BOOK REVIEW
Being You: A New Science of Consciousness
by Anil Seth 2022
About the Author
Anil Kumar Seth is a professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex.
Seth has published over 100 scientific papers and book chapters, and is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Neuroscience of Consciousness. He is a regular contributor to the New Scientist, The Guardian, and BBC, and writes the blog NeuroBanter. He also consulted for the popular science book, Eye Benders, which won the 2014 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize. An introductory essay on consciousness has been published on Aeon – The Real Problem – a 2016 Editor’s Pick. Seth was included in the 2019 Highly Cited Researchers List that was published by Clarivate Analytics
About the Book
On the one hand we find joy, love, light. On the other we find billions of tiny cells interacting in the dark. How are these related? Few people are as well positioned as Anil Seth to tackle the question of consciousness. Beautifully written, crystal clear, deeply insightful. — David Eagleman ― Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of LIVEWIRED: The Inside Story of the Ever-changing Brain
Reality is real, but how our brains construct a picture of reality – perceiving, integrating, predicting – is far from direct. It’s a complicated, fascinating mess, which neuroscientists are just beginning to piece together. Anil Seth’s Being You is a wonderfully accessible and comprehensive account of how our minds capture the world, and how that makes us who we are. — Sean Carroll ― author of SOMETHING DEEPLY HIDDEN: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime
Being You offers us a new cause for astonishment and wonder. Through expert science writing and engaging personal narrative, Anil gives us a new perspective on everything we perceive, down to space and time itself. Being You is a must read for anyone seeking a better understanding of the brain and how nature sculpts the human experience. — Annaka Harris ― New York Times bestselling author of CONSCIOUS: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind
The Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller and Guardian Book of the Week, Being You is also a New Statesman Best Book of 2021, an Economist Book of the Year, a Bloomberg Business Book of the Year, a Financial Times Science Book of the Year, a Guardian Science Book of the Year, and a Five Books Philosophy Book of the Year. The book takes you on an exhilarating journey through the brain and beyond, turning what you thought you knew about yourself on its head.
Anil Seth’s radical new theory of consciousness challenges our understanding of perception and reality, doing for brain science what Dawkins did for evolutionary biology.
Being You is not as simple as it sounds. Somehow, within each of our brains, billions of neurons work to create our conscious experience. How does this happen? Why do we experience life in the first person? After over twenty years researching the brain, world-renowned neuroscientist Anil Seth puts forward a radical new theory of consciousness and self. His unique theory of what it means to ‘be you’ challenges our understanding of perception and reality and it turns what you thought you knew about yourself on its head.
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