“The father of cognitive neuroscience” illuminates days gone by, present, and future of the mind-brain problem

Just how do neurons become minds? So how exactly does physical “stuff”―atoms, substances, chemicals, and cells―create the stunning and different worlds inside our mind? The issue of consciousness offers gnawed at us for millennia. Within the last century there were massive breakthroughs that have rewritten the technology of the mind, and yet the puzzles faced by the historic Greeks are still present. In The about The Awareness Instinct: Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind Awareness Instinct, the neuroscience pioneer Michael S. Gazzaniga places the latest analysis in discussion with the annals of human thinking about the mind, giving a big-picture view of what technology has revealed about awareness.

The idea of the brain being a machine, first proposed centuries ago, has resulted in assumptions about the relationship between mind and brain that dog scientists and philosophers to this day. Gazzaniga asserts that this model offers it backward―brains make devices, but they can’t be reduced to 1. New study suggests the mind is truly a confederation of unbiased modules working together. Understanding how consciousness could emanate from such an organization will help define the future of brain research and artificial intelligence, and close the difference between mind and mind.

Captivating and accessible, with insights drawn from an eternity in the forefront of the field, The Awareness Instinct pieces the program for the neuroscience of tomorrow.