This is a very helpful explanation of some of the weird questions about consciousness and self. I give it a good rating, but I think it utterly fails in making the point Ms. Blackmore wants to make.

It seems to me this is one of the better arguments for dualism that I've ever read.

She starts with purely materialistic assumptions, mentioning but quickly ruling out any dualistic answers, and comes to conclusions that can't possibly be right.

In the end she says we have to rule out the ideas that "experiences happen to someone" or that experiences flow through the conscious mind as a stream of ideas, etc.

The problem is that I'm more sure of those things than I am of almost anything else. So if her assumptions and methods lead to those conclusions, I have to reject her assumptions and methods. (Of course that assumes she has reasoned correctly, which may not be the case -- so I'm not arguing for dualism.)

The book reminds me a bit of a conversation I had with a Buddhist philosophy teacher in college who said that those who have attained enlightenment have realized that they are one with the universe, and that there is no distinction between them and others.

I asked who put their shoes on in the morning, which seemed to confuse him, so I explained that neither the universe nor he nor I put their shoes on them. They did it themselves, which shows that this "I'm one with the universe" stuff is self-delusional bunk.

Seems to me that Blackmore has decided to hitch her brain to a set of assumptions that lead to insanity, and rather than rejecting the assumptions, she's chosen to live with insanity.

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