The mystery of consciousness: ISOP seminar at the University of Pretoria

On 13 May 2025, the Interdisciplinary School of Psychology (ISOP) held a seminar in the University of Pretoria’s Merensky Library Auditorium at Hatfield Campus.

The event explored the topic, ‘The mystery of consciousness: you are your brain, you are without your brain, or you have a brain’, which aligns with the themes of Prof. Pieter Craffert’s latest book, The fabric(ation) of consciousness: A neuro-ecological perspective (Cape Town: AOSIS Books, 2024).

The book is available via open access at https://doi.org/10.4102/aosis.2024.BK500. Read a brief summary of the respondents.

Funder: University of Pretoria, South Africa

Book synopsis

Consciousness is central to the quest for being human and for what the world is made of. While there is widespread agreement on the significance of consciousness for clarifying the human condition, there is no agreement on the phenomenon in search of theorising. Although there is no shortage of theories and concepts of consciousness in current consciousness research, the dominant critical analysis of consciousness research in this study, although based on existing analyses, is (as far as I can see) new and unique in arguing for a crisis in consciousness research.

This book touches on most aspects of consciousness research (the hard problem of conscious-ness, neural correlates of consciousness, brain models and consciousness, consciousness and dualistic thinking, etc.) but is a critical analysis of consciousness research. It is not an insider but a third-person perspective on current consciousness research. In this regard, it differs from most introductions and overviews where these topics are presented from a first-person perspective (the insiders’ claim about their research). Representing the broad spectrum of consciousness research in terms of the theoretical framework of a neuro-ecological perspective is a new and innovative move.

Read the open-access book here.