Not consciousness, but knowledge of consciousness: that is what this book communicates in a fascinating way. Consciousness is the thread that links the disappearing gorilla with the octopus suffering from a stomach ache, and the person under anaesthetic with a new born baby. How these are different, yet illustrative of consciousness, is revealed in this accessible book by one of the world’s leading thinkers and neural computing engineers.

Igor Aleksander addresses this enigmatic topic, by making us understand the difference between what happens to us when thinking consciously and when sort of thinking when dreaming or when not conscious at all, as when sleeping, anaesthetised or knocked out by a blow on the head.

The book also tackles the larger topics of free will, choice, God, Freud (what is ‘the unconscious’?), inherited traits and individuality, while exploding the myths and misinformation of many earlier mind-hijackers. He shares the journey towards building a new model of consciousness, with an invitation to understand 5 axioms or basic ideas, which we easily recognise in ourselves.

  • Igor Aleksander is Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at Imperial College, London. Well established as a skilled and provocative communicator, he addresses both the general reader and the consciousness studies specialist.
    • Table of contents
    Preface
    1 Capturing the Butterfly of Thought
    2 The Five Tests for Being Conscious
    3 Sleep, Dreams and the Unconscious
    4 The Octopus with a Stomach Ache
    5 The Missing Gorilla
    6 Knowing What We Want
    7 Chalmers’ Two Minds
    8 Unfinished Business
    Appendix
    Bibliography
    Index

    "His book makes a welcome change from the cataloguing of neural phenomena and their experiential correlates. It demonstrates that those who advocate the possibility of machine consciousness need not be behaviourists; one need not appeal to a consciousness variant of the Turing test to claim that an artificial system is conscious."  Ron Chrisley, Trends in Cognitive Sciences

    "Aleksander's solid engineering background is evident in the straight-forward flow of this book."  Keith Harris, Metapsychology

    Preface

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