The mystery of Consciousness

Newcastle, Centre for Life. November 2005


What is consciousness? At once the most obvious, and the most difficult thing we can investigate, consciousness remains a mystery. And the more we learn about how the brain works, the more difficult it becomes to understand where consciousness fits in. I have struggled with these mysteries myself and become seriously confused. So, wanting to know what the experts think, I talked to many of the world’s top scientists and philosophers of consciousness about their theories and insights, and about how studying consciousness has changed their lives. Their views are often surprising – so are the vast differences between them.