Paperback - 480 Pages - Published 1999 by Penguin Books
$18.00 USD
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ISBN-10: 0140230122
ISBN-13: 9780140230123
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As John Casti wrote, “Finally, a book that really does explain consciousness.” This groundbreaking work by Denmark’s leading science writer draws on psychology, evolutionary biology, information theory, and other disciplines to argue its revolutionary point: that consciousness represents only an infinitesimal fraction of our ability to process information.
Although we are unaware of it, our brains sift through and discard billions of pieces of data in order to allow us to understand the world around us.
In fact, most of what we call thought is actually the unconscious discarding of information. What our consciousness rejects constitutes the most valuable part of ourselves, the “Me” that the “I” draws on for most of our actions — fluent speech, riding a bicycle, anything involving expertise.
No wonder that, in this age of information, so many of us feel empty and dissatisfied. As engaging as it is insightful, this important book encourages us to rely more on what our instincts and our senses tell us so that we can better appreciate the richness of human life.
Customer Reviews
Liberating! by Julian Richards Johannesburg, South Africa
Customers Rating:
I agree that the comments on religion are baseless, but nevertheless this is one of my favourite books ever. Its insights into consciousness, psychology and, not to beat about the bush, what it’s like being human, have made a practical difference to the way I see things. I find it most liberating to realise that I’m not really in control of my life. Responsible for it, certainly, but it’s extremely reassuring to find out that the best advice is often to simply do what you are inclined to do, with as little worry and doubt as you can. Not that I would give that advice to smokers, sociopaths, paedophiles, suididal people or the chronically indolent – but the message that you can trust your unconscious mind to do a better job of living than your conscious cogitation is an opportune rehabilitation of the irrational. It’s not all obsession, greed and violence. It is also where the richness of life resides.
I have also picked up in various New Scientist articles notions about ‘the universe as information’ that I confess I do not yet understand but might make a fascinating extension of the information-theory sections of the book.
Yes, it could have been much shorter, but I was sometimes glad to be told the same thing three times. If I got it the first time, I would skim over the re-presentations, but for difficult concepts I think it’s better to give the reader a few different ways of looking at a subject than to leave them to pore over a tangled paragraph until spots form before their eyes – which is the usual modus operandi of philosophical writers.
Essential addition to the literature on consciousness by Si (Yorkshire, England)
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Norretranders does a thorough, thoughtful, and excellent job explicating what may be revolutionary ideas about consciousness. True: he tends to repeat the same thought as many as four times in a row to make sure the reader understands a new concept; but this annoying habit does help convince the reader of a number of unfamiliar ideas that are often the opposite of common sense.
Norretranders tends to build his concepts one on top of the other, chapter by chapter, leading to what one expects to be a final tying-up of what consciousness really is, with clues as to how we might modulate our actions using this new information.But he doesn’t wind up where he seems to be going. Starting with a theory of how consciousness is a kind of summary of millions of bits of information reduced to a mere handful, he ends up by luxuriating poetically in a warm and fuzzy vision of sublime peace and brotherhood.
Along the way to this disappointing conclusion, he splits the function of the brain into two parts, which he calls the “I” and the “me.”The “I” is the source we take to be our focus of attention and “will.” But through an extensive discussion of the work of (and private letters and conversations with) the pioneer neuroscientist Benjamin Libet, Norretranders argues that the “will” is an illusion (like an icon on a Macintosh computer, it is a “user illusion”). We actually start doing things, he claims, before we “want” to do them. We merely assume that we “wanted” to do what we just did. Norretranders’s (and Libet’s) inference from this theory is that “free will” can exercise nothing more substantial than veto power.
Where is the grandeur of consciousness when appreciating great art or beauty? Norretranders would classify such moments (which he calls “sublime”) as property of the unconscious “me”; and would relegate moments of “I”-consciousness downward toward the awkward self-conscious fidgets that embarrass a stage actor who forgets his lines.
This dichotomy seems backwards and anti-intellectual.Finally, the use of “I” and “me” to label parts of a dichotomy is unfortunate in that those words are parts of speech, one a subject and one an object. Consciousness can’t really be divided that way.Despite these arguments, the book remains an essential one for anyone who’s interested in the subject of consciousness; certainly as important as Pinker’s or Dennett’s recent works.
A must…. by H. Kirby UK
Customers Rating:
I had the opportunity to read the Swedish translation “Märk världen” a year ago when I got the book as a present. It is very pleasant to see the English edition and to know that this wonderful book is reaching an even wider audience!.
“Märk världen” is a book full of scientific facts, and observations on the human mind; all very successfully put in an enjoyable narrative way, and in many passages wrapped in a nice sense of humor…
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