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Prospects for the Scientific Observer of Perceptual Consciousness

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The Psychobiology of Consciousness

Abstract

It would seem that the prospects for the “scientific observer” of brain and behavior are excellent, given the extraordinary advance of twentieth-century science. Until the level of investigation descends to the quantum domain, where peculiar difficulties in observation arise (Bohm, 1951), there do not appear to be clear-cut conceptual barriers that limit the scientific observation of brain and behavior and the concomitant advance of empirical knowledge about them.

We are perceivers. We are an awareness; we are not objects; we have no solidity. We are boundless. The world of objects and solidity is a way of making our passage on earth convenient. It is only a description that was created to help us. We, or rather our reason, forget that the description is only a description and thus we entrap the totality of ourselves in a vicious circle from which we rarely emerge in our lifetime.

—Carlos Castaneda (1974)

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© 1980 Plenum Press, New York

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Globus, G., Franklin, S. (1980). Prospects for the Scientific Observer of Perceptual Consciousness. In: Davidson, J.M., Davidson, R.J. (eds) The Psychobiology of Consciousness. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-3456-9_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-3456-9_15

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4684-3458-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4684-3456-9

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