In his previous books, Oliver Sacks had addressed questions of the brain and mind through the lens of case histories of individuals with neurological disorders. Recently, however, he had been reflecting on his experiences with such patients in the context of a lifetime of medical practice, and in light of recent neuroscientific evidence and theories.
The River of Consciousness will be a broader and more direct look at how the brain and mind work, as always, incorporating Sacks' rich historical and personal context. Advances in neuroscience have revolutionised our ability to visualise the brain in action. For the first time we are able to close the gap between the philosophical questions which have consumed the world's thinkers since the eighteenth century and the true physiological basis of perception and consciousness. In The River of Consciousness, Sacks will examine questions of memory, time, and consciousness. How do we think, how do we remember? Do different individuals have different speeds or ways of thinking? Is memory reliable? How do the neural correlates of memory differ for true memories and false memories? How do we construct our sense of time, our visual world? What is consciousness, neurologically speaking? And most importantly, what is creativity?
Barb takes care of the web orders here at Boffins, and is your contact for book club enquiries. She spends all her spare time curled up on the couch reading and for the last several years has reviewed books on the Afternoon Program on ABC radio Perth.
Before his death in 2015 Oliver Sacks left instructions for the publication of these essays as a collection. They range from Darwin’s botanical observations to false memories, plagiarism to our awareness of time, and are all written with Sacks’ signature enthusiasm for the world of science. As was his habit, Sacks often provides a personal context to his subject and nearly always an historical one. His had a gift of making the complex both comprehensible and fascinating and his breadth of knowledge is truly on show in The River of Consciousness.
