![]() "Nobody has thought more deeply, originally or poetically about animal sentience and the notion of consciousness. It will fascinate general readers and inspire academic researchers." - Keith Frankish, author of Mind and Supermind Sentience is a beautifully written book, full of engaging vignettes, original ideas, and intriguing suggestions. Nicholas Humphrey is such a person, and in his new book he cements his claim to be one of the most insightful writers on this notoriously difficult topic. "It takes a special kind of person to write illuminatingly about consciousness - a person who is not only steeped in cognitive science, biology, and philosophy, but also has a fertile imagination, an openness to new ideas, and a sensitivity to the richness and variety of experience in humans and other animals. His excellent book will challenge you to think about nature's deepest and most personal mystery in a new and thoroughly enlightening way." - Anil Seth, author of Being You ![]() Humphrey combines a fascinating, often surprising, and occasionally hilarious scientific autobiography with a raft of well justified ideas about what it takes for an organism to be sentient. "A compelling treatise on the evolution of consciousness from one our finest psychologists. And for now, but not necessarily for ever, so are man-made machines. Invertebrates, such as octopuses and bees, for all their intelligence, are in this respect unfeeling zombies. Contrary to both popular and much scientific opinion, he argues that phenomenal consciousness is a relatively recent evolutionary innovation, present only in warm-blooded creatures, mammals and birds. His conclusions, on the evidence as it stands, are radical. Building on this theory of how phenomenal consciousness is generated in the human brain, he turns to the morally crucial question of whether it exists in non-human creatures. Out of this, he has come up with an explanation of conscious feeling - 'phenomenal consciousness' - that he presents here in full for the first time. In this extraordinary book, weaving together intellectual adventure, cutting-edge science, and his own breakthrough experiences, he tells the story of his quest to uncover the evolutionary history of consciousness: from his discovery of blindsight after brain damage in monkeys, to hanging out with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, to becoming a leading philosopher of mind. Nicholas Humphrey has been researching these issues for fifty years. But is it only humans who feel this way? Do other animals? Will future machines? To answer these questions we need a scientific understanding of consciousness: what it is and why it has evolved. They are essential to our idea of ourselves as psychic beings: present, existent, and mattering. Conscious sensations ground our sense of self. Oxford Research Encyclopedias: Global Public Health.The European Society of Cardiology Series.Oxford Commentaries on International Law.
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