The meaning of consciousness / Andrew Lohrey ; foreword by N. Katherine Hayles.
Series: Studies in literature and science
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Ann Arbor
Language: eng
Number of pages: 302
Subjects: Consciousness.; Symmetry.
Description: Working from a new nonrationalist, nonmaterialist framework, Andrew Lohrey breaks with the habits of reasoned materialism that sustains "objective" approaches to consciousness to avoid the typical question of how consciousness arises from matter and instead asks how matter arises from consciousness.

Furthermore, he proposes the consciousness has three general contexts: a holistic context involving cosmic consciousness from which have physical world emerges; the context of involving cosmic consciousness from which the physical world emerges; the context of individual subjectivity, which is a structural reflection of cosmic meaning; and the context of discourse, the manifestation of a cultural consciousness, which emerges from the context of subjectivity.

Lohrey discloses the symmetrical organization and semantic structure of these three "layers," uniquely linking the physical to the metaphysical, science to spirituality, biology and psychology to semantics, and all knowledge to subjectivity.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 293-298) and index.
Table of contents: title: Approaches and methods; title: Types of relations; title: Nonsymmetrical emergence; title: Substance and subjectivity; title: Meaning and consciousness; title: Freud and Matte-Blanco; title: Paradigms of consciousness; title: Awareness and creativity; title: The unity of mind and body; title: The isomorphic sign; title: Signifiers and signifieds; title: Discourse; title: Coda.