On the Routledge Handbook of Consciousness

This is a reasonably good collection of essays on consciousness, made up mostly of philosophical perspectives but with a fair amount from cognitive science and adjacent fields. It’s divided into sections, and the meatiest are Part 2, “Contemporary Theories of Consciousness,” and Part 3, “Major Topics in Consciousness Research.” Part 2 is genuinely interesting for the range of theories, which run the gamut from physicalist to idealist, some of them even panpsychist (Integrated Information Theory among them). The trouble with consciousness is that we don’t even seem to have a starting point. We have ideas, senses, intuitions, and most thinkers these days lean physicalist — the firing of motor neurons somehow gives rise to “what it’s like” to be or do something — but idealist interpretations have grown in popularity over the past decade or two, which is a curious turn. The last section, on major topics, is especially interesting, with chapters on animal consciousness, robot consciousness, comas and near-death experiences, experiments, dreaming, agency, time, meditation, and more. Some of the chapters flew right over my head, and I’d have gotten more out of the book had I read some other introductions first; it seems most suitable for early graduate students in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, and maybe late undergraduates.