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The Emerging Physics of Consciousness (The Frontiers Collection)

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I think that most of us would agree that consciousness remains one of the major unsolved problems in science. Though there are still some scientists and philosophers who think that it is no more than a grand illusion created by a series of neural reflexes, common sense, personal insight and observation really tell us otherwise.

So how do the feelings and sensations that make up conscious experience arise from the actions of neurons and their associated synaptic and molecular processes? Or is there enough evidence to indicate that the mind is not a product of neural activity, but is instead a universal field that is constrained by the brain?

This fine book proposes that consciousness can be understood using the insights of modern physics and other sciences.

The book is divided into 14 chapters:

1. The path ahead by Jack A. Tuszynski and Nancy Woolf
2. Consciousness and quantum physics: empirical research on the subjective reduction of the state vector by Dick J. Bierman and Stephen Whitmarsh
3. Microtubules in the cerebral cortex: role in memory and consciousness by Nancy J. Woolf
4. Towards experimental tests of quantum effects in cytoskeletal proteins by Andreas Mershin and Hugo Sanabria and John H. Miller and Dharmakeerthna Nawarathna and Efthimios M. C. Skoulakis and Nikolaos E. Mavromatos and Alexadre A. Kolomenskii and Hans A. Schuessler and Richard F. Luduena and Dimitri V. Nanopoulos
5. Physicalism, chaos and reductionism by Alwyn Scott
6. Consciousness, neurobiology and quantum mechanics: the case for a connection by Stuart Hameroff
7. Life, catalysis and excitable media: a dynamic systems approach to metabolism and cognition by Christopher James Davia
8. The dendritic cytoskeleton as a computational device: a hypothesis by Avner Priel and Jack A. Tuszynski and Horacion F. Cantiello
9. Recurrent quantum neural network and its applications by Laxmidhar Behera and Indrani Kar and Avshalom C. Elitzur
10. Microtubules as a quantum Hopfield network by Elizabeth C. Behrman and K. Gaddam and J. E. Steck and S.R. Skinner
11. Consciousness and quantum brain dynamics by Gordon Globus
12. The CEMI field theory: seven clues to the nature of consciousness by Johnjoe McFadden
13. Quantum cosmology and the hard problem of the conscious brain by Chris King
14. Consciousness and logic in a quantum computing universe by Paola Zizzi

Each chapter begins with a brief summary that is most valuable if any of the topics is unfamiliar. Most of the chapters contain some original research data as well as a comprehensive discussion, summary and references.

Virtually all the authors have been widely published elsewhere and this book represents their current views about consciousness. Considering the number of eminent experts in the book, there is a remarkable uniformity of style.

There is some mathematics in a few of the chapters, but nothing too complex.

The intention of the book was clearly to present many different views of the consciousness problem, and as such it succeeds extremely well. It does not come to a final answer, but is instead a summary of where we are in understanding the physics of consciousness.

The book highlights the important fact that consciousness is a highly interdisciplinary issue. We do not have all the answers, but we are asking better questions. And some world-class scientists are finding a way out of the empty impasse of trying to reduce consciousness to an epiphenomenon of neural activity.

The book needs a little understanding of mathematics and the basics of quantum mechanics. But it is otherwise not a difficult read.

If you are interested in consciousness and its interaction with the physical and biological worlds, this is an excellent book that I recommend highly.

The articles involving exposition of scientific progress are pretty good. The articles attempting philosophy are not so good. Some of the authors attempt to impress the reader instead of enlightening the reader.