Being You: A New Science of Consciousness

“It’s a book about the nature of consciousness, one of the most intractable problems that human beings have come across. How do we understand how we, as apparently material beings made of flesh and bone—and, in particular, millions of neurones—get to the position of having qualitative experience, through the experience of the world through our senses, reflection and experience? Beautifully written, easy to read, hard to put down. It’s passionate, and it’s not patronising.” Read more...

The Best Philosophy Books of 2021

Nigel Warburton, Philosopher

“One of the big challenges of consciousness science, which is methodological: how do we get the relevant data? The tricky thing about consciousness is that its mode of existence is intrinsically subjective. This has been suggested as a reason why a science of consciousness is—optimistically—very difficult or—pessimistically—actually impossible because we can’t directly, publicly observe conscious experiences. This means that it’s difficult to get data about the experiential qualities, or qualitative aspects of consciousness, even from humans. And it’s even more difficult when it comes to other animals: we can’t speak to them and ask them complicated questions about what’s going on for them. But this doesn’t mean that they don’t have conscious experiences, I think they very likely do. A question that often gets asked here is: Does consciousness fade out gently as you get towards simpler and simpler animals? Or is there a bright line that demarcates the circle of consciousness? I think the more interesting question—rather than which other animals are conscious or not—is what the space of other minds might be like.” Read more...

Best Books on the Neuroscience of Consciousness

Anil Seth, Scientist