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Andrewcharles420's Reviews > Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul
Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul
by
by
A creative, colorful, and poetic book, styled quite similarly to Dante's Divine Comedy, with spirit-guides walking the interlocutor through three perceptual realms. Certainly more of a scientific bent than DC, though ultimately I don't believe it connected all the dots it was supposed to in explaining the basis of consciousness.
Consciousness is explained to Galileo in parts by Frick, Alturi, and an unnamed bearded man (Francis Crick, Alan Turing, and Charles Darwin), where they lead Galileo from room to room with different allegorical scenes, usually based on historical or scientific evidence in each one. Frick displays some of the physical knowledge of consciousness and the brain--the effects of lobotomy or infarction. Alturi compares the brain to devices, both mechanical and information theoretic, concluding that Phi--irreducible integrated information--is the measure of consciousness. [Darwin] shows the practical and philosophical consequences of such a system--how dementia affects consciousness, whether other creatures possess it, etc.
I think the crux of this thesis lies near the end of Alturi's domain, and I found there a disconnect that I'll have to look into further. The author does a great job of explaining how the brain is not like a photodiode (simply registering 'ON' in the presence of light and 'OFF' otherwise), but that individual neurons more or less are (or can be modeled that way). But then a higher level of awareness (than a neuron) is attained through 'complexes', which aren't described physically (are they neurons? massively connected neurons?), and have probability measures (i.e. rather than binary 0 or 1 any value between them inclusive). And then qualia are introduced which seem to be high dimensioned hypercubes, unique to each individual concept--as though some neuron or complex (or ??) can hold all of the information gathered from uncountable precursor neurons. I don't disagree with this idea, I just don't understand the mechanics. The apparent hypercube in qualiaspace may contain more information than any individual neuron could perceive--knowledge of one measure being 00 means it isn't the state 01 or 10 or 11, etc., but I'm not sure if this is any more information than the readings alone--where does this become consciousness?
Regardless of my disconnect, this book was a pleasure to read--there are many full color reproductions of varied famous works, often with subtle modification giving them a stronger relationship to the story, and the story was quite an interesting allegorical journey influenced and backed up by science and history. I'm not sure whom I would recommend the book to, it's difficult to categorize or relate to other works--perhaps to a person of literary mind who wants a better scientific understanding of consciousness without too much technical detail?
Consciousness is explained to Galileo in parts by Frick, Alturi, and an unnamed bearded man (Francis Crick, Alan Turing, and Charles Darwin), where they lead Galileo from room to room with different allegorical scenes, usually based on historical or scientific evidence in each one. Frick displays some of the physical knowledge of consciousness and the brain--the effects of lobotomy or infarction. Alturi compares the brain to devices, both mechanical and information theoretic, concluding that Phi--irreducible integrated information--is the measure of consciousness. [Darwin] shows the practical and philosophical consequences of such a system--how dementia affects consciousness, whether other creatures possess it, etc.
I think the crux of this thesis lies near the end of Alturi's domain, and I found there a disconnect that I'll have to look into further. The author does a great job of explaining how the brain is not like a photodiode (simply registering 'ON' in the presence of light and 'OFF' otherwise), but that individual neurons more or less are (or can be modeled that way). But then a higher level of awareness (than a neuron) is attained through 'complexes', which aren't described physically (are they neurons? massively connected neurons?), and have probability measures (i.e. rather than binary 0 or 1 any value between them inclusive). And then qualia are introduced which seem to be high dimensioned hypercubes, unique to each individual concept--as though some neuron or complex (or ??) can hold all of the information gathered from uncountable precursor neurons. I don't disagree with this idea, I just don't understand the mechanics. The apparent hypercube in qualiaspace may contain more information than any individual neuron could perceive--knowledge of one measure being 00 means it isn't the state 01 or 10 or 11, etc., but I'm not sure if this is any more information than the readings alone--where does this become consciousness?
Regardless of my disconnect, this book was a pleasure to read--there are many full color reproductions of varied famous works, often with subtle modification giving them a stronger relationship to the story, and the story was quite an interesting allegorical journey influenced and backed up by science and history. I'm not sure whom I would recommend the book to, it's difficult to categorize or relate to other works--perhaps to a person of literary mind who wants a better scientific understanding of consciousness without too much technical detail?
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March 28, 2013
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March 28, 2013
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