Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul
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From one of the most original and influential neuroscientists at work today, here is an exploration of consciousness unlike any other—as told by Galileo, who opened the way for the objectivity of science and is now intent on making subjective experience a part of science as well.
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Galileo's journey has three parts, each with a different guide. In the first, accompanied by a scientist who resembles Francis Crick, he learns why certain parts of the brain are important and not others, and why consciousness fades with sleep. In the second part, when his companion seems to be named Alturi (Galileo is hard of hearing; his companion's name is actually Alan Turing), he sees how the facts assembled in the first part can be unified and understood through a scientific theory—a theory that links consciousness to the notion of integrated information (also known as phi). In the third part, accompanied by a bearded man who can only be Charles Darwin, he meditates on how consciousness is an evolving, developing, ever-deepening awareness of ourselves in history and culture—that it is everything we have and everything we are.
Not since Godel, Escher, Bachhas there been a book that interweaves science, art, and the imagination with such originality. This beautiful and arresting narrative will transform the way we think of ourselves and the world.
Liked Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul? Here’s where I’d start.
These suit anyone who liked Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.
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Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist Shares science, neuroscience, philosophy -
Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter Shares science, philosophy, neuroscience -
Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us About Morality Shares science, neuroscience, philosophy -
Touching a Nerve: Our Brains, Our Selves Shares science, philosophy, neuroscience
“People who read Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul tend to reach for these next.”
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The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning
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The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain from Vienna 1900 to the Present
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Being No One: The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity
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Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are
