Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination (Penguin Press Science) [Paperback]

Emily Dickinson wrote "The Brain--is wider than the Sky", and who can argue with that? Quoted by Nobel-prize-winning scientist Gerald M Edelman and his Neurosciences Institute colleague Giulio Tononi in Consciousness, Dickinson neatly explains the problem of conscious awareness, then ducks out of the way as the two scientists get to work solving it. Testable theories of consciousness are mighty lonely, as even the soberest mind can be driven to tears of madness pondering its own activity. Centuries of work by philosophers and psychologists like James and Freud have made little progress by starting with awareness and working backward to the brain; these days we have a secure enough base to try looking in the other direction and building a theory of the mind out of neurons.

Though Edelman and Tononi do make a good effort to help out the lay reader, ultimately Consciousness is aimed at the interdisciplinary gang of scientists and academics trying to understand our shared but invisible experience. The first sections of the book cover the basic philosophical, psychological, and biological elements essential to their theory. Swiftly the authors proceed to define terms and concepts (even the long-abused term "complexity" gets a reappraisal) and elaborate these to create a robust, testable theory of the neural basis of consciousness. Following this hard work, they consider some ramifications of the theory and take a close look at language and thinking. This much-needed jumpstart is sure to provoke a flurry of experimental and theoretical response;Consciousness might just help us answer some of the greatest questions of science, philosophy, and even poetry. --Rob Lightner --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"Praise for Gerald Edelman: "The new Darwin...His theory is an enrichment of life itself" - Oliver Sacks, The Times"

What goes on in our heads when we have a thought? With this book, Edelman and Tononi present an empirically-supported full-scale theory of consciousness. They apply all of the resources and insights of modern neuroscience, from the largest computermodels ever constructed to new experiments that detect the changes in brain activity. This pioneering work represents a landmark in our growing understanding of consciousness. Praise for Gerald Edelman: "The new Darwin...His theory is an enrichment of life itself" - Oliver Sacks, The Times

Nobel Laureate Gerald M Edelman is Director of the Neurosciences Institute and President of the Neurosciences Research Foundation. He lives in California. Giulio Tononi is a Senior Fellow in Theoretical and Experimental Neurobiology at the Neurosciences Institute.