The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach

Consciousness is one of science’s last great unsolved mysteries. How can the salty taste and crunchy texture of potato chips, the unmistakable smell of dogs after they have been in the rain, or the exhilarating feeling of hanging on tiny fingerholds many feet above the last secure foothold on a cliff, emerge from networks of neurons and their associated synaptic and molecular processes? In The Quest for Consciousness, Caltech neuroscientist Christof Koch explores the biological basis of the subjective mind in animals and people. He outlines a framework that he and Francis Crick (of the "double helix") have constructed to come to grips with the ancient mind-body problem. At the heart of their framework is a sustained, empirical approach to discovering and characterizing the neuronal correlates of consciousness – the NCC – the subtle, flickering patterns of brain activity that underlie each and every conscious experience.

Customer Reviews:

Simply Outstanding

By E. Roppo "science buff" - July 29, 2004

This is the best popular neuroscience book that I have read, and I've read a couple dozen of them over the last 15 years. I can say without hesitation that it rasies the bar for popular neuroscience writing.

It's not so much that Koch is the best writer, although he's very good. The strength of Koch here is that he provides a great deal of detail about the processes he talks about, and he organizes the information in such a way that you don't get lost in anatomical terminology. A lot of neuroscience books may such things as 'lesions in the posterior parietal cortex are known to be related to a condition called 'hemi-neglect' where the patient is unaware of objects in the left hemisphere, despite the fact they can see them if asked' - while that's interesting, it's usually presented as a brute fact with no real grounding of what the posterior parietal cortex does or how it fits into the larger scheme of sensory processing. But Koch does a marvelous job of explaining how... read more

Good

By Carlos Camara "marrorris2" - September 20, 2004

For the last couple of years, few sicentific progress seems to have been made in the study of consicousness. Philosophical books do not claim to make much progress. I mean, philosophers have been debating over things like representationalism for over 20 years now. But science is supposed to be different. But as hard as I look, most recent books are nothing but reviews of the literature of the last decade and popular sicence, simplified for the lay reader, that seems to make no progress.

This book is not that different. Koch is one of the pioneers in the field, along with the late Francis Crick. It seems the quarrell between the nobelists Crick and Edelman is over, as can be seen in chapter 19 of this book, since mostly their theories agree on the important points. THAT is progress enough.

The bulk of the book is not about the neural correlates of consicousness at all, but about visual neuroscience, and the relationship between cosnciousness and memory and... read more

A must read

By Camilo Libedinsky - April 27, 2004

ABSOLUTELY RECOMMENDABLE for anyone interested in how the brain works.
The clear exposure and expertise of the author(s) makes of this book an extremely enjoyable read.
Great for Neuroscience and Cognitive science students. With citations supporting every little detail exposed, it creates a library for future readings.
For non-scientists interested in the brain and mind this book should be quite easy to understand.