352 pages
English language
Published March 14, 2021 by Penguin Publishing Group.
What does it mean to “be you”—that is, to have a specific, conscious experience of the world around you and yourself within it? There may be no more elusive or fascinating question. Historically, humanity has considered the nature of consciousness to be a primarily spiritual or philosophical inquiry, but scientific research is now mapping out compelling biological theories and explanations for consciousness and selfhood.
Now, internationally renowned neuroscience professor, researcher, and author Anil Seth is offers a window into our consciousness in BEING YOU: A New Science of Consciousness. Anil Seth is both a leading expert on the neuroscience of consciousness and one of most prominent spokespeople for this relatively new field of science. His radical argument is that we do not perceive the world as it objectively is, but rather that we are prediction machines, constantly inventing our world and correcting our mistakes by the microsecond, and that we …
What does it mean to “be you”—that is, to have a specific, conscious experience of the world around you and yourself within it? There may be no more elusive or fascinating question. Historically, humanity has considered the nature of consciousness to be a primarily spiritual or philosophical inquiry, but scientific research is now mapping out compelling biological theories and explanations for consciousness and selfhood.
Now, internationally renowned neuroscience professor, researcher, and author Anil Seth is offers a window into our consciousness in BEING YOU: A New Science of Consciousness. Anil Seth is both a leading expert on the neuroscience of consciousness and one of most prominent spokespeople for this relatively new field of science. His radical argument is that we do not perceive the world as it objectively is, but rather that we are prediction machines, constantly inventing our world and correcting our mistakes by the microsecond, and that we can now observe the biological mechanisms in the brain that accomplish this process of consciousness.
On first reading, it felt like an interesting survey of the state of thinking on the nature of consciousness, but when I went back over it I realized that the survey-like nature of it means that the explanations don't have enough space to really be satisfying. It did inspire me to revisit philosophy of mind, so there's that, but in the end I don't think I got as much out of the book as I'd hoped.
Excellent book that presents a good overview of the state of the field and a compelling but yet to be confirmed theory of consciousness.
Exceptional: a lucid and thought-provoking dive into consciousness
This is the first book I have read on consciousness that remains grounded in a plausible scientific way of thought throughout. Others I have read jump off the deep end of 'and now magic happens'.
Seth is very good at laying out the landscape of current theories, and then clearly stating his own view. I find his theory that consciousness is deeply connected with our perception of internal the state of the body compelling and at least as plausible as any other.
The ideas come thick and fast in several chapters, but are always presented with great clarity.
Exceptional: read it.
I'm a bit unsure about this book. It's on a subject that's really interesting philosophically and that I'm curious about as a neuroscience fan. I'm sure I learned things from it and it feels like the author is really knowledgeable about the subject, but the book ended on a few things I disagreed with and that kind of ruined the impression of the whole thing.
Mostly I felt like the author explained the AI threat, and then dismissed it because it's unlikely for AI to have gained consciousness in the authors view, despite just having explained the difference between consciousness and intelligence, and, in my opinion, the threat from AI comes from intelligence, consciousness not required. As a minor complaint is the very ending of the book that sort of allows for some sort of mysticism, again, despite having spent almost the entire book explaining how consciousness arises from our …
I'm a bit unsure about this book. It's on a subject that's really interesting philosophically and that I'm curious about as a neuroscience fan. I'm sure I learned things from it and it feels like the author is really knowledgeable about the subject, but the book ended on a few things I disagreed with and that kind of ruined the impression of the whole thing.
Mostly I felt like the author explained the AI threat, and then dismissed it because it's unlikely for AI to have gained consciousness in the authors view, despite just having explained the difference between consciousness and intelligence, and, in my opinion, the threat from AI comes from intelligence, consciousness not required. As a minor complaint is the very ending of the book that sort of allows for some sort of mysticism, again, despite having spent almost the entire book explaining how consciousness arises from our meat brains.
And maybe I'm not a good enough listener, or maybe because of these last two disagreements, I don't feel like I understood quite clearly what are statements about consciousness that the author feels derives from current research and what are open questions or the authors intuitions.
