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Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences null

Book on the code of consciousness

Neuroscientist Cyriel Pennartz presents a new popular science book in Dutch: "de code van het bewustzijn".

7 May 2021

"This is not a book for the faint of heart - it is for doubters, tinkerers, worriers, trackers and other people curious about what's going on up there in their head," thus Cyriel Pennartz on his new book. In the book, Pennartz takes the reader on an inspiring quest for one of the greatest scientific challenges of the twenty-first century: understanding the relationship between brain and mind.

Pennartz, professor at the Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences (SILS), has written this popular scientific work in Dutch. The issue of consciousness - and especially sensory consciousness - is central in it. How is the brain, this remarkable tissue where it literally crackles with electrical activity, able to let us experience the world with its wealth of qualities as if it's just regular matter? Pennartz shows that "experience" and "consciousness" are not superfluous concepts. According to him, studying it is not an impassable road. In fact, over the past thirty years, studies of patients, computer simulations and the electrical behavior of brain cells have paved the way for thorough research into brain mechanisms of consciousness.

More information about the book can be found in the Dutch news article 

Publication details

Cyriel Pennartz: De code van het bewustzijn. Hoe de hersenen onze werkelijkheid vormgeven (Uitgeverij Prometheus, mei 2021).
Paperback, 352 pagina's, € 22,50
ISBN: 978 90 446 3191 3

Visit the webshop of Prometheus