What do you think?
Rate this book
Consciousness and the Universe: Quantum Physics, Evolution, Brain & Mind
Is consciousness an epiphenomenal happenstance of this particular universe? Or does the very concept of a universe depend upon its presence? Does consciousness merely perceive reality, or does reality depend upon it? Did consciousness simply emerge as an effect of evolution? Or was it, in some sense, always "out there" in the world? These questions and more, are addressed in this special edition.
FEATURING
Cosmological Foundations of Consciousness
Origins of Thought
Evolution of Consciousness
Neuroscience of Free Will
Quantum Physics & Consciousness
Out-of-Body and Near Death Experiences
Dreams & Hallucinations
Paleolithic Cosmology & Spirituality
How Consciousness Becomes the Physical Universe
FEATURING
Cosmological Foundations of Consciousness
Origins of Thought
Evolution of Consciousness
Neuroscience of Free Will
Quantum Physics & Consciousness
Out-of-Body and Near Death Experiences
Dreams & Hallucinations
Paleolithic Cosmology & Spirituality
How Consciousness Becomes the Physical Universe
1172 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 29, 2011
323 people are currently reading
1146 people want to read
About the author
Roger Penrose
100 books1,316 followersSir Roger Penrose is a British mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford, an emeritus fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and an honorary fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, and University College London.
Penrose has contributed to the mathematical physics of general relativity and cosmology. He has received several prizes and awards, including the 1988 Wolf Prize in Physics, which he shared with Stephen Hawking for the Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems, and the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity".
Penrose has contributed to the mathematical physics of general relativity and cosmology. He has received several prizes and awards, including the 1988 Wolf Prize in Physics, which he shared with Stephen Hawking for the Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems, and the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity".
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 9, 2019
The hard problem.
The name of the book, as noted above, is Consciousness and the Universe: Quantum Physics, Evolution, Brain & Mind, and it was edited by Sir Roger Penrose.
The first hard problem was getting my hands on a copy of this book. It was not available in my friendly neighborhood library system. But my friendly neighborhood librarian was kind enough to do a search and find it in another library system.
The second hard problem was that the paper-bound book is massive. Truly a tome. Over 800 pages and weighing a good half a pound. This was not surprising, as Sir Roger has all on his own written books like The Road to Reality, a Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe, which has over 1000 pages. (I own a copy of this one, but have as yet been unable to read it straight through.)
The third hard problem is that it is not a book at all in the usual sense, but a compendium of some 50 scientific papers, each with its own abstract, body, conclusion, and list of references. Not the most reader friendly format.
The fourth hard problem is that some of these papers are deeply technical and obviously written by scientists for other scientists, so they tend to use obscure terminology.
But all that is simply dross.
The gold comes in places like paper 37, Science and the Self-Referentiality of Consciousness, in body section 3 called The Scientific Approach to Consciousness, General Remarks.
In this section the authors explain that science is designed to deal with "easy problems," such as the "structure and neural correlates of conscious events." The real "hard problem" is trying to deal with "the existence, origin and 'feel' of conscious experience itself."
For me, this one section alone earns the book five stars. And there are others nearly as good.
Jim
The name of the book, as noted above, is Consciousness and the Universe: Quantum Physics, Evolution, Brain & Mind, and it was edited by Sir Roger Penrose.
The first hard problem was getting my hands on a copy of this book. It was not available in my friendly neighborhood library system. But my friendly neighborhood librarian was kind enough to do a search and find it in another library system.
The second hard problem was that the paper-bound book is massive. Truly a tome. Over 800 pages and weighing a good half a pound. This was not surprising, as Sir Roger has all on his own written books like The Road to Reality, a Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe, which has over 1000 pages. (I own a copy of this one, but have as yet been unable to read it straight through.)
The third hard problem is that it is not a book at all in the usual sense, but a compendium of some 50 scientific papers, each with its own abstract, body, conclusion, and list of references. Not the most reader friendly format.
The fourth hard problem is that some of these papers are deeply technical and obviously written by scientists for other scientists, so they tend to use obscure terminology.
But all that is simply dross.
The gold comes in places like paper 37, Science and the Self-Referentiality of Consciousness, in body section 3 called The Scientific Approach to Consciousness, General Remarks.
In this section the authors explain that science is designed to deal with "easy problems," such as the "structure and neural correlates of conscious events." The real "hard problem" is trying to deal with "the existence, origin and 'feel' of conscious experience itself."
For me, this one section alone earns the book five stars. And there are others nearly as good.
Jim
July 7, 2018
A lot of material that was somewhat diappointing
I confess I purchased this book by accident, intending to download the sample but ended up clicking the wrong button by mistake. Oh well ...
The book is a very long collection of papers and essays that are somewhat disjointed. The underlying theme, of course, is consciousness, which nobody is able to define. That isn't surprising since the only things that can defined are those that can be objectified, observed and described in terms of other things.
The arguments presented were all over the map. Some of the papers were thought provoking, such as those discussing out-of-body experiences and reincarnation. There were numerous papers that tried to connect consciousness with quantum mechanics, but these amounted to a lot of hand waving and weren't very convincing in my opinion.
The first paper that presented the Penrose-Hameroff model of consciousness based on microtubules was fairly rigorous and well-presented, but I believe it would be way over the head of the casual reader.
I'm not sure who is the intended audience of this book. Not the scientific experts, who are already familiar with the theories and research presented in these papers, but neither are the lay persons who aren't very well-versed in quantum mechanics.
I confess I purchased this book by accident, intending to download the sample but ended up clicking the wrong button by mistake. Oh well ...
The book is a very long collection of papers and essays that are somewhat disjointed. The underlying theme, of course, is consciousness, which nobody is able to define. That isn't surprising since the only things that can defined are those that can be objectified, observed and described in terms of other things.
The arguments presented were all over the map. Some of the papers were thought provoking, such as those discussing out-of-body experiences and reincarnation. There were numerous papers that tried to connect consciousness with quantum mechanics, but these amounted to a lot of hand waving and weren't very convincing in my opinion.
The first paper that presented the Penrose-Hameroff model of consciousness based on microtubules was fairly rigorous and well-presented, but I believe it would be way over the head of the casual reader.
I'm not sure who is the intended audience of this book. Not the scientific experts, who are already familiar with the theories and research presented in these papers, but neither are the lay persons who aren't very well-versed in quantum mechanics.
November 2, 2020
I’m not giving it 5 start to no fault of its own. Some of the papers it contains are simply too tehnical and very hard to read for someone who is not a theoretical physicist or some other type of hardcore scientist, but I accept that’s on me. Bought it mainly for the Orch OR theory, but I’ve enjoyed the majority of the topics (those my small brain and limited knowledge could make sense of).
August 9, 2021
This was a voluminous tome, an anthology of intricate articles about consciousness at all levels. It should Not be confused with, light reading. This took far longer than usual books to digest (for me) and I did not explore the background references to dig deeper when the material was unfamiliar. This book could definitely serve as a primer of sorts as it provides a wide-range of articles across the spectrum of topics on this subject with well referenced, encapsulated papers. Unlike many anthology of science (non-fiction) books, it did not suffer the same strange affect of incoherence due to the constant change of authors... as the book had many authors and each paper was its own discrete entity. This book does not have a great continuity and should not be considered explanatory of Penrose or Hameroff's ORCH or microtubulin or any related theory... which was a disappointment to me. I'm still looking for clarity as to the underlying mechanisms of connectivity related to consciousness like Hameroff mentions in some of his lectures. I'll keep looking.
December 2, 2017
Unrated at completion... many things to contemplate, 1100 pages worth!
February 14, 2022
Interesting read when i was younger, hard to see the links tho the more i delve into physics
Read
August 1, 2025Quantum consciousness theories from leading physicists and mathematicians.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews