Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jun 26;53(2):251-258.
doi: 10.1080/03036758.2022.2090391. eCollection 2023.

The maturing science of consciousness

Anthony J Lambert  1
Affiliations

The maturing science of consciousness

Anthony J Lambert. J R Soc N Z. .

Abstract

For most of the twentieth century, consciousness was the elephant in the living room of science - we all knew it was there, but no-one wanted to talk about it. Aspirations for a science of consciousness faced an array of formidable philosophical, theoretical and methodological challenges, thought by many to be insurmountable. In recent decades, pessimism has been replaced by increasing optimism, as scholars and researchers from many fields, including psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, AI and evolutionary biology have focused their trans-disciplinary efforts on understanding the enigma of how and why we are conscious of ourselves and the world around us.

Keywords: Bayesian brain; Consciousness; body illusions; cognitive neuroscience; free energy.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

References

    1. Block N, Carmel D, Fleming SM, Kentridge RW, Koch C, Lamme VA, Lau H, Rosenthal D.. 2014. Consciousness science: real progress and lingering misconceptions. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 18(11):556–557. - PubMed
    1. Bruineberg J, Dolega K, Dewhurst J, Baltieri M.. 2022, in press. The emperor's new Markov blankets. Behavioral & Brain Sciences. 1–63. doi:10.1017/S0140525X21002351. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Chalmers DJ. 1996. The conscious mind: in search of a fundamental theory. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. US.
    1. Chalmers DJ. 2007. The puzzle of conscious experience. In: Gertler B, Shapior L, editors. Arguing about the mind. New York, NY: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. p. 15–26.
    1. Chalmers DJ. 2020. Is the hard problem of consciousness universal? Journal of Consciousness Studies. 27(5-6):227–257.

LinkOut - more resources