This post is just a compilation of some resources I came across when researching consciousness. I thought people on a similar journey may benefit from it.
Consciousness is a tough nut to understand. Many things which you take for granted get questioned, and I find that our understanding of the world is much limited as we delve deeper into the basics.
My interest in consciousness stems from the fact that Brain is one of the things which we as humanity have very little understanding of. In some way, it is one of the last standing unknown. With my recent endeavours in meditation, I have got more curious about how our brain works and how it gives rise to consciousness.
While there has been a lot of discussions done on this aspect from a philosophical point of view, I think a lot more can be done with the technology.
My current approach is to understand more about the brain in terms of technology and its information processing capabilities. I think this would lead us to take a better shot at understanding consciousness.
Here are a few resources I found interesting.
- Ed Boyden He runs Synthetic Neurobiology group at MIT and has developed many tools to understand brain better.
Here's a great video by him on How the Brain is computing the Mind
Theodore Berger Professor at USC who has worked on replacing part of hippocampus with VLSI circuitry and has got decent success in rats and monkeys.
Kernel This company is working on developing neuroprosthesis to cure Alzheimers etc. They have Ed Boyden and Theodore Berger working with them/ advising them. Also, its CEO, Bryan Johnson is remarkable.