Introduction
This page is meant to be a short introduction, as of July 2014, to a “Western” (by which I mean, kinda Western scientific-y, kinda Western “logical”-ish) approach to consciousness. It makes not mention of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, for example, or Deepak Chopra, or “Western” understanding of “Eastern” approaches to consciousness, taken from, for example, Buddhist philosophy. Organizations
Videos
This TED talk, by the brilliant David Chalmers, coiner of the phrase “the hard problem” and author of (among other books) The Character of Consciousness (2010) was published in July 2014, and sums up where we are today in our understanding of consciousness, through the lens of Western Consciousness Studies: https://youtu.be/uhRhtFFhNzQ
Articles
This article describes two leading ideas vying to explain consciousness from a Western Consciousness Studies perspective, discussed at the Center for Consciousness Studies 20th Annual Conference, in Tucson, Arizona, 2014.
Books
Conversations on Consciousness (2006) / Susan Blackmore
The Hidden Reality (2011) / Brian Greene
Of Two Minds (1998) / Fredric Schiffer
Conferences
Two recent conferences:
Websites
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Consciousness (Entry substantially revised April 2014: see, especially, 5.2, “The explanatory gap.”)