The Emergence of Consciousness: A New Framework for Self-knowledge

How can we know what "our self" is, without knowing what "the self" is, and how can we understand what the self is, without understanding consciousness? To lay a foundation for a new approach to self-knowledge, Malabar tackles the job of demystifying consciousness and the self with a new framework and methodology that he invented for modeling emergence. The visual framework, which is rooted in complexity science, is used to synthesize information from fields as diverse as neuroscience, psychology, computer science, and linguistics, into simple models of the different forms of consciousness that emerge in four separate domains, and the methodology, to interpret and connect these models in a way that tells the story of their emergence.

In benchmarking the emergence of consciousness "now," in each of the four domains, the author renders an analysis of the effects of this modern age (e.g. technology, wealth, advertising, Hollywood) that shows clearly that the emergence of human consciousness is now in our hands, and that there is at this moment in our history, an urgent need to develop new tools, techniques, and programs for self-knowledge.

To conclude, Malabar introduces the overall research project of applying science and technology to self-knowledge for which this book lays the foundation.