Nineteen ways of looking at consciousness

Neuroscientist House debuts with a quirky "collection of possible mechanisms, histories, observations, data, and theories of consciousness" modeled on the the 1987 book Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei. While the author expertly explores the evolution of the brain and the biological processes that underlie consciousness, he posits neither a definition nor a theory of consciousness. Instead, he offers 19 pieces that take different tacks in examining the topic. "Like the Rise and Fall of Pinball" compares consciousness to the arcade game, as "pinball machines were forced to evolve into both story and storyteller as, once, the brain did too, en route to consciousness." "The Music While the Music Lasts," meanwhile, compares it to a bowl with 86 billion fish, where ripples in the water are like the "ripples of electrical activity across the surface of the brain's cells" that "cause" consciousness. "An Itsy-Bitsy Teeny-Weeny Quantum-Dot-like Non-Machiney" explores the implications of a 1990 neurosurgery experiment in which a spot on a teenager's brain was electrically stimulated as she looked at a picture of a horse and she laughed, prompting House to wonder: "Are we fully determined? Was Anna, in her responses?" Though the conceit can feel forced at times, House's observations are intriguing, and the short essays are impressively rich. This is bursting with insight. (Oct.)

An exploration of the possibilities of consciousness. House, a neuroscientist whose research focuses on the nature of free will, tackles a knotty subject in a series of essays on the latest science in the field. He also uses extended anecdotes that put complex concepts into accessible terms even while acknowledging that there are no easy answers in the study of consciousness. Consider different translations of a poem: Each has something relevant to say, but none can entirely capture the essence. House repeatedly returns to a case in which a woman was undergoing brain surgery to address epilepsy. At one point, the surgeons touched a part of the brain that made her laugh. Did this indicate that emotional responses are simply an aspect of the physical matter inside our skulls? In another essay, House discusses his interviews with a man who had a substantial part of his brain removed to get to a tumor, yet he seemed unaffected aside from finding it more difficult to play the piano. The author, whose investigations recall Oliver Sacks, also digs into processes of learning: Is the human mind a learning machine, and did the learning process begin when a certain level of environmental awareness was necessary for survival? Did it develop through stages to its current level? Does it simply absorb sensory inputs, editing out useless or redundant material? House makes an interesting detour to wonder if a society of blind people could deduce the existence of the moon, while other essays look at the functioning of memory and prediction, which takes up a remarkable amount of the brain's capacity. There is also a theory that consciousness links to movement, which is one of the most essential, if often unconscious, aspects of brain function. Though the author occasionally gets lost in his own musings, he offers readers plenty of fascinating questions about the brain, the mind, and the soul. Mixing science, metaphors, and philosophy, House provides elegant frameworks for ways to think about thinking. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.