LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Consciousness: Mind
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Consciousness is Lycan's most ambitious book, one that has engaged his attention for years. He handles a fascinating subject in a unique and undoubtedly controversial manner that will make this book a mainstay in the field of philosophy of mind.
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Many scientists remain convinced that even if questions about self-consciousness are empirically tractable, no amount of experimentation can provide access to phenomenal consciousness in nonhuman animals. This remains true even among those scientists who are willing to invoke cognitive explanations of animal behavior that advert to internal representations. Opposition to dealing with consciousness can be understood as a legacy of behavioristic psychology first because of the behaviorists' rejection of terms for unobservables unless they could be formally defined, and second because of the strong association in many behaviorists' minds between the use of mentalistic terms and the twin bugaboos of Cartesian dualism and introspectionist psychology (Bekoff & Allen 1997). In some cases these scientists are even dualists themselves, but they are strongly committed to denying the possibility of scientifically investigating consciousness, and remain skeptical of all attempts to bring it into the scientific mainstream.
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Even if introspective consciousness is limited, it may be epistemologically interesting as an especially reliable means of access within its domain. Many philosophers have thought that introspective access to mental facts is more reliable than access to other empirical facts. Augustine writes in On the Trinity that ‘nothing can be more present to the mind than the mind itself’ (X, iii, 5), and asks rhetorically, ‘what is so intimately known as the mind, which perceives that it itself exists and is that by which all other things are perceived?’ (VIII, vi, 9; cf. Curley (1978:173)). Descartes devotes his Second Meditation to an argument that the mind is ‘better known’ than the body, and Locke ... claims that our knowledge of ‘Things without us’ is ‘not altogether so certain, as our intuitive Knowledge’ (1689, p.631; IV, XI, 3). As with completeness, most subsequent philosophers reject the infallibility of introspection, although many would agree that it is relatively reliable.
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The task of understanding consciousness is an equally diverse project. Not only do many different aspects of mind count as conscious in some sense, each is ... open to various respects in which it might be explained or modeled. Understanding consciousness involves a multiplicity not only of explananda but also of questions that they pose and the sorts of answers they require. At the risk of oversimplifying, the relevant questions can be gathered under three crude rubrics as the What, How, and Why questions:
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Al’s book “Stairway to the Mind” is the classic work on emergence of consciousness, and his last book “The nonlinear universe” will appear later this year. Al is survived by his loving wife Lynn MacNeill, daughter Leila and sons Emmon and Alwyn Jr.
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The more you become aware of your consciousness, the more you become conscious and aware of its power, and can utilize its power. Calmness, peace of mind, freedom from anxiety and worry, inner strength and happiness are some of the by-products of becoming conscious and aware of your inner consciousness.
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