[.ca] A Universe Of Consciousness How Matter Becomes Imagination (ISBN 0465013775)

From Amazon.com:
Emily Dickinson wrote "The Brain--is wider than the Sky," and who can argue with that? Quoted by Nobel-winning scientist Gerald M. Edelman and his Neurosciences Institute colleague Giulio Tononi in A Universe of Consciousness, Miss Emily 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 A Universe of 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 on 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 jump-start is sure to provoke a flurry of experimental and theoretical responses; A Universe of Consciousness might just help us answer some of the greatest questions of science, philosophy, and even poetry. --Rob Lightner

Good science, bad philosophy:
Very interesting, indeed; an easy tale of the marveluos brain, for the begginer. On the other side, philosophical problems are poorly treated, despite the fact that the authors intend to bring out a conclusion on items open since thinking began....Nor Spinoza, nor Wittengestein (both cited in the book) could breach the bridge between matter and thinking, and pointing out the marvelous numbers involved in brain structure or functionality does not solve the problem: how matter "is", or "become" thinking. It does not seem to be a matter of numbers, there is no conclusive answer for that in the history of philosophy. It is a pitty that the autors feel so confident on their conclusions. I strongly recommend its reading, and not only because that ancient problem can be seen again within the studies of the brain structure and functionality: it seems to me a fine book.

Breaks new ground:
The title quotes A. Damasio from the front cover. In my view Gerald Edelman has the best theory of consciousness there is, by far. It is strongly grounded in biology, evolution, the nature of the brain and nervous system. Firstly, consciousness is not a thing, it's a process. Consciousness is private, unified, and informative. It is private because no two are alike and its workings are dependent on its own history. It is unified or integrated because it arises from a variety of sources, e.g. the different senses and a body which provides a built-in value system. The unified integration is the result of global, reciprocal mappings among diverse groups of neurons. It is informative and highly differentiated because of these various sources. Conscious awareness arises from a lot of unconscious processing, along the lines of information theory (a branch of mathematics) with importance to the organism driving what is selected. Edelman holds there are two levels of consciousness -- primary and higher-order. The primary level generates a mental scene with much diverse information for the purpose of directing present or near-term behaviour. It includes perceptual categorization, but no sense of self or use of language. Other animals have it, too. Higher-consciousness is built atop the primary level, includes a sense of self, awareness of a past and future, and language capability. It is supported by the evolutionary newer structures of the brain. It gets pretty technical at times. There is quite a bit about the brain and neural processes. Information theory is introduced. An earlier book, The Remembered Present, might be a better introduction to his work. In any case, A Universe of Consciousness is founded on his previous works, but adds a lot more. It is a mighty blend of a firm empirical ground and a highly integrated and coherent theory.

A scientific explanation of consciousness and its properties:
This is a very important book. Although the authors recognize that there is still awfully much tot do, their analyses and hypotheses are a big step forward in our understanding of consciousness. It is certainly not an easy book. One should have a basic knowledge of the constitution and the working of the brain. I, personally, would have liked more concrete examples, like those for instance in the book of C.J. Lumsden and E.O. Wilson 'Promethean Fire'. This book doesn't explain how consciousness arises, but what it is (properties) and how it works. Consciousness is not a thing or a property, but a process (of neural interactions). One of the reviewers here compares consciousness to a car. But a car is a thing, not a process. Consciousness is a private, integrated, coherent, differentiated, informative, continually changing process. The authors make also the opportune distinction between primary (animal, unconscious) and higher-order consciousness (the ability to be conscious of being conscious). Crucial for the authors are re-entrant interactions, degeneracy (recategorical memory), and a part of the brain 'the dynamic core' (a subset of neuronal groups responsible for consciousness). The dynamic core provides then a rationale for distinguishing conscious processes from unconscious ones (e.g. the circuits that regulate blood pressure). This book shows clearly that the brain is not a computer and that it doesn't work as a computer program or algorithm. It has also very important philisophical consequences, which the authors summarize as follows: being is prior to describing, selection is prior to logic and doing is prior to understanding. I also fully agree with the authors that Darwin's theory is the most ideologically significant scientific theory ever written. Although this book is rather technical, it should not be missed by those interested in the real nature of the conscious process. I should also recommend the work of V. Ramachandran 'Ghosts in the Brain', for its multiple examples of (un)conscious behaviour and its philosphical implications (the body/mind problem).

The Universe of Dr. Edelman:
How does matter become imagination? How could consciousness arise as an emergent property of complex brains. This is by far the most exciting question one can ask ( at least in my opinion). It's a quest set by the unified collective brain in order to understand itself on lower hierarchial levels. The authors do a marvelous job in overviewing the philosophical history and implications of such a question. It is extremely enlightening to read through the first few chapters and get a feel of how significant the question is and where the "knot is tangeled" In the next few chapters, the authors present their hypotheses on this issue, with some real mathematical tools to test them. They also bring about some results that support their hypotheses. I found the concept of a "functional cluster" along with the statistical models that describe it extremely novel and creative. Reading this book was a great experience for me. A source of insipration I would say. A few things I found a bit unsatisfying were: 1.Reentry as a solution for the binding problem-- I thought this was merely speculative in nature 2.Untangling the knot-- It hasn't been untangled! Actually the authors say it all throughout this book: Describing something does not give any clue on how it results in subjective, first person, experience However, I still found it a great book. I would recommend reading it along with Dr. Crick's work

Interesting, intelligent work that aims a bit too high:
There is no doubt in my mind, after reading this book, that the authors have done excellent scientific work and made very interesting discoveries. On the other hand, it has certain problems. To start with, it seems clear that they do not have a full grasp of the philosophical problems they are attempting to resolve - or if they do, they avoid going into the stickier points. This is not necessarily a reason to condemn the book; there are huge volumes of philosophy on this subject, and it would be futile to try and fit a quick resolution into one small volume already full of other facts. Nonetheless, they probably should have avoided the philosophical aspect entirely if all they were going to do is attack the mind/body problem in a way that arguably does nothing but shift the terms around a bit to produce the appearance of a resolution. There is essentially nothing new here, philosophically, and they certainly had more than enough interesting material for a book without attempting this. A second thing that disappointed me is the lack of contrasting points of view. It seems unfair to ask an author to present a summary of theories which argue against his own, but in fact it's in the best interest of an author/scientist. What are the points of contention between theories, and what are the alternate explanations? This gives the author an ideal chance to explain why their theory is superior, what it has that the others lack... and in turn it gives the reader the chance to be convinced (or not) by the force of the argument, which is always more intellectually satisfying than being led by the nose. Stylistically, also, it could have used a bit of revision. Long, complex sentences are fine (great, even) for something like Proust. When you populate those sentences - even if they're perfect grammatically - with large and generally unfamiliar scientific terms, it can be quite awkward. This happened just frequently enough to be a nuisance, as far as I was concerned. So, apart from these criticisms, the subject material is still interesting. I would be inclined, however, to look for a more recent title by these authors (or others) on the subject. A lot can be discovered in a few years, and hopefully the experience they gained in writing this book will help them produce a work with a bit more polish.