Consciousness is one of the major unsolved problems in science. How do the feelings and sensations making up conscious experience arise from the concerted actions of nerve cells and their associated synaptic and molecular processes? Can such feelings be explained by modern science, or is there an entirely different kind of explanation needed? And how can this seemingly intractable problem be approached experimentally? How do the operations of the conscious mind emerge out of the specific interactions involving billions of neurons? This multi-authored book seeks answers to these questions within a range of physically based frameworks, i.e, the underlying assumption is that consciousness can be understood using the intellectual potential of modern physics and other sciences. There are a number of theories of consciousness in existence, some of which are based on classical physics while some others require the use of quantum concepts. The latter ones have drawn a lot of criticism from the present-day scientific establishment while simultaneously claiming that classical approaches are doomed to failure. This book presents the reader with a spectrum of opinions from both sides of this on-going scientific debate, letting him/her decide which of these approaches are most likely to succeed.

The Path Ahead

Consciousness and Quantum Physics: Empirical Research on the Subjective Reduction of the Statevector
Microtubules in the Cerebral Cortex: Role in Memory and Consciousness
Towards Experimental Tests of Quantum Effects in Cytoskeletal Proteins
Physicalism, Chaos and Reductionism
Consciousness, Neurobiology and Quantum Mechanics: The Case for a Connection
Life, Catalysis and Excitable Media: A Dynamic Systems Approach to Metabolism and Cognition
The Dendritic Cytoskeleton as a Computational Device: An Hypothesis
Recurrent Quantum Neural Network and its Applications
Microtubules as a Quantum Hopfield Network
Consciousness and Quantum Brain Dynamics
The CEMI Field Theory: Seven Clues to the Nature of Consciousness
Quantum Cosmology and the Hard Problem of the Conscious Brain
Consciousness and Logic in a Quantum-Computing Universe.