It sumarizes the modern science of consciousness. 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? I have devoted much of my career to bridging the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the physics of the brain and phenomenal experience. This short book--part scientific overview, part memoir, part futurist speculation--describes my search for an empirical explanation for consciousness. I recount not only the birth of the modern science of consciousness but also the subterranean motivation for my quest--my instinctual if "romantic" belief that life is meaningful.
I describe my sixteen years of close collaboration and friendship with Francis Crick and the gradual emergence of consciousness (once considered a "fringy" subject) as a legitimate topic for scientific investigation. I tell stories from the front lines of modern research into the neurobiology of consciousness as well as my reflections on a variety of topics, including the distinction between selective attention and consciousness, the unconscious, how neurons respond to Jennifer Aniston, the physics and biology of free will, dogs (of course), Der Ring des Nibelungen, the integrated information theory of consciousness by Giulio Tononoi, sentient machines, and the loss of my belief in a personal God.
Confessions is not just about science, however. I am not only a dispassionate physicist and biologist, but I am also a human being who enjoys but a few years to make sense of the riddle of my existence. I've learned over the last years how powerfully my unconscious inclinations, my beliefs, and my personal strengths and failings have influenced my life and the pursuit of my life's work. You'll learn about these as they become relevant to the quest I'm on - to uncover the roots of consciousness.
