The maturing science of consciousness

摘要

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 In recent decades, pessimism has been replaced by increasing optimism, as scholars and researchers from many fields, including psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, AI and evolutionary biology have focused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.