The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
By: Christof Koch
3.92
Format: 280 pages, Hardcover
Koch describes how the theory explains many facts about the neurology of consciousness and how it h…
Want to Read $ 17.99"To bring home the centrality of consciousness to life, consider a devil’s bargain in which you gain unlimited wealth at the expense of your conscious experiences. You get all the money you want but must relinquish all subjective feeling, turning into a zombie. From the outside, everything appears normal—you speak, act, dispose of your vast riches, engage in a vigorous social life, and so on. Yet your inner life is gone; no more seeing, hearing, smelling, loving, hating, suffering, remembering, thinking, planning, imagining, dreaming, regretting, wanting, hoping, dreading. From your point of view, you might as well be dead, for it would feel the same—like nothing."-Christof Koch, The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
"Mind-as-software is an unspoken background assumption that needs no justification. It is as obvious as the existence of the devil used to be. For what is the alternative to mind-as-software? A soul? Come on! In reality, though, mind-as-software and its twin, brain-as-computer, are convenient but poor tropes when it comes to subjective experience, an expression of functional ideology run amok. They are more rhetoric than science. Once we understand the mythos for what it is, we wake as from a dream and wonder how we ever came to believe in it. The mythos that life is nothing but an algorithm limits our spiritual horizon and devalues our perspective on life, experience, and the place of sentience in time's wide circuit."-Christof Koch, The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
"Their [personal digital assistants] siren voices are living proof of our times - that our mind is software, running on the computer that is our brain. Consciousness is just a couple of clever hack away. We are only meat machines, no better, and increasingly, worse, than computers. According to the more triumphalist voices in the tech industry, we should revel in our soon-to-come obsolescence; we should be grateful that Homo Sapiens will have served as a bridge between biology and the inevitable next step in evolution, superintelligence. Smart money in Silicon Valley thinks so, op-ed pieces proclaim it to be so, and sleek sci-fi flicks reinforce this poor man's Nietzschean ideology. Mind-as-software is the dominant mythos of liquid modernity, of our hyper-individualized, glove-trotting, technology-worshipping culture. It is the one remaining mythos of an age that believes itself immune to mythology. An age whose elite is witnessing with incomprehension and indifference the dying struggle of the once all-powerful mythos that sustained the West for two millennia - Christianity."-Christof Koch, The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
"Purkinje cells are among the most elaborate of all neurons; the cerebellum maps the body and outside space onto its tens of billions of neurons. Yet none of this seems sufficient to generate consciousness. Why not? Important hints can be found within its highly stereotyped, crystalline-like circuitry. First, the cerebellum is almost exclusively a feedforward circuit. That is, one set of neurons feeds the next one that , in turn, influences a third one. There are few recurrent synapses that amplify small responses or lead to tonic firing that outlasts the initial trigger. While there are no excitatory loops in the cerebellum, there is plenty of negative feedback to quench any sustained neuronal response. As a consequence, the cerebellum has no reverberatory, self-sustaining activity of the type seen in cortex. Second, the cerebellum is functionally divided into hundreds or more independent modules. Each one operates in parallel, with distinct, nonoverlapping inputs and outputs. What matters for consciousness is not so much the individual neurons but the way they are wired together. A parallel and feedforward architecture is insufficient for consciousness."-Christof Koch, The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
If you liked the nonfiction plot in The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed by Christof Koch , here is a list of 20 books like this:
1. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
By: Nick Bostrom
3.50
Format: 192 pages, Hardcover
Superintelligence asks the questions: What happens when machines surpass humans in general intellig… read more
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2. Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
By: Neil deGrasse Tyson
4.51
Format: 192 pages, Paperback
Loyal readers of the monthly "Universe" essays in Natural Historymagazine have long recognized Neil… read more
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3. Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
By: Peter Godfrey-Smith
3.66
Format: 32 pages, Hardcover
A philosopher dons a wet suit and journeys into the depths of consciousness Peter Godfrey-Smith is … read more
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4. God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning
By: Meghan O'Gieblyn
4.27
Format: None pages, Audible Audio
A meditation on what it might mean to be human in an age of ever-accelerating technology. read more
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"As black-box technologies become more widespread, there have been no shortage of demands for increased transparency. In 2016 the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation included in its st…"-Meghan O'Gieblyn, God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning
5. Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
By: Robert M. Sapolsky
4.25
Format: 528 pages, Hardcover
One of our great behavioral scientists, the bestselling author of Behave, plumbs the depths of the … read more
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"I’m being diplomatic. Many readers will know of the “replication crisis"-Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
"Obviously, imposing these classifications on determinism, free will, and moral responsibility is wildly simplified. A key simplification is pretending that most people have clean “yes"-Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
"You cannot decide all the sensory stimuli in your environment, your hormone levels this morning, whether something traumatic happened to you in the past, the socioeconomic status of your parents, you…"-Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
6. Being You: A New Science of Consciousness
By: Anil Seth
4.10
Format: 352 pages, Hardcover
Being You is not as simple as it sounds. Somehow, within each of our brains, billions of neurons wo… read more
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7. Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control
By: Stuart Russell
4.06
Format: 352 pages, Hardcover
A leading artificial intelligence researcher lays out a new approach to AI that will enable us to c… read more
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"To get just an inkling of the fire we're playing with, consider how content-selection algorithms function on social media. They aren't particularly intelligent, but they are in a position to affect t…"-Stuart Russell, Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control
8. A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence
By: Jeff Hawkins
4.06
Format: 288 pages, Hardcover
An author, neuroscientist, and computer engineer unveils a theory of intelligence, of understanding… read more
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"To avoid hallucinating, the brain needs to keep its predictions separate from reality."-Jeff Hawkins, A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence
"Unlike species which often disappear as new ones appear, the brain evolved by adding new parts on top of the older parts."-Jeff Hawkins, A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence
"It is human nature - aka old brain - to suspect everyone wants to steal your idea, where the reality is that you are lucky if anyone cares about your idea at all."-Jeff Hawkins, A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence
"Reference frames in the old brain learn maps of environments. Reference frames in the what columns of the neocortex learn maps of physical objects. Reference frames in the where columns of the neocor…"-Jeff Hawkins, A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence
9. From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds
By: Daniel C. Dennett
3.77
Format: 477 pages, Paperback
How did we come to have minds? For centuries, poets, philosophers, psychologists, and physicists ha… read more
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"Comprehension is not the source of competence or the active ingredient in competence; comprehension is composed of competences."-Daniel C. Dennett, From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds
"That's a rhetorical question, and trying to answer rhetorical questions instead of being cowed by them is a good habit to cultivate."-Daniel C. Dennett, From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds
"We Homo sapiens are the only species (so far) with richly cumulative culture, and the key ingredient of culture that makes this possible is language."-Daniel C. Dennett, From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds
"Don’t be afraid of a little metaphor; it won’t bite you, but you should always make sure you know how to cash it in for unvarnished fact when you feel the urge."-Daniel C. Dennett, From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds
10. How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers)
By: Epictetus
4.11
Format: 173 pages, Hardcover
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"A companion's crudeness is bound to rub off on the one he is with, no matter how refined that person may be."-Epictetus, How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers)
"Don't we recall that no one does injury or benefit to another, but that the cause of each of these things is a judgement."-Epictetus, How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers)
"Don't ask for things to happen as you would like them to, but wish them to happen as they actually do, and you will be all right."-Epictetus, How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers)
"But to myself all predictions are favorable if I wish them to be, since it is up to me to benefit from the outcome, whatever it may be."-Epictetus, How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers)
11. The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
By: Christof Koch
3.92
Format: 280 pages, Hardcover
Koch describes how the theory explains many facts about the neurology of consciousness and how it h… read more
Want to Read $ 17.99Similar categories in Christof Koch's The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed book and Christof Koch's The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
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"To bring home the centrality of consciousness to life, consider a devil’s bargain in which you gain unlimited wealth at the expense of your conscious experiences. You get all the money you want but m…"-Christof Koch, The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
"Mind-as-software is an unspoken background assumption that needs no justification. It is as obvious as the existence of the devil used to be. For what is the alternative to mind-as-software? A soul? …"-Christof Koch, The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
"Their [personal digital assistants] siren voices are living proof of our times - that our mind is software, running on the computer that is our brain. Consciousness is just a couple of clever hack aw…"-Christof Koch, The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
"Purkinje cells are among the most elaborate of all neurons; the cerebellum maps the body and outside space onto its tens of billions of neurons. Yet none of this seems sufficient to generate consciou…"-Christof Koch, The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
12. Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind
By: Annaka Harris
3.83
Format: 144 pages, Hardcover
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "If you’ve ever wondered how you have the capacity to wonder, some fas… read more
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13. The Experience Machine
By: Andy Clark
3.93
Format: 320 pages, Hardcover
A grand new vision of cognitive science that explains how our minds build our worldsFor as long as … read more
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14. Bland Fanatics: Liberals, the West, and the Afterlives of Empire
By: Pankaj Mishra
3.87
Format: 218 pages, Hardcover
A wide-ranging, controversial collection of critical essays on the political mania plaguing the Wes… read more
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"Homo oeconomicus, der alle anderen menschlichen Werte und Interessen durch Kosten-Nutzen-Rechnungen zu ersetzen versucht, wütet auf dem gesamten Erdball: in den persönlichen Beziehungen ebenso wie am…"-Pankaj Mishra, Bland Fanatics: Liberals, the West, and the Afterlives of Empire
15. Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness
By: Philip Goff
3.96
Format: 256 pages, Hardcover
From a leading philosopher of the mind comes this lucid, provocative argument that offers a radical… read more
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16. What Is Life?: Five Great Ideas in Biology
By: Paul Nurse
3.96
Format: 160 pages, Hardcover
The Nobel Prize–winning scientist’s elegant explanation of the fundamental ideas in biology and the… read more
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17. The Book of Humans: A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War and the Evolution of Us
By: Adam Rutherford
3.83
Format: 273 pages, Kindle Edition
We like to think of ourselves as exceptional beings, but is there really anything special about us … read more
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18. Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience
By: Michael S.A. Graziano
3.87
Format: 256 pages, Hardcover
Focusing attention can help an animal find food or flee a predator. It also may have led to conscio… read more
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"Arguably, science is the gradual process by which the cognitive parts of our brains discover the inaccuracies in our deeper, evolutionarily built-in models of the world."-Michael S.A. Graziano, Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience
19. Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking
By: Cecilia Heyes
3.78
Format: 304 pages, Hardcover
“This is an important book and likely the most thoughtful of the year in the social sciences… Highl… read more
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"In short, distinctively human cognitive mechanisms are tracking targets that move too fast for genetic evolution. In a stable phase, “as similative alleles"-Cecilia Heyes, Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking
"There are a number of potential answers. It could be that cognitive gadgets have not been genetically assimilated because they are locally but not globally optimal, or that genetic assimilation has …"-Cecilia Heyes, Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking
"Many cognitive mechanisms, like imitation and mindreading, not only do their jobs well, but do jobs that, when done well, seem likely to en hance reproductive tness—to increase the number of babies …"-Cecilia Heyes, Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking
"In contrast with cognitive gadgets, the components of the starter kit (Chapter 3) are ripe for genetic assimilation because they do nonspecific jobs that continue to be worth doing in spite of rapid …"-Cecilia Heyes, Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking
20. Dark Matter and Dark Energy: The Hidden 95% of the Universe (Hot Science)
By: Brian Clegg
3.98
Format: 176 pages, Kindle Edition
All the matter and light we can see in the universe makes up a trivial 5 per cent of everything. Th… read more
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21. The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI
By: Ray Kurzweil
3.93
Format: 432 pages, Hardcover
The noted inventor and futurist’s successor to his landmark book The Singularity Is Near explor… read more
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