The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Norretranders does a thorough, thoughtful, and excellent job explicating what may be revolutionary ideas about consciousness. True: he tends to repeat the same thought as many as four times in a row to make sure the reader understands a new concept; but this annoying habit does help convince the reader of a number of unfamiliar ideas that are often the opposite of common sense.Norretranders tends to build his concepts one on top of the other, chapter by chapter, leading to what one expects to be a final tying-up of what consciousness really is, with clues as to how we might modulate our actions using this new information.But he doesn't wind up where he seems to be going. Starting with a theory of how consciousness is a kind of summary of millions of bits of information reduced to a mere handful, he ends up by luxuriating poetically in a warm and fuzzy vision of sublime peace and brotherhood.Along the way to this disappointing conclusion, he splits the function of the brain into two parts, which he calls the "I" and the "me."The "I" is the source we take to be our focus of attention and "will." But through an extensive discussion of the work of (and private letters and conversations with) the pioneer neuroscientist Benjamin Libet, Norretranders argues that the "will" is an illusion (like an icon on a Macintosh computer, it is a "user illusion"). We actually start doing things, he claims, before we "want" to do them. We merely assume that we "wanted" to do what we just did. Norretranders's (and Libet's) inference from this theory is that "free will" can exercise nothing more substantial than veto power.Norretranders's "me," on the other hand, is a kind of glorified noble savage made up of all the input that travels through the brain, the vast majority of which remains unconscious. (It is like the flow of electrons that eventually condense into a computer screen icon.)This division of the brain's functioning into two parts reminds one of the recently fashionable "dichotomania" that divided the brain into "left-brain" and "right-brain" thinking. It turned out (Norretranders recounts) that the brain's structure is far more complicated than such a dichotomy will allow. It may be that Norretranders's "I" and "me" division will turn out to be an equally naive notion; and that the true divisions of the conscious-unconscious brain are more than two, and more complicated than Norretranders makes out.Where do those moments belong that we sense but don't pay attention to, then are able to recall seconds later when we realize their importance? (For example, crossing a street and not "really" hearing an automobile horn until we realize too late that it was honking at us!) Are those preliminary moments "conscious," "unconscious," "preconscious," examples of short-term memory, dreams, or a combination of many elements?Where is the grandeur of consciousness when appreciating great art or beauty? Norretranders would classify such moments (which he calls "sublime") as property of the unconscious "me"; and would relegate moments of "I"-consciousness downward toward the awkward self-conscious fidgets that embarrass a stage actor who forgets his lines. This dichotomy seems backwards and anti-intellectual.Finally, the use of "I" and "me" to label parts of a dichotomy is unfortunate in that those words are parts of speech, one a subject and one an object. Consciousness can't really be divided that way.Despite these arguments, the book remains an essential one for anyone who's interested in the subject of consciousness; certainly as important as Pinker's or Dennett's recent works.

This book starts out with eye-opening facts about the history of information theory and its relation to consciousness. This first section takes some concentration to get through, but it's necessary for the next section that explains the nature of consciousness itself. This part of the book is utterly fascinating and often mind-blowing. You'll be shocked to find out how your mind works, and how you previously and certainly weren't aware that it worked like THAT! The last section is disappointing, though, in that the author makes conclusions based on the flimsiest of evidence regarding the evolutionary history of human consciousness. It gets almost gobbledygooky new-agey. But the first parts of the book are founded on hard-won research, and those parts alone (if you haven't read about the original research elsewhere) are worth the price of the book many times over.

I had the opportunity to read the Swedish translation "Märk världen" a year ago when I got the book as a present. It is very pleasant to see the English edition and to know that this wonderful book is reaching an even wider audience!.

"Märk världen" is a book full of scientific facts, and observations on the human mind; all very successfully put in an enjoyable narrative way, and in many passages wrapped in a nice sense of humor...