Consciousness and the Social Brain

Michael S. A. Graziano, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at Princeton University, is an internationally renowned scientist and an award-winning novelist. His books include the popular science title God, Soul, Mind, Brain and the short novels The Divine Farce, The Love Song of Monkey, and Death My Own Way.

Graziano's work is in important step in bridging a persistent gap between mind and brain in interdisciplinary research, notably because he attempts to answer the questions that require asking, and he does so with a remarkable level of humility.

• Part I: The Theory ; Chapter 1: The magic trick ; Chapter 2: Introducing the theory ; Chapter 3: Awareness as information ; Chapter 4: Being aware versus knowing that you are aware ; Chapter 5: The attention schema ; Chapter 6: Illusions and myths ; Chapter 7: Social attention ; Chapter 8: How do I distinguish my awareness from yours? ; Chapter 9: Some useful complexities ; Part II: Comparison to previous theories and results ; Chapter 10: Social theories of consciousness ; Chapter 11: Consciousness as integrated information ; Chapter 12: Neural correlates of consciousness ; Chapter 13: Awareness and the machinery for social perception ; Chapter 14: The neglect syndrome ; Chapter 15: Multiple interlocking functions of the brain area TPJ ; Chapter 16: Simulating other minds ; Chapter 17: Some spiritual matters ; Chapter 18: Explaining the magic trick