Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind

This was a quick read, a relatively short book and very readable. It felt like an extended essay on the topic of consciousness, a fast-paced overview of a very fascinating topic. It raised a lot of thought-provoking questions, exploring and investigating them without providing answers. It wasn't trying to provide answers, and that's okay -- answers to questions like this seem to be on the edge between science and spirituality, and it's pleasant and inspiring to sit on that edge and dangle your feet over the abyss. I really enjoyed the book, and it whet my appetite for more reading on this subject.

This small book is packed with a very readable and very sane mental stroll through the concept of consciousness by an author who is clearly familiar with the literature (indeed, much through discussions with the published leaders in the field). However, the book peters out, wondering whether consciousness might be going “along for the ride.”Let’s see where the book could have gone had the adaptive value of consciousness been considered. What’s the advantage of consciousness / sentience? It seems that consciousness / sentience, defined as having experiences, is intimately linked with feelings / caring about what happens / motivation, etc. Once the “wiring” is established creating a motivation center (we know it’s occurred at least once), inputs are assessed as being on a scale from positive (rewarding) through neutral to negative (punishing) based on survival / reproductive value. Agents with such a motivation center that assigns values to events (sets of bound inputs, hence experiences, see p. 47) are likely to outperform agents that don’t (i.e., automatons).For routine tasks there’s no advantage to being motivated (i.e., to care what happens), but for situations out of the ordinary it can be crucial. This ability to care (to be motivated, to be rewarded or punished), when coupled with a decision-making executive that takes in relevant inputs from lower hierarchical levels, allows much better decisions than the preprogrammed actions of an automaton. Consciousness/sentience gives the agent a stake in the outcome, hence better performance. This is why there are scads of business management seminars on motivating employees—caring employees function better than automatons, especially in unusual situations where a decision can be made by an executive function based on a set of values. That’s what managers do—focus on the relevant inputs and make the tough decisions based on the values of the organization.Since decisions are made hierarchically (smaller decisions being taken care of at lower levels), it isn’t clear whether or not an agent may have multiple levels of consciousness. A probable axiom of consciousness is that an agent can only be aware of only one self, one executive.Rapid progress is being made in understanding consciousness; and this book, while incomplete, offers a solid start.

I enjoyed this book, though it wasn't exactly what I expected. I thought it would simply be a review of the current thinking around consciousness- what it is, what causes it, etc. It definitely had some of that, but it also had an agenda, to provide evidence that consciousness is not something that is separate and unique to each individual life-form (human or possibly otherwise), and that consciousness and the mind/brain are two separate systems coexisting. I was not disappointed by the sort of bait-and-switch, and might have purchased the book knowing more clearly what I was getting. Some of her examples really knocked my thinking for a loop, and I enjoyed that. I definitely had to chew on some of it. In the end, she convinced me to believe something I'd been butting heads with for a long time, but couldn't quite get settled about.I wished it were a bit longer; it was like being given a taste of icing but not being allowed to have any cake. I wanted more, or at least more time engaging with the subject, and it kind of felt like she introduced another line of thought at the end, then quickly wrapped things up and ran. I hope she'll write a sequel and spend more time fleshing things out, and go further with it. But make it clearer what the book is about so people can choose more appropriately.

The first 3/4 of this book comes fast and provides insights to consciousness I had never considered. For context I'm a middle-aged father, husband and engineer. Psychology and philosophy have interested me all my life. The chaos of our own decisions and social interactions fascinates me. So I read a lot about it in books such as this intended for the non expert like me. The first half of this book is very good at setting the framework for a discussion. Truly an excellent bit of writing. The next quarter goes heavy on boundary of where consciousness begins/ends. It illustrates the spectrum of perception as reality and experience as the indicator... It doesn't propose an answer after identifying the holes in the expert community current thinking. The book just ends with last 25% being the references.All I'm left with is a framework, the holes in the prevailing wisdom and the reminder that my inability to meditate to a level where I grasp the moment leaves me .... small.

High-quality science, Harris goes deep and wide in a vast range of areas in order to collect valuable evidence to support (or break down if that's the case) the theories and hypotheses towards what consciousness is and might be responsible for. One key ingredient to it is the aim to defy intuition and bring about the possibility that no one is willing to take a chance in. If you're in psychology (or else) and have an open mind, this is a "must read and understand" kinda book!

En excelente resumen de las principales filosofías al abordar la conciencia. Me encantó.

Great read. Thought provoking. The material, for a novice like myself, the material is presented in such a way that it is "understandable". Having said that, one comes away from the book with many questions one didn't even know needed to be asked.....clearly a success. Well done.

With an easy way Annaka share with us the main question and concerns on consciousness. She is able to takeaway different theories and summarize where we are on the science of consciousness. Like a good film looks like to be continued. A big thanks to Annaka Harris

One of the best books on conciousness I've read, and I've read a few. Crisp, concise and comprehensive.Lends a ton of clarity to an otherwise highly cryptic subject.