Publisher's Synopsis
One of Jim Al-Khalili's Top 10 Science books
I read this book as a student and have been a fan of the American philosophy Dan Dennett ever since. In this book he lays out a logical and persuasive case for the emergence of consciousness from the basic laws of physics. His thesis is not accepted by all consciousness researchers, but it is well worth a read even today, three decades after he wrote it.
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In Consciousness Explained, Daniel C. Dennett reveals the secrets of one of the last remaining mysteries of the universe: the human brain.
Daniel C. Dennett's now-classic book blends philosophy, psychology and neuroscience - with the aid of numerous examples and thought-experiments - to explore how consciousness has evolved, and how a modern understanding of the human mind is radically different from conventional explanations of consciousness.
What people think of as the stream of consciousness is not a single, unified sequence, the author argues, but 'multiple drafts' of reality composed by a computer-like 'virtual machine'.
Dennett explains how science has exploded the classic mysteries of consciousness: the nature of introspection, the self or ego and its relation to thoughts and sensations, the problems posed by qualia, and the level of consciousness of non-human creatures.
'Brilliant ... a torrent of stimulating thought' Richard Dawkins
