Matter and Consciousness

Preface to the 1988 Edition

Preface to the 1988 Edition I have been much gratified by the kind reception given the first edition of this small book, especially where it concerned the sections on neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence . As it happens, these sections are the focus of most of the changes and additions in the revised edition. The motive for change is the dramatic progress that continues to be made in these disciplines and their expanding relevance to issues in the philosophy of mind. These research results bear directly on questions such as: what are the basic elements of cognitive activity? How are they implemented in real physical systems? And how is it that living creatures perform some cognitive tasks so swiftly and easily, where computers do them only badly or not at all? A central conviction of the first edition was that issues in the philosophy of mind are not independent of the theoretical and experimental results of the natural sciences. That view has not changed. But developments in the sciences have. This new edition attempts to make some of the more striking of these results accessible and intelligible to a wider audience. Their philosophical significance, as I see it, lies in the support they tend to give to the reductive and the eliminative versions of materialism. But my opinion is only one of many alternatives. I invite you to make your own judgment. ...