The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
Christof Koch
Aug 2020 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Patrick Lawlor
5.0star
1 reviewreport
headphones
Audiobook
7 hr 34 min
Unabridged
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
Want a 49 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline.
Add
About this audiobook
Psychologists study which cognitive operations underpin a given conscious perception. Neuroscientists track the neural correlates of consciousness in the brain, the organ of the mind. But why the brain and not, say, the liver? How can the brain, three pounds of highly excitable matter, a piece of furniture in the universe, subject to the same laws of physics as any other piece, give rise to subjective experience? Koch argues that what is needed to answer these questions is a quantitative theory that starts with experience and proceeds to the brain. In The Feeling of Life Itself, Koch outlines such a theory, based on integrated information. Koch describes how the theory explains many facts about the neurology of consciousness and how it has been used to build a clinically useful consciousness meter. The theory predicts that many, and perhaps all, animals experience the sights and sounds of life; consciousness is much more widespread than conventionally assumed. Contrary to received wisdom, however, Koch argues that programmable computers will not have consciousness. Even a perfect software model of the brain is not conscious. Its simulation is fake consciousness. Consciousness is not a special type of computation-it is not a clever hack. Consciousness is about being.
Ratings and reviews
5.0
1 review
About the author
Christof Koch is President and Chief Scientist of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, following twenty-seven years as a professor at the California Institute of Technology. He is the author of Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist, and The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach.
Patrick Lawlor has recorded over three hundred audiobooks in just about every genre. He has been an Audie Award finalist multiple times and has garnered several AudioFile Earphones Awards, a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award, and many Library Journal and Kirkus starred audio reviews.
Rate this audiobook
Tell us what you think.
Listening information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
