A fascinating exploration of the human brain that combines the leading edge of consciousness
science with surprisingly personal and philosophical reflection . . . shedding light on how
scientists really think this is science writing at its best (Times Higher Education).In which a
scientist searches for an empirical explanation for phenomenal experience spurred by his
instinctual belief that life is meaningful.What links conscious experience of pain joy color
and smell to bioelectrical activity in the brain? How can anything physical give rise to
nonphysical subjective conscious states? Christof Koch has devoted much of his career to
bridging the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the physics of the brain and phenomenal
experience. This engaging book part scientific overview part memoir part futurist speculation
describes Koch s search for an empirical explanation for consciousness. Koch recounts not only
the birth of the modern science of consciousness but also the subterranean motivation for his
quest his instinctual (if romantic ) belief that life is meaningful.Koch describes his own
groundbreaking work with Francis Crick in the 1990s and 2000s and the gradual emergence of
consciousness (once considered a fringy subject) as a legitimate topic for scientific
investigation. Present at this paradigm shift were Koch and a handful of colleagues including
Ned Block David Chalmers Stanislas Dehaene Giulio Tononi Wolf Singer and others. Aiding
and abetting it were new techniques to listen in on the activity of individual nerve cells
clinical studies and brain-imaging technologies that allowed safe and noninvasive study of the
human brain in action.Koch gives us stories from the front lines of modern research into the
neurobiology of consciousness as well as his own reflections on a variety of topics including
the distinction between attention and awareness the unconscious how neurons respond to
HomerSimpson the physics and biology of free will dogs Der Ring des Nibelungen sentient
machines the loss of his belief in a personal God and sadness. All of them are signposts in
the pursuit of his life's work to uncover the roots of consciousness.
