S's Reviews > Being You: A New Science of Consciousness

Experiencing the world is different than the actual world. Consciousness isn't black and white. Context is important. Instead of figuring out how it works, a better question is why is it there? Being 'you' is a verb - doing. You are 'selfing', 'experiencing you', 'being you'.
This book is about the neuroscience of consciousness so you may find this a difficult read (at times, anyways) or indigestible - consciousness is a difficult concept, with blurry edges when defining it. Seth strips everything away and focuses on 'the biological and physical processes unfolding in our brains and bodies' sprinkled with determinism and (a lack of) free will (feeling queasy yet?)
Seth does a beautiful job proposing Bayesian theory as one way to explain the working of consciousness: what we already know, to what we should believe next, based on what we are learning now. And my favourite concept of this book: controlled hallucinations. We are all hallucinating albeit controlled.
There are parts in the book that I question or don't agree with especially when Seth makes conflicting statements, however, I like his focus being on the 'real problem' instead of the 'hard problem'. Seth keeps circling back to the workability of a theory instead of research just because. To explain, predict and influence (nicer than control).
It would have been great if Seth had discussed consciousness in non-verbal humans - he briefly attends to babies and people with brain injury but without any depth. Seth delves into consciousness of non-human animals and the difference between consciousness and intelligence (not the same thing) ending the book on a scary possibility [reality] (AI).