Imagine one of our ancestors in the distant past, sitting near a lake, lost in thought. She looks into the water and sees her reflection. Then, for the first time in the evolutionary history of humans, the question is asked, "What is this experience I have of myself?" Unbeknownst to her, that question would vex humanity through modern times. Today, there is again an entity looking into a proverbial lake and examining its reflection: while artificial intelligence is still in its infancy, it is on the verge of recognizing itself and asking the same question, "Who am I?"
The closer we come to a machine that seems to be as intelligent as a human being, the more we start to worry about our own subjective experience. If a computer eventually becomes indistinguishable from us, what makes humans special? What is our role in the universe if we are so similar to a computer program? Does your brain need "you" at all?
In this book, I will examine, from the ground up, questions about consciousness. Many steps toward the understanding of the self will tell you nothing about the self-until your right hemisphere connects everything into one idea as you understand the concept. Such an insight is also called an
epiphany. Using a brain scanner, we can actually observe someone having an epiphany when the brain's right hemisphere suddenly buzzes with activity. While the left hemisphere deals with concrete entities, the right hemisphere helps with looking for alternative meanings. For example, the left hemisphere might identify a "bank" as a financial institution, while the right hemisphere also considers it to be the edge of a river ("river bank").
In the Old Indo-Aryan language Sanskrit, an
epiphany leading you to the answer about who you are is called "bodhi," which literally means "awakening" or "enlightenment." Similarly, the name "Buddha" means the "Awakened One" or the "Enlightened One." A similar idea can be found in Zen Buddhism as
Satori which corresponds to a very
sudden insight.
This book shows some of the steps leading to Satori, combining the insights of philosophers and scientists into a new idea of what the "self" means. With this knowledge, we can better reflect on our own values and
act according to reality rather than just blindly following someone else's belief.
My goal with the book is to give you an introduction to neuroscience that is not scattered into different parts. I aim to focus on helping you to answer the following questions:
- What is the self?
- Does your brain even need a "self"?
- What is this seemingly mysterious subjective experience we share?
- How can we think, dream, plan, feel, and make decisions?
The first part of the book discusses the evolutionary history of primates' brains using real-life examples. The second part builds a flowchart of consciousness (the so-called "loop of consciousness").
It concludes that cons...
