World in My Mind, My Mind in the World - Key Mechanisms of Consciousness in People, Animals and Machines (Paperback)

Igor Aleksander is Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at Imperial College, London. Well established as a skilled and provocative communicator, he addresses both the general reader and the consciousness studies specialist. Never one to dodge the big questions, Igor Aleksander tackles them head on in this latest book: Is there a 'real world' or is our awareness of one an illusion? Are animals conscious? Can machines be conscious? What is it to be unconscious? Does the 'science of consciousness' impinge on religious thought? How is consciousness affected by mental deterioration? Aleksander's technique is to refine the search for answers by the application of his five 'axioms' concerning consciousness, which he has already derived and set out in earlier work: Being a 'self' in an out-there world; Recalling and imagining being a 'self' in experienced or fictitious worlds; Attending to individually important things; Being able to decide what to do next; and having emotional feelings about things that are happening or being planned.