A review by jmcphers
Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness by Alva Noë
Did not finish book.
Let me start by being perfectly honest. I'm a Christian, and I also like books about the brain and physics. This can be challenging, because from a scientific standpoint it sort of looks like there is nothing that suggests that our consciousness is anything besides an accidental side-effect of evolution, a sort of humming generated by the chemical impulses swirling around our forebrains. I was hoping to find out (yes: I can hear it now, the whole chorus of you, frowning upon me for seeking out evidence for an already arrived-upon conclusion) that scientific evidence itself suggests that there is something more to what makes us us than mere brain activity.
Alva's arguments, however, have nothing to do with metaphysics and everything to do with the definition of consciousness itself. This was why, while the book was fascinating, I also found it ultimately unfulfilling. He succeeds in demonstrating that a solid definition of consciousness (as he puts it: that the world shows up for us) must not limit itself to brain activity. But he does so with arguments that sometimes don't seem to follow logically until you read them two or three times, and even then seem questionable. One is left with the feeling that he has redefined what is meant by consciousness to encompass a larger picture of our experience in the world, and then triumphantly shown that according to this definition consciousness requires a world and our interaction with it.
It's a good book if you're interested in the definition of consciousness, and also a good book if you like to read interesting studies of sensory substitution and other such tricks that try to tease out its essence. But I can't wholeheartedly recommend it on the merit of its premise.
Alva's arguments, however, have nothing to do with metaphysics and everything to do with the definition of consciousness itself. This was why, while the book was fascinating, I also found it ultimately unfulfilling. He succeeds in demonstrating that a solid definition of consciousness (as he puts it: that the world shows up for us) must not limit itself to brain activity. But he does so with arguments that sometimes don't seem to follow logically until you read them two or three times, and even then seem questionable. One is left with the feeling that he has redefined what is meant by consciousness to encompass a larger picture of our experience in the world, and then triumphantly shown that according to this definition consciousness requires a world and our interaction with it.
It's a good book if you're interested in the definition of consciousness, and also a good book if you like to read interesting studies of sensory substitution and other such tricks that try to tease out its essence. But I can't wholeheartedly recommend it on the merit of its premise.