Book on consciousness: Being You by Anil Seth

I have been following Anil since about 2018 when he did a fantastic 3 hour podcast with Sam Harris about consciousness. Anil’s talk on You-Tube “your brain hallucinates your reality” has about 14 million views and deservedly so. He is a professor at the Sackler centre for consciousness research in Sussex England and has over twenty years of experience in the field. He combines computational science, philosophy, psychology and neuroscience in his team and he has just launched his book Being You. 

Steering clear of Descartes dualistic mind body problem, Anil also leaves the hard problem of consciousness aside (why are we conscious), believing that the former will dissolve itself once we know more about the soft problem, the mechanisms and properties of all that gives rise to our conscious experience. He emphasizes why it is important to know about consciousness and explores other theories before concluding that we are beast machines. 

He writes well, explaining thoroughly with practical examples, breaking things down for the lays among us and adds some lovely personal anecdotes as well. He discusses the pros and cons of the integrated information consciousness theory and others, including panpsychism, the latter of which holds the idea that there is consciousness in everything, even a metal spoon.  Highly unlikely of course but Anil leaves no stone left unturned. 

 Anil also explains the different selves we have and philosophizes over why we are so attached to who we think we are. But once once we understand that our brain not only works from input from the senses coming in, but output from the brain’s predictive processing mechanisms, it does not mean that the mystery of being you is gone. As no one can feel or experience what it is to be you, with your own individual experiences, memories and life. Imagine what it is like to be a bird, a bat, a dog, an octopus?  Research on the octopus is included in the book and I would definitely like to learn more. 

But for now, I would recommend getting the book and learning about the most fascinating subject of what it is to be you in terms of biology. How does your brain work, how and what is necessary for us to be beast machines.  A living piece of flesh and blood that cannot do anything without its machine of billions of neurons, chemical processes and electrical patterns in perpetual motion every moment of our conscious lives.