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For Seekers of Scientific Knowledge: Arne Dietrich's Introduction to Consciousness

Arne Dietrich, associate professor of psychology and chair of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at AUB, has recently published Introduction to Consciousness, an introductory textbook on the exciting field of human consciousness. Published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2007, the textbook decidedly is written in a most lucid and approachable style.

Drawing on all major disciplines that make up the study of consciousness, be they neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, or philosophy, and, given its strong emphasis on empirical evidence, Dietrich's book is designed as a single-volume overview of the field of consciousness. Acclaimed as one of the best introductions on consciousness available to seekers of scientific knowledge, Dietrich's book presents the most exciting scientific research on consciousness and ties it in with various cognitive hypotheses, which underscore emphasis on the interdisciplinary aspect of contemporary research on consciousness from the mid-1980s.

Much like other topics like the nature of matter and the origin of life, once exclusively centered in the domain of philosophy, the study of consciousness has become the domain of a large number of disciplines, such as neuroscience, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and psychology. Not surprisingly then, writes Dietrich, the new "tools of the trade" are also different in kind and wide in range, including microelectrodes, knock-out mice, computer simulations, brain scanners, clever questionnaires, electron microscopes, and monoclonal antibodies, among others. Dietrich therefore argues that today's students of consciousness, if they are to prosper, need to seek scientific, empirical knowledge in a number of scholarly disciplines, need to know the "nuts and bolts" of artificial neural networks, and find their way around a lab.

While the aim of the book was to keep to a minimum the neck-breaking mental gymnastics students must perform when trying to grapple with the implications of contemporary philosophical literature, Professor Dietrich admits that mapping "all the new and exciting scientific hubbub" his research on consciousness unearthed was quite a grueling process. He sifted for nearly two tedious years through staggering mountains of data in tens of professional journals, like Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, Neuroscience and Bio-behavioral Reviews, and even Pain, closely scrutinizing what could "possibly emerge from the three-pound, mushy pile of electrified biochemistry inside [our] cranium." The result is this textbook, a methodical, if self-admittedly slightly irreverent, trip through the hinterland of the mind, complete with an up-to-date map of the nervous system-neuroland.