Tuesday, October 09, 2012

The right sort of arrangement …

… Book Review: Phi - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Onto this stage steps Giulio Tononi, a pioneering neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In "Phi: A Voyage From the Brain to the Soul," Mr. Tononi expounds a theory of consciousness that he has been developing for well over a decade. His central idea goes roughly like this: First, consciousness is not an all-or-nothing property but instead exists on a gradient and can be quantified. A human may have a high degree of consciousness, a dog somewhat less, a worm even less and so on. But all can be conscious, assuming that their brains have the right sort of arrangement.

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