A Universe Of Consciousness How Matter Becomes Imagination [Paperback]

This book doesn't explain how consciousness arises, but what it is (properties) and how it works.
Consciousness is not a thing or a property, but a process (of neural interactions).
One of the reviewers here compares consciousness to a car. But a car is a thing, not a process.
Consciousness is a private, integrated, coherent, differentiated, informative, continually changing process.
The authors make also the opportune distinction between primary (animal, unconscious) and higher-order consciousness (the ability to be conscious of being conscious).

Crucial for the authors are re-entrant interactions, degeneracy (recategorical memory), and a part of the brain 'the dynamic core' (a subset of neuronal groups responsible for consciousness).
The dynamic core provides then a rationale for distinguishing conscious processes from unconscious ones (e.g. the circuits that regulate blood pressure).

This book shows clearly that the brain is not a computer and that it doesn't work as a computer program or algorithm.
It has also very important philisophical consequences, which the authors summarize as follows: being is prior to describing, selection is prior to logic and doing is prior to understanding.

I also fully agree with the authors that Darwin's theory is the most ideologically significant scientific theory ever written.

Although this book is rather technical, it should not be missed by those interested in the real nature of the conscious process.

I should also recommend the work of V. Ramachandran 'Ghosts in the Brain', for its multiple examples of (un)conscious behaviour and its philosphical implications (the body/mind problem).

In my view Gerald Edelman has the best theory of consciousness there is, by far. It is strongly grounded in biology, evolution, the nature of the brain and nervous system. Firstly, consciousness is not a thing, it's a process. Consciousness is private, unified, and informative. It is private because no two are alike and its workings are dependent on its own history. It is unified or integrated because it arises from a variety of sources, e.g. the different senses and a body which provides a built-in value system. The unified integration is the result of global, reciprocal mappings among diverse groups of neurons. It is informative and highly differentiated because of these various sources.

Conscious awareness arises from a lot of unconscious processing, along the lines of information theory (a branch of mathematics) with importance to the organism driving what is selected.

Edelman holds there are two levels of consciousness -- primary and higher-order. The primary level generates a mental scene with much diverse information for the purpose of directing present or near-term behaviour. It includes perceptual categorization, but no sense of self or use of language. Other animals have it, too. Higher-consciousness is built atop the primary level, includes a sense of self, awareness of a past and future, and language capability. It is supported by the evolutionary newer structures of the brain.

It gets pretty technical at times. There is quite a bit about the brain and neural processes. Information theory is introduced. An earlier book, The Remembered Present, might be a better introduction to his work. In any case, A Universe of Consciousness is founded on his previous works, but adds a lot more. It is a mighty blend of a firm empirical ground and a highly integrated and coherent theory.