January 12, 2005
Hacking Consciousness:
Susan Greenfield was on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning, talking about a new 'centre for the mind' at Oxford (apologies if i've got the exact name wrong, but i can't find a web reference) which she will be directing. The centre will carry out cross-disciplinary research into topics like consciousness, and Prof. Greenfield has some well put things to say about the whole topic - you can hear her again here.
Cross-disciplinary studies of consciousness must be a good thing - in the book see "Talk To Yourself" [Hack #61] for an example of some good work done by a philosopher (Peter Carruthers at The University of Maryland), based on the work of psychologists (most notably Elizabeth Spelke at Harvard)
One phrase Susan Greenfield used a couple of times jumped out at me: 'hacking'! "You can't just hack into someone's consciousness", she said. Well, maybe not in the sense she meant it....
