The Consciousness Instinct: Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind

“The father of cognitive neuroscience” illuminates the past, present, and future of the mind-brain problem

How do neurons turn into minds? How does physical “stuff”—atoms, molecules, chemicals, and cells—create the vivid and various worlds inside our heads? The problem of consciousness has gnawed at us for millennia. In the last century there have been massive breakthroughs that have rewritten the science of the brain, and yet the puzzles faced by the ancient Greeks are still present. In The...