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Consciousness: Confessions Of A Romantic Reductionist (2012)

by Christof Koch(Favorite Author)

4.02 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0262017490 (ISBN13: 9780262017497)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

The MIT Press

review 1: In general the book is alright. It's well-written pop-science. For those acquainted with much of the literature the added value can be somewhat limited, but for those who want to know where the neuroscientists and psychologists of consciousness are at, it is a great read. He is witty and nicely combines it with his personal life (hence the confessions in the subtitle).****I loved chapters 8 and 10 best. In 8 he explains his and Tononi's theory/framework of consciousness with phi as quantification and property dualism integrated with information theory. To be honest: it seems by far the most accurate framework I have come across.The requirements for it are as follows: "a theory of consciousness must be descriptive and prescriptive, and quantify consciousness, linking specif... moreic facets of neyroanatomy and physiology to qualia, and explain why consciousness wanes during anesthesia and sleep and the use of it to the organism."The theory they propose is the theory of integrated information: It proposes that information needs to be both (1) extraordinarily differentiated (spread out over multiple regions) and (2) highly integrated. "Any conscious experience is a monad, a unit - it cannot be subdivided into components that are experienced independently.Formalized it means that "the quantity of conscious experience generated by any physical system in a particular state is equal to the amount of integrated information generated by its parts. The system must discriminate among a large repertoire of states (differentiation) and must do so as apart of a unified whole, one that can't be decomposed into a collection of causally independent parts (integration)." (126)Any system can be conscious: it is another aspect of the physical world. However, the more a system meets those two requirements, the more likely it is to be meaningfully conscious (my interpretation).The theory has a lot going for it. The parallel with vitalism can be drawn and it seems to fit everything quite well. The problem it has is that actually measuring phi is a bitch. Early accurate framework so to say, but not fully developed. Still reallly really cool theory.The other chapter which I really liked was the 10th chapter, on which he wrote on his personal life. I really liked a lot of his observations on God, although I disagree with his conclusion, as I would disconnect spirituality and the strict ontological question if God exists and how (if at all) s/he would intervene in the world. Spirituality has meaning for me. Religion can aspire greater ethics (at least for me personally), which he does grant. Even though I don't share the final conclusion, most of the steps seem rather valid. And I think it's great he writes this stuff down and is honest about it.
review 2: Koch's personal journey through the study of consciousness helps give life to some of the more (often repeated) trivial examples of experimental psych that attempt to lend some answers to the big questions about human thought. With a sense of humanity present and good everyday examples, this book can be a powerful tool of enlightenment regarding the nature and perhaps cause of consciousness. Koch's neuroscientist side is always tempered by his "romantic" tendencies and he approaches the subject that he has mastered as a student and without dogma. Highly recommended to anyone curious about the human (and possibly canine - have to read the book) consciousness. less

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