The Mystery of Consciousness

Mr. Searle, a philosopher at Berkeley, casts a critical eye on recent attempts to solve the mind-body problem--how it is that the lump of gray meat in your skull produces consciousness--by eminent thinkers like Daniel Dennett, Roger Penrose and Francis Crick. Often he gives a clearer account of their ideas than can be found in their own books. With vigorous logic, he teases out the contradictions of dualism, materialism and computer-inspired "artificial intelligence," which denies the very existence of consciousness.