Maybe a bit off the beaten path but: The Doors of Perception, Alduous Huxley.
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2026
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Any good books on conciousness?
Not that I'm aware ...
Consciousness: a Very Short Introduction.
I can't vouch for that particular book, but the VSI series is usually a good bet.
So far this one seems on top for me. Most of the others (apart from Huxley which is very old) are people proposing their theories, vs an overview.
I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter
And "Gödel Escher Bach", also by Hofstadter, which is basically the foreword to Strange Loop.
Consciousness Explained by Daniel C. Dennett. A bit dense and probably a bit dated now, but I feel it's a good introduction to the topic even if some of the conclusions he had (at that time) don't hold up now.
I read A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness by V. S. Ramachandran a long time ago and found it super interesting. Might be a bit dated by now though.
The synopsis for this one makes it sound like only the end is about consciousness, and other parts are either about other neural topics or societal standards. Is the synopsis just lopsided?
A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness is made up of five investigations of the greatest mysteries of the brain. The first chapter shows how amputees feel pain in limbs they no longer have as it introduces the great revolution of our neuroscience. The second chapter walks through the way what we see determines our thoughts, and demonstrates the counterintuitive point that believing is in fact seeing. The third chapter takes a leap beyond cutting edge science to audaciously set out a general theory of beauty, explaining why, the world over, cultures have fundamentally similar notions of what is attractive. The fourth chapter explores the bizarre world of synesthetes, people who see colors in numbers, textures in smells, sounds in sights, and flavors in sounds. Finally, V. S. Ramachandran one of the foremost brain researchers in the world today, sums up the implications of the revolution in our understanding of consciousness, to make a fascinating argument about our essential sense of self and its distributed nature.
The whole thing is about consciousness, the chapters are exploiting different aspects and queries about it.
Yes. Shadows of the mind, roger penrose
Given that this is from 1989, does it hold up now? My understanding is a lot has happened since then.
My favourite part of that book is where Penrose perfectly describes what today we call AI deepfakes and how the 'bottom-up' algorithms that run all our AI tech today will never lead to actual consciousness, or sentience in machines.
His arguments do still hold up today, and give an interesting perspective on our current AI bubble that keeps promising AGI is just around the corner.
Not in regards to studying consciousness. We knew nothing then and we know nothing now.
Yes it definitely does.