Image: Pantheon Books
Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul
Giulio Tononi
Pantheon Books, 2012 ($30)
In his book Phi, neuroscientist Tononi imagines Galileo Galilei, the 16th-century astronomer, drifting into a dream that takes him on a journey to understand consciousness. Part fantasy novel, part scientific expedition, Phi follows Galileo as he puzzles over what consciousness is, where it comes from and what beings can possess it.
Tononi invokes Dante's Divine Comedy by having guides, all groundbreaking scientists, introduce Galileo to different facets of consciousness. The first guide is the sharp-tongued biologist Francis Crick, who reveals the parts of the brain that contribute to consciousness. The two men visit mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who has suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and fallen into a vegetative state. His misfortune illustrates how damage to the corticothalamic system can destroy consciousness. In a healthy individual, this system regulates functions such as sleep, awareness, memory and thought.
Alan Turing, the mathematician, becomes Galileo's second guide and challenges him to define consciousness. Turing suggests that even simple machines can produce a conscious experience. Galileo disagrees, arguing that although a digital camera has the capacity to store tremendous amounts of information, a brain can handle more. Communication among neurons allows the brain to generate knowledge; this integration of ideas is what creates consciousness. Galileo dubs this concept of consciousness “phi.”
Finally, Charles Darwin walks Galileo through the implications of phi—what expands consciousness, for example, and how phi can diminish with time. In the library of poet and essayist Jorge Luis Borges, they observe how imagination enhances the quality of our conscious experience. In a Kafkaesque incident, however, the dark side of phi emerges: manipulation of our neural circuitry is shown to elicit the most excruciating pain. Galileo also learns how consciousness can be nurtured or extinguished and how it evolved, having surfaced in other animals and in humans before birth.
Along the way, a mysterious notetaker reflects on each chapter, identifying the artistic, scientific and historical references that inform Galileo's journey. Although these notes allow the reader to identify Tononi's allusions, they also compound the confusion, adding one more voice to the cacophony. It is possible that his ambitious approach is intended as a metaphor: as with the dialogue among neurons, the conversation among ideas in the book shapes our conscious experience. The reliance on metaphor, however, gives Tononi's explanations an oblique, hazy quality. Phi, like Galileo's wending path, remains unwieldy and mysterious.
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3 Comments
Add CommentThe fact is that no one has provided an explanation of consciousness that is easily or widely accepted. Many have indeed tried; Francis Crick and Christof Koch are two prominent examples.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are at least two issues here. The first is a matter of scaling. How do we fully connect our knowledge of the smaller bits and pieces of brain / neuronal operation to higher order configurations where it is certainly true that new properties "emerge". That happens when we combine hydrogen and Oxygen. No surprise, perhaps, but still difficult when dealing with immensely complex systems such as brains. A correlated issue, nicely discussed by Gerald Edelmann and Jeffrey Schwartz among many others is the reciprocal connection often thought of separately in "bottom up" versus "top down" perspectives. There is clearly a dialogue, one that is not fully comprehended. But that is all connecting physical models with physical models. Its not an easy task to be sure, but at least we remain within one basic domain of conversation.
John C. Fentress, PhD
In consciousness one is obligated to move to deeply different linguistic and conceptual modes of thought, an issue insightfully discussed by David Chalmers, again among others. There is a big difference between showing that part of the brain machinery is necessary for a certain aspect of consciousness and bridging the so-called objective versus subjective gap. By objective (not always an easy term to define or justify - but that is a different issue) we refer to what we can measure in the physical world. This is not the same as the subjective world of experience. Maybe someday we will have the skills to bridge that gap, but we are not presently there. So, the use of metaphors and the like is one way to at least open up the fact that there is a puzzle. Here it is worthwhile remembering the comment I once heard in conversations with Robert Frost: "Young man, just exactly what do you think is a Meta For?". I had no answer, but like the question.
Consciousness is that which recognises itself. It has no components. It precedes the brain. It does not change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf it is that which recognises itself, it has no relation with timespace as there is neither distance between it and the self-recognition, and with no distance, no time to complete the recognising. This can only be directly apprehended in a timeless moment of suspension of rational measurement or analysis. We all know this.
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