The terrible subtitle almost put me off. Go look at this thing in person, everyone. It's really beautiful. ( )

This is physically a lovely book, with fine art illustrations and whimsical photographs. The conception is to explain consciousness as integrated information, the phi of the title. The exposition is in the form of three dreams of Galileo, as he is toured about by Francis Crick, Alan Turing, and Charles Darwin. The dreams are colorfully described, not straightforward neuroscience, and the author comments on each chapter in a footnote, often pretending that the contents were not his -"this chapter seems to be saying that ...". I found that tic annoying. I also did not find much new information; the clinical cases described in the first dream are all familiar to me, and the insights of the last dream are fanciful. ( )

Oh, for heaven's sake. I wanted to like this a lot more than I did, reviews compared it to Gödel, Escher, Bach (which I have to admit I have owned for about 20 years, and never made it past page 17 because it gets way too hard) and Sophie's World, in that it takes an academic discipline -- neural science and the definition of human consciousness -- and puts it into a populist format with kind of a loose narrative (although mercifully, one which does not involve the U.N.).

So I think we're using a series of metaphors and analogies to describe different aspects of consciousness and neurological process? My biggest problem with the book is that they weren't particularly GOOD analogies. They were elaborate and detailed and gussed up with a lot of literary language so by the end I would typically lose the thread and have no idea was it was supposed to be an analogy for in the first place. There were also a lot of cameos from real historic figures, with coy remarks about how the author took license with the details -- and at first, I was all for this -- I have no issues with using the basics of an example from history without a lot of labored extra effort to make all the exact circumstances fit into a metaphor -- but these examples got so crazy off-topic that I can't figure why there was a big *wink, wink* about making them actual people.

All the information about neurology you already know from reading Oliver Sacks.

The book also weighs about fifty million pounds, because it's printed on extremely high quality paper and contains a whole bunch of excellent reproductions of classic art, photography, and other images. You know, I get what the author was trying to do, and if the book worked better, I'd probably be more excited about the art ... but it ended up, to me, looking like someone was trying to bulk up a web site by throwing up a bunch of images without actually improving the content.

Reading this never stopped feeling like homework. I noticed, though, that reading this as homework would probably have been a better experience for me, it would have been interesting to read it with someone else and see what kinds of conversations and reactions get sparked as a result. (Not that I would encourage anyone to read this for the sole purpose of talking about it, more like if you had to read it for an assignment, I bet there would be good class discussions.)

I guess the most frustrating thing is that I can completely see how the author is knowledgeable and passionate about the topic, and probably a very interesting guy to chat with in person, and the plan for this book is impressive ... but it simply doesn't meet the goals. ( )

Wonderfully written. Motivates me to go out and find other books to read around the topic. Good read ( )

Tononi is the formulator of "integrated information theory", the quantitative theory of consciousness referred to by Christof Koch in _Consciousness_. This handsomely produced and colorfully illustrated volume gives a qualitative sketch of the theory in the unlikely guise of a tale about Galileo Galilei being taken on an educational odyssey by "Frick" (Francis Crick), "Alturi" (Alan Turing), and a bearded old man (Charles Darwin). It certainly should appeal to readers who like their science delivered in a rich blend of classicality, allegory, and metaphor.