Tuning the body

You may know that in the last few years there has been an explosion of interest in the study of mind. In particular, there has been a blossoming of studies of consciousness, of the subjective aspects of our mental lives, of experience. Much of this work has been interdisciplinary. How could it not be? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, not to mention linguists, mathematicians, roboticists – and yes, artists have been getting in to the act.

What is striking is that whereas for years consciousness lacked respectability as a topic – this was the influence of behaviorism and linguistic analysis – consciousness has now become respectable again. Some of the enthusiasm for consciousness studies is driven by philosophy, by new philosophical approaches. And some of it is driven by technology. In the last decades new imaging technologies have emerged that make it possible to begin to theorize about the neural basis of experience in the brain. Before the emergence of these technologies – CAT, PET, MRI – autopsy was basically the only way to bring the brain into view.
The imaging studies raise their own problems though. Just what do these computer generated pictures tell us about the ...