Reddit reviews Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the Search for Order

Not really current as it's from the 90s but this is the book my physics teacher gave me that got me well & truly hooked:

Fire In The Mind

You're clearly well-versed in this subject, I actually wasn't expecting a response that involved knowledge of quantum entanglement and particle/wave duality!

> You haven't even functionally defined consciousness, so how could I possibly explain it?

Were you aware, in your mind ("consciousness") that you were alive and typing this at the time you did? If so, that would make you conscious and not a "philosophical zombie".

Of course I could veer this completely off course and say that I don't even known that you exist, and I could just be playing a game in the only consciousness there is. My own.

Solipsism

> I'd have to argue that it's pretty much exclusively your unconscious mind that takes input from the photo-receptors in your mind. This is not a conscious process.

Correct.

> I would certainly agree with your point about quantum uncertainty, but I fail to see how it relates to the discussion of consciousness.

In my personal opinion, it has everything to do with it. It's the only possible solution to how we can have free-will and are not just unconscious robots ("philosophical zombies"). Without quantum effects, we could not be sentient beings that are free to make our own decisions, based on our own choices.

Not just (input in = input out) ... but (input in = conscious decisions = input out).

This quick search on Amazon will show how many books deal with this very subject.

I've read most of them. Some much more interesting than others. I'd say the best book I've ever read on these matters is by Paul Davies ... The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World. "Biocentrism" was also somewhat interesting, as was Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the Search for Order.

Your points are all valid, and I won't go over every single one of them.

Should I assume that you believe in the emergent theory of consciousness? Where it arises at a certain neural threshold, for reasons we have no idea?

And where is the "seat of consciousness"? For a while, it was thought it was the pineal gland, then other places. Then we started removing half of people's physical brain matter and that made them better. So exactly where is this consciousness?

If it's emergent, that means I myself as a software developer just need to write a complex enough system. And then, like magic, my creation is self-aware?

For the record, I did really enjoy the movie Ex Machina.