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    The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
    The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
    The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed

    Written by Christof Koch

    Narrated by Patrick Lawlor

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Psychologists study which cognitive operations underpin a given conscious perception. Neuroscientists track the neural correlates of consciousness in the brain, the organ of the mind. But why the brain and not, say, the liver? How can the brain, three pounds of highly excitable matter, a piece of furniture in the universe, subject to the same laws of physics as any other piece, give rise to subjective experience? Koch argues that what is needed to answer these questions is a quantitative theory that starts with experience and proceeds to the brain. In The Feeling of Life Itself, Koch outlines such a theory, based on integrated information.

    Koch describes how the theory explains many facts about the neurology of consciousness and how it has been used to build a clinically useful consciousness meter. The theory predicts that many, and perhaps all, animals experience the sights and sounds of life; consciousness is much more widespread than conventionally assumed. Contrary to received wisdom, however, Koch argues that programmable computers will not have consciousness. Even a perfect software model of the brain is not conscious. Its simulation is fake consciousness. Consciousness is not a special type of computation-it is not a clever hack. Consciousness is about being.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateAug 25, 2020
    ISBN9781705256466
    The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed

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    Reviews for The Feeling of Life Itself

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      Koch does a fabulous job making this complex subject accessible to the layperson. Deeply thought-provoking and worthwhile!
    • 4/5
      La conciencia es la forma en que el mundo aparece y se siente para mi; la conciencia es experiencia, es cualquier experiencia desde la más mundana hasta la más exaltada, el dolor y la alegría de estar vivo… el sentimiento de la vida misma.
    • 5/5
      Very convincing and digestible overview of the integrated information theory of consciousness. It will be interesting to see how more testing of this theory goes.