3.88 avg rating — 27,696 ratings

"Fascinating to think of how the octopus "brain" might work and what that means in relation to minds in general."

3.89 avg rating — 2,461 ratings

"Works well with A Deep History of Ourselves (more open to subjective) and Journey of the Mind as it is a history of the how the mind came to be. "

3.94 avg rating — 354 ratings

"Very close to a textbook - nitty gritty details about how protominds work. Very explanatory."

3.93 avg rating — 1,312 ratings

"Very important paper detailing the "hard problem" of consciousness, subjective experience, qualia, other minds."

4.10 avg rating — 4,781 ratings

"Focus on perception and illusions (illusion of self), beast machines."

4.24 avg rating — 3,602 ratings

"Outsider view, IIT, philosophy, AI, one of the most enjoyable reads of the list."

4.35 avg rating — 3,973 ratings

"A lot of great information but perhaps a flawed thesis. Left and right brain and how they work together, but a lot of lit and philosophic history. The thesis itself is not well backed up but works best as a kind of mythological symbol."

4.09 avg rating — 6,896 ratings

"Anil Seth talks about how consciousness is necessarily embodied; language is full of metaphors understood by existing in a body -- if you want to delve more into that, read this book. "

3.46 avg rating — 747 ratings

"I really enjoyed this although it does miss quite a few theories. The parables and thought experiments are really fun."

3.83 avg rating — 8,755 ratings

"Very short, focused on panpsychism. "Amateur" compilation of some of the most intriguing questions. Links to Buddhism, not woo-woo."

4.25 avg rating — 1,081 ratings

"Neurobiologist point of view, future of AI, primacy of emotion/affect in evolution of consciousness"

3.56 avg rating — 213 ratings

"Audiobook version of Great Courses -- outlines main issues and arguments."

3.95 avg rating — 8,636 ratings

"A very different POV to the books I've read thus far -- loop vs. strange loop. A soul is a pattern. The book is organized by parables and story possibilities, trying to open your mind to different ways of seeing an "I" and levels of "I"s if a soul could be stronger weaker or even shared. I felt frustrated a lot with his assumptions and simplifications of the points other theorists make. It's a little bit of denialism -- ignoring the hard problem by denying there is one, but I don't feel like he is explaining it away. "

4.07 avg rating — 2,728 ratings

"This would be a good introduction to the ideas of perception and thinking about how we think. Imagery is great, kind of a companion to Flatland in parts. Not super complex."

3.81 avg rating — 77,193 ratings

"Thought experiments on perception and seeing outside of our common sense notions of the world."

4.04 avg rating — 4,003 ratings

"This book is cited in quite a few other books about consciousness. It helps to think about how other organisms might "feel" and "know" in ways different and similar to us."

3.86 avg rating — 693 ratings

"Mostly an explanation of how minds evolved. Calls a lot of things "folk psychology" - brain chemistry over subjective/POV. It's an important viewpoint to recognize but still very frustrating to me. He doesn't recognize subjective as evidence and believes that no animal is conscious except for humans. Godfrey-Smith is a counterpoint."

4.17 avg rating — 31,487 ratings

"Doesn't mention much about consciousness, but I think it's interesting to think about how viruses/bacteria may take over the mind such as in rabies or toxoplasmosis. One small part and one small idea, but there is a lot that could be studied here about consciousness."

3.94 avg rating — 7,147 ratings

"This is a book of essays and not all are relative to consciousness, but there are some interesting thoughts on creativity and the mind. Any Oliver Sacks book would probably have something of interest to the concepts."