, redefining complex relations and successfully attempts making difficult distinctions by contrasting philosophy with science fiction or with science proper. There are always differences as well as deep resonances whenever such matters are at stake, and there is always the potentiality of mutual learning and unlearning what we thought we knew:
>>Fictions and fabulations are often contrasted, or opposed, to scientific methods of understanding the world. But in fact, there are powerful resonances between them; they are both processes of speculative extrapolation. In other words, constructing and testing scientific hypotheses is not entirely different from constructing fictions and fabulations, and then testing to see whether they work or not, and what consequences follow from them. For science is far more than just a passive process of discovery, or a compiling of facts that are simply “out there.” Rather, science must actively approach things and processes in the world. This is the reason for making hypotheses. Science needs to solicit and elicit phenomena that would not disclose themselves to us otherwise. It must somehow compel these phenomena to respond to our questions, by giving us full and consistent answers. All this is necessary, precisely because things in the world are not cut to our measure. They have no reason to conform to our presuppositions, or to fit into any categories that we seek to impose.(Steven Shaviro, Introduction)<<
February 9, 2017
Discognition is a clever, engaging book which uses case studies from science fiction to address philosophical-metaphysical debates about the nature of consciousness (or sentience more broadly). The approach more than pays off by the end of the book, for the slime mold analyzed in that final section (Physarum polycephalum) is a real-world biological entity, even though its description reads as if may as well have been taken from a science fiction story. If taking fiction as a serious springboard for philosophical speculation about the nature of consciousness sounds dubious, Shaviro points out that the entire history of philosophy is already riddled with fabulation and imagined stories (premodern mythic or theological entities, more modern “thought experiments,” as well as the purportedly neutral example cases often employed by even the most sober “analytic” philosophers [as stated in another context: “Since all these conditions are ridiculously counterfactual, the cognitivist assumption of rationality is itself (like most theoretical assumptions) little more than a bizarre fabulation, a fiction of sentience,” p. 206]).
Shaviro happens to repeatedly support a position I already tend to agree with (some version of Alfred North Whitehead’s panpsychism, or proto-panpsychism), but the way he makes his case is convincing — chapter by chapter, arguing for the reality of some degree of sentience beyond, or else underlying, a more individuated, ego-based self-consciousness, but each time in ways immanent to the story in question. (Shaviro’s sympathies are obviously in opposition to the much more common view that consciousness, or any awareness altogether, is just an epiphenomenon of physics and biology alone, completely reductive to chemicals and atoms, ultimately.) Because the stories Shaviro addresses also often have overt economic and political implications or overtones, a further point is implied, throughout: it could well be true than intentionality matters when addressing consciousness. (That is: is one seeking to understand consciousness, or to simply to control it?, etc.) Of course, this book will likely be easily dismissed by diehard cognitive reductionists, but in doing so they would miss the entire point (almost by definition).
Shaviro happens to repeatedly support a position I already tend to agree with (some version of Alfred North Whitehead’s panpsychism, or proto-panpsychism), but the way he makes his case is convincing — chapter by chapter, arguing for the reality of some degree of sentience beyond, or else underlying, a more individuated, ego-based self-consciousness, but each time in ways immanent to the story in question. (Shaviro’s sympathies are obviously in opposition to the much more common view that consciousness, or any awareness altogether, is just an epiphenomenon of physics and biology alone, completely reductive to chemicals and atoms, ultimately.) Because the stories Shaviro addresses also often have overt economic and political implications or overtones, a further point is implied, throughout: it could well be true than intentionality matters when addressing consciousness. (That is: is one seeking to understand consciousness, or to simply to control it?, etc.) Of course, this book will likely be easily dismissed by diehard cognitive reductionists, but in doing so they would miss the entire point (almost by definition).
February 28, 2018
A very nice concept for a book ealing with consciousness. Of course science fiction deals with speculative extrapolation from present day science and technology, but without a good grounding in contemporary knowledge in a given area it can be difficult to know whether the posited reality is a reasonable extrapolation or a total fantasy (not to mention the characterisation, dialog and other highly distracting elements which hinder a nice, dry philosophical examination...).
Shaviro is a scholar of literature, so as a neuroscientist it was obviously a somewhat different style of argument and language than I'm used to, but I enjoyed it, I thought it was well written and accessible without requiring a specialist background.
Shaviro is a scholar of literature, so as a neuroscientist it was obviously a somewhat different style of argument and language than I'm used to, but I enjoyed it, I thought it was well written and accessible without requiring a specialist background.
October 24, 2017
A fascinating look at how science fiction gives us a way to examine different types of consciousness and ideas about our own. I ended up with a bunch of new titles on my TBR list.
April 5, 2024
I was pretty pleased with this one, and I especially enjoyed its methodological approach to using speculative fiction. This has become a more common approach for recent (post)continental theory building in a more "speculative" tradition. Like many of Shaviro's works, this one takes careful risks in its developments to make important critical distinctions.
This is more a note for future readers than about the book itself. After seeing a few people think this book has issues, it seems that these reviews are from a perspective that is unaware that this book is a small development in an ongoing theoretical conversation between so-called "speculative realists" in which Shaviro is making careful developments which insist that phenomenology has a place in whatever this emergent tradition of philosophy is. Many theorists and philosophers are touting the speculative realists as a movement that rejects phenomenology. Shaviro, as a Whiteheadian scholar, detests this perspective while also recognizing the important developments of those like Meillassoux, Harmon, and Brassier who might defend the rejection of phenomenology in favor of ontology as the proper escape from Kant. Instead, Shaviro is carefully explaining nuances in areas of phenomenology to say which parts of it are problematic.
Since Without Criteria almost all of his developments have been repositioning Alfred North Whitehead as a new origin of phenomenology. This book is a development of an indirect approach to speculating what distinctions in human and non-human phenomenology is like. As such, a part of this book is arguing that "cognition" is not the end-all science of philosophy of mind and phenomenology. We can imagine new sciences of mind. This is why he rejects the new atheists as having found some scientific basis for studying minds, as this is one of their primary projects within philosophy. I think, contrary to new atheist apologists, he understands what is at stake particularly clearly on this point.
Further this book goes as far as to propose alternatives to cybernetic models of information, which I find particularly interesting in my own work.
This is more a note for future readers than about the book itself. After seeing a few people think this book has issues, it seems that these reviews are from a perspective that is unaware that this book is a small development in an ongoing theoretical conversation between so-called "speculative realists" in which Shaviro is making careful developments which insist that phenomenology has a place in whatever this emergent tradition of philosophy is. Many theorists and philosophers are touting the speculative realists as a movement that rejects phenomenology. Shaviro, as a Whiteheadian scholar, detests this perspective while also recognizing the important developments of those like Meillassoux, Harmon, and Brassier who might defend the rejection of phenomenology in favor of ontology as the proper escape from Kant. Instead, Shaviro is carefully explaining nuances in areas of phenomenology to say which parts of it are problematic.
Since Without Criteria almost all of his developments have been repositioning Alfred North Whitehead as a new origin of phenomenology. This book is a development of an indirect approach to speculating what distinctions in human and non-human phenomenology is like. As such, a part of this book is arguing that "cognition" is not the end-all science of philosophy of mind and phenomenology. We can imagine new sciences of mind. This is why he rejects the new atheists as having found some scientific basis for studying minds, as this is one of their primary projects within philosophy. I think, contrary to new atheist apologists, he understands what is at stake particularly clearly on this point.
Further this book goes as far as to propose alternatives to cybernetic models of information, which I find particularly interesting in my own work.
May 25, 2017
I'm stunned by the sheer amount of brilliant visions and lines of thought which are so exquisitely put together in this book. I highly recommend "Discognition" if you're into serious science-fiction and philosophy of mind. All mentioned outlooks on consciousness are thrilling, and I second the author in his feeling that each of them seem vey convincing when studied on its own. I haven't read mentioned novels and stories except Blindsight, but I'm surely going to catch up. Additionally, Steven's synthesis is an excellent piece of philosophical thinking laid down in very clear terms. I had some problems with references to Kant and a few other thinkers which I don't know that well. On the other hand, I really liked and "felt" references to Whitehead, by studying whom I stumbled upon Steven Shaviro in the first place. Anyway, I don't think you really need to be fluent with philosophy to understand and appreciate "Discognition". Go ahead and read it as a set of terriffic essays on consciousness, intelligence, rationality, "the self" and post-humanism. It's pure gold.
August 20, 2018
What would consciousness be like if you were a robot?
I didn't know what to expect with this book, not having read any of Shaviro's prior work. I was somewhat skeptical, given my education background, about a professor of English jumping into an arena on cognition. The premise is great: Shaviro takes a selection of fiction and ponders the implications of cognition, consciousness, and "humanity". What would "thinking" be like for a robot? An alien? A slime mold? A piece of software? You get the idea.
You're not going to be fed a lot of answers, but DISCOGNITION serves as an imagination-stoker. There are so many fun and interesting ideas here that I would recommend this (easily) to anyone interested in psychology (cognitive or otherwise). It sounds like Shaviro has a bone to pick with information theory, and he briefly gets into it in his afterword, but I would be interested in a longer discussion on his views.
I didn't know what to expect with this book, not having read any of Shaviro's prior work. I was somewhat skeptical, given my education background, about a professor of English jumping into an arena on cognition. The premise is great: Shaviro takes a selection of fiction and ponders the implications of cognition, consciousness, and "humanity". What would "thinking" be like for a robot? An alien? A slime mold? A piece of software? You get the idea.
You're not going to be fed a lot of answers, but DISCOGNITION serves as an imagination-stoker. There are so many fun and interesting ideas here that I would recommend this (easily) to anyone interested in psychology (cognitive or otherwise). It sounds like Shaviro has a bone to pick with information theory, and he briefly gets into it in his afterword, but I would be interested in a longer discussion on his views.
April 30, 2023
I love the idea of this book so much. I wanted to love it. I don’t have enough of a philosophy background to enjoy this book as much as so many others have. I would like the author to use more popular stories (I read constantly and never heard of any of these books!!) and dumb down the language. I would get lost. Was this in the story reference? Is this a side conversation that the author started? Is this in real life?
November 20, 2023
Really interesting book. Shaviro basically looks at 7 sci-fi stories to examine the insights they can give us into the philosophy of consciousness. Bit of a trip but it's written in a pretty accessible way, without being simplistic/dumbed-down. Made me want to read all the stories he dissects. Lots to think about.
June 14, 2018
An interesting read about science fiction and the limits of cognition. Each chapter is another meditation on a types of sentience, and Shaviro uses sci-fi stores to dig deeper into debates within phenomenology, analytic philosophy and neuroscience. Super neat and super accessible.
June 21, 2024
Great accessible read - favorite chapter is probably "thinking like a human being". Features discourse on many questions surrounding consciousness, including Nagel's classic question: what is it like to be a bat? Lots of goodies in here I'll continue to consult even after having read it.
December 28, 2021
Fascinating but occasionally heavy going, for me at least, a few bits were over my head. Got a good list of new science fiction to read now.
November 23, 2022
Fun, thought provoking book using cases from science fiction to kick off and illuminate numerous topics related to cognition. Recommended.
September 25, 2016
[image error]
MY ALL NEW FAVORITE PHILOSOPHY BOOK!!!!! What an amazing read! So much fun .... and just wow.... this book made me really really think.... This is the kind of book you read and reread... highlighter in hand.
I am SO lucky to have won this book on Goodreads!
MY ALL NEW FAVORITE PHILOSOPHY BOOK!!!!! What an amazing read! So much fun .... and just wow.... this book made me really really think.... This is the kind of book you read and reread... highlighter in hand.
I am SO lucky to have won this book on Goodreads!
September 30, 2016
The perfect book for the Philosopher in you! This book by Steven Shaviro will work your mind and turn your wheels so much, you won't want to put the book down. Questions are asked in this book that still can't be answered today by professionals. This author explores different sides, questions after questions, scenarios after scenarios. This read was amazingly written and very entertaining and thought provoking!
November 1, 2021
gvcgfkgaqejiupuih
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews