The World Behind the World

Consciousness, Free Will, and the Limits of Science

De: Erik Hoel

Narrado por: Sean Patrick Hopkins

From a Forbes 30 Under 30 scientist comes a fascinating exploration into how the brain creates our conscious experiences—potentially revolutionizing neuroscience and the future of technology—transforming the very fabric of our society.

Throughout history, two perspectives on the world have dueled in our minds: the extrinsic—that of mechanism and physics—and the intrinsic—that of feelings, thoughts, and ideas. The intrinsic perspective allows us to tell stories about our lives, to chart our anger and our lust, to understand our psychologies. The extrinsic allows us to chart the physical world, to build upon it, and to travel across it. These perspectives have never been reconciled; they almost seem to exist on different planes of thought. Only recently, due to the pioneering work of DNA-discoverer Francis Crick, have these two perspectives been conjoined.

This attempt to reconcile these perspectives is the science of consciousness, and posits that the intrinsic aspect of the world, how and what we perceive, can coexist in the extrinsic part of the world, in the realm of physics. The World Behind the World is a grand tour of the state of this science, an exploration of the point where tectonic metaphysical forces meet, often in paradoxical conclusions.

Dr. Erik Hoel lays out the evidence that nothing in the brain makes sense except in the light of a theory of consciousness. Some topics he examines include what the similarities are between our brains and black holes; where consciousness fits into physics and morality; and why it may be impossible for AI to ever become conscious, despite popular belief.

What does the science of consciousness tell us about what happens beyond brain death? Does our understanding of consciousness strengthen or weaken the case for free will? Is science itself incomplete in the way Gödel showed mathematics is? By taking us through the heated debates of the field and drawing on Hoel’s own original research to shed light on the latest theories about how the brain creates consciousness, The World Behind the World shows us that at long last, science is coming to understand the fundamental mystery of human existence.

An insightful overview of consciousness research

I have read dozens of books about consciousness and neuroscience, but this one is easily the best. Erik Hoel explains the history of consciousness research, from inside the mind and from outside the mind, and he explains the abilities and shortcomings of our current experimental methods in neuroscience. This is material I've never found anywhere else, perhaps because most neuroscientists don't want to admit how little they know about how the brain actually works. The author contends that consciousness is what brains do, and so long as neuroscientists ignore this, they will be unable to derive any meaningful theories of brain function.

The best part of the book for me was Chapter 10: How Science Got Its Scale, which I have already read three times now. The author explains the theory of causal emergence, which is a type of emergence in between strong emergence and weak emergence that illuminates how a deterministic system could nevertheless come to possess free will. The key mechanism is error correction in an information processing system. I am a physicalist, and I've never had a religious attachment to free will, but I was still thrilled to get a scientific explanation for compatibilism. The author developed the theory of causal emergence as his PhD thesis, while working on Integrated Information Theory under Giulio Tononi. Causal emergence seems to work just as well inside or outside IIT, though. I am doing my best to spread these ideas, but they are quite hard to explain. I hope, and I expect, that Erik Hoel's ideas will come to be viewed as groundbreaking new insights.

One of the most important books in your life

Unless you are a specialist or have a prior interest in consciousness, this book will open up to you new ways to think about yourself—of contemplating what your consciousness means and of what it consists. Don’t miss that chance.