Are You Conscious, and Can You Prove It?: Short Science Essays

9780595659609

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This book came about because there are scientific "controversial matters" that gnawed away at my peace of mind. So when I "retired," I finally had time to write about biomedical topics, about some of the weird phenomena of physics, about the minds of suicide bombers, and about less serious subjects such as the condominium swimming pool. My original intention was to have some of this stuff published in a "recognized journal," but one can die (and authors frequently do exactly that) while waiting for publication. Then, my daughter Alice suggested a Web site. What a brilliant and politically-correct idea! Eventually, I filled the Web site with 22 short essays. So instead of scientists who are relatively impervious to change, I managed to attract some "intelligent laypersons." Many of them urged me to assemble a book out of the essays, but this required expansion: figures, tables, equations, references. The equations are (mercifully) hidden as appendixes at the back of the book. I started to extract an Index, but abandoned it as being unnecessary, in the hope that the title of each Chapter hints at its contents.