Nineteen Ways of Looking at Consciousness

Fascinating reflections on consciousness from a variety of perspectives. Definitely a source of many a-ha moments and provocative questions in my consciousness.

<b>The Median Price of a Thrift-Store Bin of Evolutionary Hacks Russian-Dolled into a Watery, Salty Piñata We Call A Head</b>

If that chapter title alone doesn’t intrigue you, you probably shouldn’t bother with this book. And if you’re looking for a detailed scientific exploration of how the brain works, read Sapolsky’s [book:Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst|31170723] instead. But if you’re looking for unusual, thought-provoking, almost poetical musings about what consciousness is, then this is definitely the book for you.

House takes a unique approach to his topic, inspired by a book of translations of a Chinese poem. (Many very different translations, each capturing a different part of the essence of the original.)

He takes one single phenomenon - the ability to make someone laugh by stimulating specific parts of their brain - and then looks at what’s going on in nineteen different ways, presenting different theories of consciousness. The result is not a coherent, homogenous explanation of consciousness. On the contrary, it’s messy, sometimes contradictory, and occasionally confusing. But that’s what makes this book so illuminating. The truth is, we don’t really know how the brain works, how we think, or what consciousness is. We have a lot of ideas which are partially right (to the best of our knowledge, but they will almost certainly be proved wrong at some point), but we don’t actually have any definitive answers.

House makes us think about these different perspectives on consciousness. What’s the difference between human thought and AI? What can human brains teach us about AI, and what can AI teach us about human brains? What’s biological in origin, what’s electrical, and what’s social? What do we mean by self? Or reality, come to that? These are all valid discussions, sometimes covering the same ground, but often offering unique insights into who we are as individuals and as a species.

It's a fairly quick, easy read. It's not too heavy on the science, and it's written with humor. I'd recommend reading a chapter a day, then putting it aside to consider how to assimilate that with everything that's gone before.

<i>I received a free copy from the publisher in return for an honest review.</i>

Entertaining and accessible. A recommended purchase for collection where psychology and pop science books are popular.

I gained a lot of insight from this book on the working of the mind.
I highly recommend reading this book.

This book combines science, philosophy, and poetry in an exploration of the nature of consciousness. Easy to read and understand, it offers more questions than answers.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

Honestly, I thought this book would be an easier read. maybe I requested it on NetGalley because I was in the mood to learn more about myself and the people around me. Whatever the reason, this book is full of interesting suggestions about consciousness based on a girl who suffers from epilepsy and doctors attempting to prevent seizures through her brain tissue.

A variety of comparisons about the world around us and the possibilities of how our brain works and functions are suggested here. Parts of it relates to evolution without mention of creation, a huge turn off for me personally. this made it difficult for me to keep reading, but I pushed through to learn what else this author relates our consciousness to.

Overall, this is an interesting collection of observations and comparisons to the world around us. Each chapter is fairly short and not extremely complicated in the thought process. It has shown me that I should probably stick to fiction stories because this was a lot to take in for leisure reading.

I give this book 4 out of 5 tiaras because there’s no mention of creation whatsoever. I believe our brain functions as it does because of our Creator God, not because of evolution. Without even a mention of this as a possibility is a huge turn off for me.

This book offers a variety of interesting explanations of consciousness. I found the author's ideas interesting, and enjoyed how he tied them together in the last chapter. However, I was left frustrated by how little we really understand consciousness. I would've loved for more scientific studies to be included in the book, but as the author notes, we know much more about the physical properties of the brain than the mechanisms of consciousness. This is a good introductory read for those with an interest in neuroscience, consciousness, and even quantum theory.

Interesting/makes you think: 5/5 stars
This has definitely fundamentally altered the way I think about consciousness and the human brain, and raised a lot of questions I’m looking forward to continuing to explore and think about.

Readability: 2.5/5 stars
It’s not the most well-written book and can just feel a bit confusing at times. Like I had to deconstruct the sentences to understand exactly what was happening. But it wasn’t impossible, and ultimately felt worth it.

How much I trust the facts and takeaways: 3.5/5 stars
The author clearly has deep knowledge of neuroscience and philosophy, and the range of sources, from scientific papers to personal interviews with thought leaders was impressive. I’m not sure if it’s their fault or just my own lack of knowledge of neuroscience, but there were more than a few places where I was like, “huh. I’m not sure about that, I want to dig into that primary source a bit more to see what it says.” Which isn’t a bad thing necessarily. Like I said, this is the type of book that raises a lot of questions for me, and I think most of them are either difficult to answer or actually unknowable, but there’s still value in thinking about them.

House's 19 essays are interesting, full of humor, and nothing like what I expected. The pretense of this book and the ways House looks at consciousness are worth the read, but be warned that this isn't a typical look at the ways the human brain functions or how humans think.
I have recommended this work to others that are interested in look at things from different perspectives.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this dARC in exchange for my honest review.

How can you survey the route of a high-speed train while confined within the train itself? This is the essential dilemma for neurobiologists looking for consciousness in the brain. Our tool for exploration is the very thing we study.

To address this essential limitation, Nineteen Ways of Looking at Consciousness takes a circuitous route, circling around ways of examining consciousness. House uses a variety of mechanisms to approach its subject—stories, metaphors, experiments. Each loop brings us closer to another understanding of consciousness. By turns poetic, philosophical, and humorous, it is always thought-provoking.

Some of my favorite ways were near the end — the sense of consciousness as sculptor and sculpture, for example. This is a book to read slowly and cogitate on.