Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul in Science and Inquiry

Nov 19, 2013 David Rubenstein rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science, biology, religion

The idea behind this book is wonderfully original; Francis Crick, Alan Turing, and Charles Darwin take Galileo on a trip to view a wide range of metaphorical scenarios. Each scenario explores a different aspect of the brain, or of consciousness. This approach is reminiscent of Dante's Inferno, but with a scientific attitude superimposed onto artistic and religious themes. Why Galileo? He was one of the first people to use the scientific method, upending the then-prevalent Aristotelian mentality. The idea behind this book is wonderfully original; Francis Crick, Alan Turing, and Charles Darwin take Galileo on a trip to view a wide range of metaphorical scenarios. Each scenario explores a different aspect of the brain, or of consciousness. This approach is reminiscent of Dante's Inferno, but with a scientific attitude superimposed onto artistic and religious themes. Why Galileo? He was one of the first people to use the scientific method, upending the then-prevalent Aristotelian mentality.

The first part of the book dealt with various subcomponents of consciousness. But why Francis Crick? I had not previously realized that after working out the structure of DNA, he moved to California, and worked in the field of neuroscience and consciousness. In this part, Crick takes Galileo to see a variety of people with brain limitations or damage, to understand how various parts of our brain contribute to consciousness.

In the second part of the book, Alan Turing helps Galileo explore various information aspects of consciousness. Starting with the simple example of a photo-diode, they boost up the complexity and come up with the idea that information integration--symbolized by the symbol PHI--is at the heart of consciousness. In the third part of the book, Charles Darwin leads Galileo to explore the evolution of consciousness.

Besides the originality of the "voyage" aspect through the brain and consciousness, the heavy "feel" of the book is amazing. There is a photograph or artistic image on at least every other page. There are no captions below the images, but at the end of each short chapter there are notes that explain them. In addition, the notes serve as commentary on the chapter, explaining the actions of the characters and their significance. Even the commentary is unusual, in that the notes sometimes include opinions about the behavior of the characters, as if the body of each chapter were a historical text, and the commentary were the writings of a scholar from a later generation.

The first two parts of the book were excellent, but the last part seemed to fall apart for me. I could not understand where the journey was going. All in all, this is one of the most original, imaginative books I have ever read; it ranks up there with Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. But this book requires attention in order unravel the tapestry of scientific, metaphorical, artistic, and literary themes. ...more

29 likes · Like · see review