Table of Contents
Preface 9
Chapter 1 Introduction to Mind and Brain 13
1.1 The Deep Mystery of Consciousness 13
1.2 A Personal Perspective on Science, Philosophy, and Religion 18
1.3 What's So "New" about the Science of Consciousness? 19
1.4 The Easy Problem versus the Hard Problem 23
1.5 Unconscious and Pre-Conscious Brain Processes 26
1.6 Zombies, Dualism, and Computer Consciousness 30
1.7 Crick and Edelman: Two Pioneers Following Very Different Paths 34
1.8 Summary 37
Chapter 2 The Science and Philosophy of Mind 39
2.1 Brain and Mind 39
2.2 Are We Nothing but Packs of Neurons? 43
2.3 Materialism, Dualism, and Monism 46
2.4 Zombie Worlds 50
2.5 The Unity of Self 55
2.6 The Problem of Personal Identity 58
2.7 Consciousness Takes Time 62
2.8 Summary 66
Chapter 3 A Brief Look into Brain Structure and Function 69
3.1 Are Brains Like Other Complex Systems? 69
3.2 The Human Brain at Large Scales 73
3.3 Drugs, Neurotransmitters, and Brain Disease 76
3.4 Brain Inputs and Outputs 78
3.5 Chemical Control of Brain and Behavior 81
3.6 Electrical Transmission 86
3.7 The Cerebral Cortex 87
3.8 The Nested Hierarchy of the Neocortex: Multiple Scales of Brain Tissue 90
3.9 Cortico-Cortical Connections Are Non-Local 95
3.10 Human Brain Evolution 97
3.11 What Makes the Human Brain "Human"? 102
3.12 Summary 106
Chapter 4 States of Mind 109
4.1 What Is Consciousness? 109
4.2 What Is It Like to Be a Bat? 111
4.3 Patterns and Sub-Patterns of Consciousness 114
4.4 The Conscious and the Unconscious 117
4.5 Sleep 119
4.6 General Anesthesia and Coma 122
4.7 Epilepsy: A Collection of Local-Global Diseases 124
4.8 Locked-In Syndrome 128
4.9 Brain Injuries and Language 130
4.10 Summary 135
Chapter 5 Signatures of Consciousness 139
5.1 What Is Time? 139
5.2 Consciousness Takes Time 140
5.3 Pre-Conscious and Conscious States 143
5.4 The Christmas-Tree Brain 147
5.5 Christmas Lights, Electrophysiology, and fMRI 150
5.6 Free Will? 153
5.7 Alzheimer's Disease 156
5.8 Schizophrenia 158
5.9 White Matter Matters to Mental Health 160
5.10 Summary 163
Chapter 6 Rhythms of the Brain 167
6.1 The Music of Consciousness 167
6.2 Rhythms Recorded on the Scalp 174
6.3 Rhythmic Thinking 177
6.4 Normal and Abnormal Rhythms 182
6.5 Synchronous Gamma Rhythms Recorded from Inside the Skull 188
6.6 Local-Global Nervous Systems 189
6.7 A Short History of Alpha Rhythms 194
6.8 Alpha Rhythms: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 196
6.9 Summary 200
Chapter 7 Brain Synchrony, Coherence, and Resonance 205
7.1 Separated Systems Interact to Form Larger Networks 205
7.2 Mass Action in the Nervous System 210
7.3 What Are Functional Connections? 215
7.4 Time Delays and Dynamic Patterns 217
7.5 Synchrony and Coherence 220
7.6 High-Resolution EEG 223
7.7 Frequency Tagging 226
7.8 Binocular Rivalry 230
7.9 Multiscale Synchrony and Coherence 233
7.10 Summary 235
Chapter 8 Networks of the Brain 239
8.1 Networks, Models, and Theories 239
8.2 Networks versus Continuous Media 243
8.3 Networks and Graph Theory 245
8.4 Network Caveats and Limits to Progress 249
8.5 Visual Perception Networks 251
8.6 Constructing an Android Composed of Nested Networks 253
8.7 Brain Resonance 260
8.8 Cross-Frequency Coupling and Binding by Resonance 266
8.9 Summary 271
Chapter 9 Introduction to the Hard Problem 275
9.1 The Chicken-Soup Test 275
9.2 What Is Life? 280
9.3 The Neurology of Consciousness 283
9.4 Multiple Levels of Consciousness 286
9.5 Large-Scale Intelligence? 287
9.6 Multiscale Patterns of Information 290
9.7 What Is Information? 292
9.8 Summary 296
Chapter 10 Multiscale Speculations on the Hard Problem 299
10.1 Betting on Long Shots 299
10.2 Multiscale Memory and Consciousness 302
10.3 Digging Deep to Even-Smaller Scales 305
10.4 Ultra-information 309
10.5 Quantum Mechanics: Science at Small Scales 312
10.6 Ultra-information and the RQTC Conjecture 315
10.7 Fields and Dynamic Information Patterns 319
10.8 A "Crazy" RQTC Implication: Top-Down Brain Influences 323
10.9 Summary 326
Glossary 331
Notes 345
Index 365
