Customer Reviews

An intriguing book on the tremendously elusive subject of consciousness. - By: Philip Mayo, 20 Jun 2008
Two of the most fundamental & ever-present characteristics of the reality that we experience as human beings are that of "consciousness" & that of "free will". Both of these concepts we find extremely difficult to define, or even to think about for very long without putting our minds into tailspin.

On consciousness we may ask such things as: What makes me, "me", & you, "you"? Is it a spiritual soul that makes me, "me"? If not, then what is it? Why am "I" not "you"? I can talk to myself - who, or what, is this "I" that is talking to "myself"? Is my dog conscious? How about my cat? My goldfish? If not, why not?

On free will, which we instinctively feel that we have - & which mankind has accepted as being the basis for both our religious & temporal accountability for the actions that we take - we find that if we logically try to pin down the concept of free will, that to maintain it we must relinquish the law of cause & effect. Do we have a choicein what we decide to do? Do we actually decide at all? If every effect must have a cause (which seems reasonable) then free will does not exist. If everything that happens, including what we do, is an inevitable (although tremendously complex) outcome of a cause & effect chain, then how could we have done otherwise? And if that is true then how can we be held morally responsible, either from a religious or temporal point of view, for that which we inescapably had to do? And if I insist that I do have free will, then, does my dog have free will? My goldfish??

In an extremely interesting book Professor Aleksander attempts to take the subject of consciousness back into the scientific world. His work involves some fundamentally new approaches:

1> He suggests that as the world of consciousness lies within ourselves that any investigation of it must be based on consideration of one's own consciousness. In his case, that means from within himself. In my case, from within myself. In your case, from within yourself. This is a fundamentally subjective approach to the investigation of consciousness which is at odds with the normal rules of objectivity demanded by scientific analysis & experimentation. But there is no other way to proceed with this subject other than from within oneself. I think his decision to adopt this subjective method works well & does not undermine his overall analysisin any way.

2> From within himself he seeks to define his own consciousness, & by extension all consciousness,in terms which he describes as axiomatic. He defines features which he suggests must be present if the subject being considered is to be attributed the characteristic of consciousness. He settles on five such features, which he calls axioms, & says that if those axioms are presentin the subject being considered then that subject is conscious. He makes it clear that the present extent of this axiomatic approach to definition is not presented as being finalin content, but as being a beginning of an innovative scientific methodin which to deal with this super-elusive concept.

3> His view is that consciousnesses is not a "thing" such as a leg, or an arm, but an emergent property of the physical operation of the brain. For instance, when we "see" things, this involves the retina of the eye converting the photons of light which fall on it into electrical & chemical signals which are then transmitted to the brain via the optic nerves, which is followed by the reaction of the brain to these signals on a physical level, firing stupendous numbers of neuronsin extraordinarily complex ways, resultingin the image that we "see" of the outside world. The key thoughtin this is that there is no "little man" inside our brainin some tiny cinema looking at the final image produced by the brain's activity as described above. This activity does not PRODUCE an image. The activity itself IS THE IMAGE. In the same way Professor Aleksander's theory holds that the physical activity of the brainin its workings to produce thoughts, ideas, sounds, sights & everything else, is not an activity that produces a result that is then considered by a separate conscious part of us. His view is that this neuronal activity itself IS THE CONCIOUS PART OF US.

4> Finally: is my dog conscious? Is my goldfish conscious? The professor argues that this can be so if we can show that the five axiomatic characteristics apply. More intriguingly he argues that while immense scientific obstacles standin the way of developing a conscious machine, that they are problems of scale & not of principle. Is it theoretically possible to build a conscious machine? Yes, he says, absolutely possible theoretically. I must say that I agree with him.

This is a fascinating book which makes more progress discussing the tremendously difficult concept of consciousness than I have read elsewhere to date. And free will isin there too.

On a slightly negative note I found his writing style a little heavy, perhaps morein the style of a written lecture than I would have liked. And it is a complicated readin places. I had to skim some of the more theoretical passages as to how things might work physically at brain-neuron level, but still took away from those sections the gist of his thoughts. Other parts of the book, most of it, I found absolutely riveting. As the professor himself notes, this is clearly not the last word on the subject. But it certainly points to a new way of looking at things.

By the way, my dog is definitely conscious. I bet you believe that yours is too. What about the goldfish?