Consciousness

In Consciousness, Hobson explores the brain structures and functions now understood to be fundamental to conscious experience, demonstrating how his youthful conception of a single, unified brain-mind system has been borne out by his own investigations and by breakthroughs made possible by powerful neuroscientific techniques (brain scanning and imaging: and behavioral measures of memory, attention, and visualization in the laboratory). But it is the inclusion of subjectivity that makes Hobson's approach unique - and so compelling. Ranging beyond the objective world of the laboratory, he approaches such daunting issues as the mind-body question, free will, psychic energy, and mind-as-causal with an infectious exuberance anchored to a series of, in his words, "radically innocent common-sense claims." In addition to recounting seminal research in psychology, he draws extensively on his own life experiences, as well as on the work of philosophers and artists seeking to define and represent consciousness in their own terms. The result is a highly personal tour of the brain and mind conducted by one of its foremost guides - a book that although firmly rooted in scientific rigor, never loses sight of the mysterious and seductive side of its subject.