Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex. In "Being You", he gives us an update on where cognitive science stands today, trying to unravel how our mind works, and - as the title suggests - what it means to have the impression that you exist as a single conscious being. He starts with the physiology of our brains, and he explains how consciousness can be measured, and how current measuring systems are used to determine whether patients in a coma are in a permanent vegetative state or not. He expands on how our perceptions are formed, often based on a blueprint that we have on the world around us. Even if he goes very far in his description that our reality appears to be a "
controlled hallucination". Granted, our brain does create perceptions that are not always correct, and there are schemata in our minds that help form our perceptions, but if I kick a ball to you and you kick it back, there must be some objective reality to make the interaction possible. Another element that I think is insufficiently explained, is the power of emotions to create a personal narrative, and hence to determine levels of consciousness. Many of the perception and logic of our brain can be replicated in AI and machine learning, but there is only one thing that will give any "self" the energy to think, infer, perceive, deduct and act ... and that's the hungry, lustful, fearful, emotional self that makes things move for the self. In short, you need a body to be fully conscious. Seth does not sufficiently explore this aspect, as if we are all rational beings.
Despite this remaining questions, it is one of the clearest and most comprehensive books on consciousness that I have read in the past years.
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