How Many People Are There In My Head?
And In Hers?

Jonathan C.W. Edwards

228 pages £17.95/$39.90 1-84540-072-0 (pbk.) September 2006
 

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  • Table of Contents
  • Introduction (sample chapter)
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    How Many People Are There in My Head? makes the proposal that the only possible solution to the 'mind-brain' problem is that each nerve cell is conscious separately and that we have no other 'global' consciousness. We are colonies of sentient micro-organisms, each, unaware of the sentience of the
    others, led to believe that it is 'me'. Despite being counterintuitive and disquieting this idea may resolve several paradoxes hidden in the closets of brain research laboratories. The idea is explored in an accessible, matter of fact, and at times irreverent manner, but nevertheless attempts to address
    fundamental issues of cell membrane biology and the nature of the observer, which may run deeper than the quantum/classical divide.

    Jonathan C.W. Edwards is a professor of medicine at University College London.

    "Dr. Edwards presents a fascinating, no-holds-barred discussion of how consciousness may arise in the brain. His unconventional idea that consciousness
    may be a property of single cells is thought-provoking and deserves very careful consideration."
    Stephen Goldberg, MD, Professor Emeritus, University of Miami School of Medicine, author, Consciousness: How The Mind Arises From The Brain.

    "Edwards challenges dominant ideas to the effect that awareness relates to the complexity of the brain or intercellular interaction. Most of all the book points
    to the need for conceptual innovation in this domain. It is also full of sparkling insights on language and what we might call the physics of thought, and may
    well help to open up a domain of research on the origin of the semantics of our subjective world in a wave-based as opposed to atomistic universe."
    Professor Wolfram Hinzen, University of Durham.