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I've just started reading The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown to Clare - she normally falls asleep but luckily I record myself reading for her later replay.
I haven’t read much by Mr Brown, and I rather discounted the reviews by literary gourmets as snobbish elitism. Apparently the author writes in clichés, drops paragraphs of travelogue into the narrative and generally makes the reader wince. Surely this is just the disdain of hacks for a mega-successful writer?
Well, no.
Dear Reader, I too found myself inwardly wincing at just such tropes — the sort any diligent sub-editor should surely have flagged and burned.
The subject matter is of interest to me: the true nature of consciousness which, according to a lead character, is not generated by the brain while still apparently locating itself between the ears.
After years reflecting on the ‘hard problem’, it strikes me that we do in fact understand the neural architecture of the brain and its functional substructures quite well — it's familiar territory for any neuroanatomist. And all the operational functions of the brain map cleanly onto its anatomy.
Only consciousness, fragile as it is, refuses to modularise or fold neatly onto brain structure. It's almost as if it's not an emergent feature of brain architecture.
Perhaps we’re missing something that’s staring us in the face?
