The World Behind the World
Consciousness, Free Will, and the Limits of Science
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
From a Forbes 30 Under 30 scientist comes a fascinating exploration into how the brain creates our conscious experiences—potentially revolutionizing neuroscience and the future of technology—transforming the very fabric of our society.
Throughout history, two perspectives on the world have dueled in our minds: the extrinsic—that of mechanism and physics—and the intrinsic—that of feelings, thoughts, and ideas. The intrinsic perspective allows us to tell stories about our lives, to chart our anger and our lust, to understand our psychologies. The extrinsic allows us to chart the physical world, to build upon it, and to travel across it. These perspectives have never been reconciled; they almost seem to exist on different planes of thought. Only recently, due to the pioneering work of DNA-discoverer Francis Crick, have these two perspectives been conjoined.
This attempt to reconcile these perspectives is the science of consciousness, and posits that the intrinsic aspect of the world, how and what we perceive, can coexist in the extrinsic part of the world, in the realm of physics. The World Behind the World is a grand tour of the state of this science, an exploration of the point where tectonic metaphysical forces meet, often in paradoxical conclusions.
Dr. Erik Hoel lays out the evidence that nothing in the brain makes sense except in the light of a theory of consciousness. Some topics he examines include what the similarities are between our brains and black holes; where consciousness fits into physics and morality; and why it may be impossible for AI to ever become conscious, despite popular belief.
What does the science of consciousness tell us about what happens beyond brain death? Does our understanding of consciousness strengthen or weaken the case for free will? Is science itself incomplete in the way Gödel showed mathematics is? By taking us through the heated debates of the field and drawing on Hoel’s own original research to shed light on the latest theories about how the brain creates consciousness, The World Behind the World shows us that at long last, science is coming to understand the fundamental mystery of human existence.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Neuroscientist Hoel (The Revelations) serves up a challenging overview of the science of consciousness, exploring how the tension between "intrinsic" and "extrinsic" perspectives has shaped debate for millennia. Defining the intrinsic perspective as "the frame we take on when discussing the events that occur only within the mansions of our minds," Hoel traces this strain of thinking from ancient Egypt, where inscriptions suggest people "lacked good language for the subtleties of the mind," to modernist novels primarily concerned with characters' feelings and thoughts. By contrast, the extrinsic perspective views the mind "as consisting of machinery, mechanisms, formal relationships," and was pioneered by Galileo in a 1623 manifesto that argued science should focus on "what can be measured and counted." Delving into current research on consciousness, the author discusses how inconclusive neuroimaging research attempting to match patterns of brain activity to specific mental states has thwarted proponents of the extrinsic view, and notes that scientists are studying whether measuring the brain's response to electromagnetic stimulation might provide a falsifiable test of consciousness. The history intrigues, but the jargon-heavy discussions of contemporary neuroscience are hard to follow ("At the macroscale, the COPY = 0 is counterfactually dependent on α = 0"). The result is a mixed bag.
