“The Evolving Brain: The Known and the Unknown” by R. Grant Steen
Written on March 11, 2007
A recent book by neurophysiologist R. Grant Steen on brain science: The Evolving Brain: The Known and the Unknown
Chapter 9 deals with consciousness; a few excerpts follow….
“We propose that consciousness arises only when a subject shows a combination of attention, perception, memory, and awareness.” p. 187
“Consciousness may be equivalent to neuronal synchronization. If so, does anything that increases neural synchronization also increase consciousness? Recent evidence shows that Buddhist monks are able to synchronize large brain areas as they meditate. This is consistent with the focused attention and increased consciousness that practitioners claim as a benefit of meditation. Equating synchronization to consciousness makes a fairly simple hypothesis, with the obvious appeal that it would be easy to test and easy to prove false.” p. 202
“It seems likely that consciousness is a correlate of complexity, an emergent property of the brain.” p. 208
Filed in: consciousness.
