Here are 100 books that I Am a Strange Loop fans have personally recommended if you like
I Am a Strange Loop.
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I’m an educator at heart and have been teaching in high schools for over thirty years now. I get a kick out of helping young people see the world anew and think about ideas in ways that at first seem strange and challenging to them, both in the classroom and through my novels. Of course, to be any good at that, I have to be inquisitive and open myself, and there’s nothing like the topic of consciousness to make you feel feeble-minded and ill-informed. It’s such a wondrous topic because it sits at the precise meeting point of so many of our scientific, cultural, artistic, religious, and philosophical traditions.
The issues of free will and consciousness are, to my limited mind, inextricably linked. And so, while Dennett somewhat overpromised and underdelivered with his well-known Consciousness Explained (tremendously hard not to underdeliver with a title like that) here I think he’s much more on the money. I think of all the books that I’ve read which address, either directly or tangentially, the issue of how the mind works, this is the one that gave me the clearest new insight into how we might think about, well, thinking. Dennett is a fine thinker and an excellent communicator but he tends to lose nuance when he goes combative. This is one of his gentler books, and all the better for it.
Can there be freedom and free will in a deterministic world? Renowned philosopher Daniel Dennett emphatically answers "yes!" Using an array of provocative formulations, Dennett sets out to show how we alone among the animals have evolved minds that give us free will and morality. Weaving a richly detailed narrative, Dennett explains in a series of strikingly original arguments-drawing upon evolutionary biology, cognitive neuroscience, economics, and philosophy-that far from being an enemy of traditional explorations of freedom, morality, and meaning, the evolutionary perspective can be an indispensable ally. In Freedom Evolves, Dennett seeks to place ethics on the foundation it…
I like trying to solve problems about the mind: Is the mind just the brain? What is consciousness, and where is it in the brain? What happens in the brain during aesthetic experience? Why are we prone to self-deception? In approaching these questions, I don’t limit myself to one discipline or set of techniques. These mental phenomena, and the problems that surround them, do not hew to our disciplinary boundaries. In spite of this, someone needs to collect, analyze, and assess information relevant to the problems—which is in many different formats—and build theories designed to make sense of it. During that time, more data will become available, so back you go.
V. S. Ramachandran is a gifted experimentalist and writer who does not hesitate to pursue deep and important questions about our minds. Rather than employing expensive imaging or large sample sizes, he is more likely to use a cardboard box, an old stereopticon, or a rubber hand in his experiments.
His creativity in finding concrete ways to test seemingly vague but interesting claims about our minds has led to several breakthroughs, in our understanding of phantom limbs and our ability to treat phantom pain, and also in our study of synesthesia—cases in which people see numbers as having colors, for example.
As I can attest, he is able to transmit to his students the idea that pursuing scientific questions can be thrilling, fulfilling, and so much fun that you can’t wait to get to work in the morning.
In this landmark work, V. S. Ramachandran investigates strange, unforgettable cases-from patients who believe they are dead to sufferers of phantom limb syndrome. With a storyteller's eye for compelling case studies and a researcher's flair for new approaches to age-old questions, Ramachandran tackles the most exciting and controversial topics in brain science, including language, creativity, and consciousness.
I’m an educator at heart and have been teaching in high schools for over thirty years now. I get a kick out of helping young people see the world anew and think about ideas in ways that at first seem strange and challenging to them, both in the classroom and through my novels. Of course, to be any good at that, I have to be inquisitive and open myself, and there’s nothing like the topic of consciousness to make you feel feeble-minded and ill-informed. It’s such a wondrous topic because it sits at the precise meeting point of so many of our scientific, cultural, artistic, religious, and philosophical traditions.
Bookshelves groan under the weight of highly skilled science communicators, and through them those of us with no specialist knowledge can learn about evolution, quantum mechanics, neuroscience et al, and then bore people to death with our newfound knowledge. There is, however, a world of difference between the things science discovers and the stories we tell about these discoveries. I love this book because it makes the reader do the hard yards, thinking not just about the breathless new discoveries, but also the very nature of this knowledge, and hence its limits.
Co-published with the University of Queensland Press. HPC holds rights in North America and U. S. Dependencies.
Since its first publication in 1976, Alan Chalmers's highly regarded and widely read work--translated into eighteen languages--has become a classic introduction to the scientific method, known for its accessibility to beginners and its value as a resource for advanced students and scholars.
In addition to overall improvements and updates inspired by Chalmers's experience as a teacher, comments from his readers, and recent developments in the field, this fourth edition features an extensive chapter-long postscript that draws on his research into the history of…
I’m an educator at heart and have been teaching in high schools for over thirty years now. I get a kick out of helping young people see the world anew and think about ideas in ways that at first seem strange and challenging to them, both in the classroom and through my novels. Of course, to be any good at that, I have to be inquisitive and open myself, and there’s nothing like the topic of consciousness to make you feel feeble-minded and ill-informed. It’s such a wondrous topic because it sits at the precise meeting point of so many of our scientific, cultural, artistic, religious, and philosophical traditions.
I do enjoy a good argument, especially when it’s between highly articulate experts in their field. Gould is a fine science writer who always flew the flag for caution when it came to over-interpreting our findings. Here he makes the case for different ways of knowing, and as a committed philosophical pragmatist myself, in the style of William James, I’m all for his insistence that we avoid the lure of crass reductionism, no matter how smart and superior this might make us feel. Ever so important when it comes to thinking about the big issues like consciousness.
In his final book, Gould offers a surprising and nuanced study of the complex relationship between our two great ways of knowing: science and the humanities, twin realms of knowledge that have been divided against each other for far too long.
Currently a Professor of Leadership and Strategy at Hult, I’ve been on the faculties of other top business schools, and an executive officer of a NASDAQ company. I’ve led “new to the world” technology projects and advised CXOs of global companies. These experiences convinced me that poor leadership is the biggest reason organizational initiatives fail. Two decades ago, I switched from being a technology scholar; I began researching leadership and writing for practitioners, not academics. My first book was on a 2009 “best business books” list. This one is in Sloan Management Review’s Management on the Cutting Edge series—books that its editors believe will influence executive behavior.
To the best of my recollection, the word ‘leadership’ doesn’t appear in this book.
Yet, since I first encountered it in a Harvard Business School doctoral seminar on leadership—and ignored numerous assignments because I couldn’t put it down—I have recommended it to countless professionals.
Too often, leadership is presented as a disembodied (cap)ability, unmoored from its organizational context.
Philosopher Hofstadter and computer scientist Dennett’s remarkable collection of articles includes both fairy tales (yes!) and Alan Turing’s essay defining artificial intelligence. Collectively, they explore not just the “self and soul” in the sub-title but also how humans interact with organizations and technology.
This book taught me leadership isn’t about being a puppeteer. Each of the newest developments in artificial intelligence has reminded me that I must re-read this book.
With contributions from Jorge Luis Borges, Richard Dawkins, John Searle, and Robert Nozick, The Mind's I explores the meaning of self and consciousness through the perspectives of literature, artificial intelligence, psychology, and other disciplines. In selections that range from fiction to scientific speculations about thinking machines, artificial intelligence, and the nature of the brain, Hofstadter and Dennett present a variety of conflicting visions of the self and the soul as explored through the writings of some of the twentieth century's most renowned thinkers.
I am now a Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Sheffield, UK. I co-wrote Mind Hacks with technologist Matt Webb; we had great fun doing it. My research has always been in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, using experiments to understand the mind and brain and how they fit together.
This book captures what is so exciting about psychology - that our own minds are at once so familiar yet so deeply weird. There’s so much to be explored!
Warren is a perfect guide, sharing his learning but not getting bogged down with it, as he visits different states of consciousness, some of which we visit every day, like the daydream or the feeling of falling asleep, others, like the lucid dream, might be less familiar.
This book will change the way you think, sleep, and dream for good. It is a book of psychology and neuroscience, and also of adventure wherein the author explores the extremes to which consciousness can be stretched, from the lucid dream to the quasi-mystical substratum of awareness known as the Pure Conscious Event. Replete with stylish graphics and brightened by comic panels conceived and drawn by the author, The Head Trip is an instant classic, a brilliant and original description of the shifting experience of consciousness that's also a practical guide to enhancing creativity and mental health. This book does…
The question “Who are you?” has been central to my practice over the last 30 years. This inquiry led me to live in a silent monastery for eight years. If we aren’t who we have been conditioned to see ourselves to be, then who are we? Who are we truly? This inquiry has led to happiness in my own life, it’s led to happiness in the lives of thousands of teens who have been served through the nonprofit I founded–Peace in Schools, and it’s led to happiness with the adults who have come to my workshops and retreats.
I found this book to be deeply enlightening because it reshaped my understanding of true happiness. I appreciate how Spira’s teachings challenge conventional views by revealing the inherent joy within each of us. The way he guides readers to see beyond transient emotions and connect with their true nature really resonated with me.
I think this book should be on the bookshelf of any sincere spiritual seeker who wants to find lasting fulfillment and peace. It’s a profound read for anyone seeking to uncover a deeper sense of contentment and spiritual clarity.
In this book, Rupert Spira distils the message of all the great religious and spiritual traditions into two essential truths: happiness is the very nature of our self or being, and we share our being with everyone and everything.
Drawing on numerous examples from his own experience, Spira demonstrates that to seek lasting happiness through objects, situations and relationships is destined for failure and disappointment, and skilfully guides the reader to recognise that we are already the happiness we seek.
This book is for anyone who yearns for lasting happiness and is open…
From when I first learned to read, books opened a whole new world, which has given me vast pleasure ever since. I think it’s made me wiser, too. But it wasn’t until the sudden death of my younger son in 2020 that I began to read about the edges of the known world, and to discover that by opening my mind I could re-learn what I instinctively knew as a young child: that we come from somewhere else. Even before encountering tragedy, I’d been fascinated by the dividing line between what science can prove, and what still remains conjecture: it’s a theme I have returned to again and again in my fiction.
If you are curious about the science of the unexplained realms of consciousness, and how to explore their possibilities, then this accessible, well-researched guide is the perfect place to start. Citing peer-reviewed studies, Gober covers near-death experiences, telepathy, “remote viewing,” and other phenomena which, though part of the anecdotal heritage of all cultures, remain unexplored by all but the bravest scientists.
Consciousness creates all material reality. Biological processes do not create consciousness. This conceptual breakthrough turns traditional scientific thinking upside down. In An End to Upside Down Thinking, Mark Gober traces his journey - he explores compelling scientific evidence from a diverse set of disciplines, ranging from psychic phenomena, to near-death experiences, to quantum physics. With cutting-edge thinkers like two-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr. Ervin Laszlo, Chief Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences Dr. Dean Radin, and New York Times bestselling author Larry Dossey, MD supporting this thesis, this book will rock the scientific community and mainstream generalists interested…
I’ve always had equally balanced interests in the arts/humanities and the natural sciences. I started as a physics major in college but added a second major in philosophy after encountering the evolutionary theories of Hegel, Bergson, Alexander, Whitehead, and Teilhard de Chardin. This interest continued in graduate school at Northwestern, where my first year coincided with the arrival of Prof. Errol E. Harris, who had a similar focus and would direct my doctoral dissertation in philosophy, whose title was From Ontology to Praxis: A Metaphilosophical Inquiry into Two Philosophical Paradigms. One of the “paradigms” was reductionist; the other was emergentist.
Clayton and Davies selected the diverse essays by various experts in this area of research to show the relevance of the emergentist paradigm to diverse areas of inquiry–including quantum physics, astronomy, cell biology, and primatology.
These lines of inquiry converge on the more provocative question of the emergence of consciousness from the brain...with an added discussion of the relevance of theological questions, including the relation between God and the world.
The thirteen essays of this study are divided into four broad areas: (1) The Physical Sciences, (2) The Biological Sciences, (3) Consciousness and Emergence, and (4) Religion and Emergence. Contributing authors include Jaegwon Kim, David J. Chalmers, and Arthur Peacocke. Here again, my perspective on this subject was broadened by the diversity of these treatments.
Much of the modern period was dominated by a `reductionist' theory of science. On this view, to explain any event in the world is to reduce it down to fundamental particles, laws, and forces. In recent years reductionism has been dramatically challenged by a radically new paradigm called `emergence'. According to this new theory, natural history reveals the continuous emergence of novel phenomena: new structures and new organisms with new causal powers. Consciousness is yet one more emergent level in the natural hierarchy. Many theologians and religious scholars believe that this new paradigm may offer new insights into the nature…
Somehow, electrical impulses shoot through our brains to generate a surround sound, 3D-movie experience of the world. How on earth is this possible? When I was a college student, this question burrowed into my brain and wouldn’t get out. So I decided to make a living thinking about it. Now it’s 20 years later, I’m a philosophy professor at Yale-NUS College, and I still don’t know the answer!
What if consciousness is the story our minds tell us about the world? Books are written in black ink but can tell stories about red roses. So maybe neurons in your brain can also tell you stories about red roses–maybe that’s what’s happening when you see a red rose.
Michael Tye explores this idea in an incredibly fruitful way, and the theory that he helped to develop, representationalism, is a juggernaut in the contemporary philosophy of perception.
Can neurophysiology ever reveal to us what it is like to smell a skunk or to experience pain? In what does the feeling of happiness consist? How is it that changes in the white and gray matter composing our brains generate subjective sensations and feelings? These are several of the questions that Michael Tye addresses, while formulating a new and enlightening theory about the phenomenal "what it feels like" aspect of consciousness. The test of any such theory, according to Tye, lies in how well it handles ten critical problems of consciousness. Tye argues that all experiences and all feelings…
