jmiguel25

[jmiguel25]

How do molecules, cells, neurotransmitters, and other brain “stuff” create the abstract experience of self-awareness? Despite massive breakthroughs in the field of neuroscience over the last century, this question continues to baffle both scientists and philosophers. In his new book, The Consciousness Instinct: Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind (Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2018), Michael Gazzaniga, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and director of the university’s SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind, examines what he refers to as this “problem of consciousness.” And, he notes, the fact that the word “consciousness” means different things to different people and is influenced by personal, cultural, and religious stories adds yet another layer to the complexity of the problem. “There wasn’t even a word to talk about our current subjective experience until Descartes began using the word around the late 16th century,” Gazzaniga says.