Enchanted Looms: Conscious Networks in Brains and Computers

The title of this book was inspired by a passage in Charles Sherrington's Man on his Nature. When that famous physiologist died in 1952, the prospects for a scientific explanation of consciousness seemed remote. Enchanted Looms shows how the situation has changed dramatically over the past forty years, and provides what is probably the most wide-ranging account of the phenomenon ever written. Rodney Cotterill bridges the gap between the bottom-up approach to understanding consciousness, anchored in the brain's biochemistry, anatomy and physiology, and the top-down strategy, which concerns itself with behavior and the nervous system's interaction with the environment. He argues that an explanation of consciousness is now at hand, and extends the discussion to include intelligence and creativity, unlike other books on the subject. This beautifully written and illustrated book will be valued for its provocative approach to one of science's last great challenges. Enchanted Looms will change forever our view of consciousness and our concept of the human being.