Antti Revonsuo
Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience
University of Skövde, Sweden; Professor of Psychology, University of Turku, Finland
Profile – Antti Revonsuo (b. 1963)
As an undergraduate in psychology and philosophy, Antti Revonsuo wrote his thesis on how science-fiction stories present such traditional philosophical problems as soulless zombies and machine consciousness. From research on the cognitive deficits of neuropsychological patients he moved into philosophy for a PhD on consciousness, combining philosophy, neural mechanisms, and ASCs. He has posts at both the University of Turku in Finland and the University of Skövde, Sweden. As a Harry Potter fan, he claims to use Professor Dumbledore’s Elderwand as a pointer but we cannot confirm rumours that he was once a visiting professor at Hogwarts, specialising in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Revonsuo is best-known for his evolutionary theory of dreaming as threat simulation, and his advocacy of the dreaming brain as a model for understanding consciousness. He describes himself as a ‘biological realist’, and believes that consciousness is a higher level of biological organisation in the brain. In future he plans to work more on visual consciousness and anaesthesia.
More biographical information
Profile for Interalia Magazine
University of Skövde page
Selected publications relevant to consciousness
Kallio, S., and Revonsuo, A. (2003). Hypnotic phenomena and altered states of consciousness: a multilevel framework of description and explanation. Contemporary Hypnosis, 20, 111–164. Peer commentaries in Contemporary Hypnosis (2005), 22(1), 1–55. Paywall-protected journal version here. Full-text PDF (final version, target article only) here.
Revonsuo, A. (1999). Binding and the phenomenal unity of consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition, 8, 173–185. Paywall-protected journal record here. Direct PDF download (final version) here.
Revonsuo, A. (2000). The reinterpretation of dreams: An evolutionary hypothesis of the function of dreaming. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23(6), 877–1121 (incl. peer commentaries and author’s response). Paywall-protected journal record here. Direct PDF download (final version, incl. commentaries and response) here.
Revonsuo, A. (2009). Binding problem. In T. Bayne, A. Cleeremans, and P. Wilken (Eds), The Oxford companion to consciousness (pp. 101–105). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Books preview here.
Revonsuo, A., Kallio, S., and Sikka, P. (2009). What is an altered state of consciousness? Philosophical Psychology, 22(2), 187–204. Paywall-protected journal record here. Direct PDF download (final version) here.
Revonsuo, A., and Tarkko, K. (2002). Binding in dreams: The bizarreness of dream images and the unity of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9(7), 3–24. Paywall-protected journal record here.
Video
The hard problem. CONy World Congress on Controversies in Neurology, Athens, March 2017