num_pages: 224
description: How does the firing of neurons give rise to subjective sensations thoughts and emotions? How can the disparate domains of mind and body be reconciled? The quest for a scientifically based understanding of consciousness has attracted study and speculation across the ages. In this direct and non-technical discussion of consciousness Dr. Gerald M. Edelman draws on a lifetime of scientific inquiry into the workings of the brain to formulate answers to the mind-body questions that intrigue every thinking person.Concise and understandable the book explains pertinent findings of modern neuroscience and describes how consciousness arises in complex brains. Edelman explores the relation of consciousness to causation to evolution to the development of the self and to the origins of feelings learning and memory. His analysis of the brain activities underlying consciousness is based on recent remarkable advances in biochemistry immunology medical imaging neuroscience and evolutionary biology yet the implications of his book extend fartherbeyond the worlds of science and medicine into virtually every area of human inquiry.
language: English
title: Wider Than the Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness
publisher: Yale University Press