The River of Consciousness
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Narrated by:
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Dan Woren
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Kate Edgar
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By:
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Oliver Sacks
About this listen
From the best-selling author of Gratitude, On the Move, and Musicophilia, a collection of essays that displays Oliver Sacks' passionate engagement with the most compelling and seminal ideas of human endeavor: evolution, creativity, memory, time, consciousness, and experience.
Oliver Sacks, a scientist and a storyteller, is beloved by all for the extraordinary neurological case histories (Awakenings, An Anthropologist on Mars) in which he introduced and explored many now familiar disorders - autism, Tourette's syndrome, face blindness, savant syndrome. He was also a memoirist who wrote with honesty and humor about the remarkable and strange encounters and experiences that shaped him (Uncle Tungsten, On the Move, Gratitude). Sacks, an Oxford-educated polymath, had a deep familiarity not only with literature and medicine but with botany, animal anatomy, chemistry, the history of science, philosophy, and psychology. The River of Consciousness is one of two books Sacks was working on up to his death, and it reveals his ability to make unexpected connections, his sheer joy in knowledge, and his unceasing, timeless project to understand what makes us human.
©2017 Oliver Sacks (P)2017 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Why God Won't Go Away
- Brain Science and the Biology of Belief
- By: Andrew Newberg, Eugene d'Aquili, Vince Rause
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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In this groundbreaking new book, researchers Andrew Newberg and Eugene d'Aquili offer an explanation that is at once profoundly simple and scientifically precise: The religious impulse is rooted in the biology of the brain. In Why God Won't Go Away, Newberg and d'Aquili document their pioneering explorations in the field of neurotheology, an emerging discipline dedicated to understanding the complex relationship between spirituality and the brain.
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My opinion
- By David Berry on 09-06-18
By: Andrew Newberg, and others
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Autopilot
- The Art & Science of Doing Nothing
- By: Andrew Smart
- Narrated by: Kevin Free
- Length: 3 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Andrew Smart wants you to sit and do nothing much more often - and he has the science to explain why. At every turn we’re pushed to do more, faster, and more efficiently: That drumbeat resounds throughout our wage-slave society. Multitasking is not only a virtue, it’s a necessity. But Andrew Smart argues that slackers may have the last laugh. The latest neuroscience shows that the “culture of effectiveness” is not only ineffective, it can be harmful to your well-being.
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Not worth it.
- By B Lee on 04-30-14
By: Andrew Smart
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At the Edge of Uncertainty
- 11 Discoveries Taking Science by Surprise
- By: Michael Brooks
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The atom, the big bang, DNA, natural selection - all are ideas that have revolutionized science; and all were dismissed out of hand when they first appeared. The surprises haven't stopped in recent years, and in At the Edge of Uncertainty, best-selling author Michael Brooks investigates the new wave of radical insights that are shaping the future of scientific discovery.
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All smoke, no fire
- By Kenton on 07-25-15
By: Michael Brooks
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Entangled Minds
- Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality
- By: Dean Radin PhD
- Narrated by: Al Kessel
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Is everything connected? Can we sense what's happening to loved ones thousands of miles away? Why are we sometimes certain of a caller's identity the instant the phone rings? Do intuitive hunches contain information about future events? Is it possible to perceive without the use of the ordinary senses? Many people believe that such "psychic phenomena" are rare talents or divine gifts. Others don't believe they exist at all. But the latest scientific research shows that these phenomena are both real and widespread.
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Boring as all get out but…
- By rebekah higgins on 01-12-20
By: Dean Radin PhD
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The Mind of God
- Neuroscience, Faith, and a Search for the Soul
- By: Dr. Jay Lombard
- Narrated by: David Acord
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Is there a God? It's a question billions of people have asked since the dawn of time. You would think by now we'd have a satisfactory, universal answer. No such luck...or maybe we do and we just need to look in the right place. For Dr. Jay Lombard that place is the brain, and more importantly the mind, that center of awareness and consciousness that creates reality. In The Mind of God, Dr. Lombard employs case studies from his own behavioral neurology practice to explore the spiritual conundrums that we all ask ourselves.
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Keenly insightful
- By Rick Smith on 09-30-19
By: Dr. Jay Lombard
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The Lives of a Cell
- Notes of a Biology Watcher
- By: Lewis Thomas
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 4 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Lives of a Cell, Dr. Lewis Thomas opens up to the listener a universe of knowledge and perception that is perhaps not wholly unfamiliar to the research scientist; but the world he explores is also one of men and women, of complex interrelationships, old ironies, peculiar powers, and intricate languages that give identity to the alienated and direction to the dependent. This remarkable work offers a subtle, bold vision of humankind and the world around us - a sense of what gives life - from a writer who seems to draw grace and strength from the very substance of his subject.
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So enlightening and enjoyable!
- By Flora on 03-15-18
By: Lewis Thomas
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The Brain That Changes Itself
- Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science
- By: Norman Doidge M.D.
- Narrated by: Jim Bond
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, MD, traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they've transformed - people whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable.
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***MIND BLOWN***
- By Laura Elsasser on 04-04-21
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The Spiritual Brain
- A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul
- By: Mario Beauregard, Denyse O'Leary
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Does religious experience come from God, or is it just the random firing of neurons in the brain? Drawing on brain research on Carmelite nuns that has attracted major media attention and provocative new research in near-death experiences, The Spiritual Brain proves that genuine, life-changing spiritual events can be documented. The authors make a convincing case for what many in science are loathe to consider: that it is God who creates our spiritual experiences, not the brain.
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interesting topic, but frustrating listen
- By Barry T on 08-27-08
By: Mario Beauregard, and others
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A deeply moving testimony and celebration of how to embrace life. No writer has succeeded in capturing the medical and human drama of illness as honestly and as eloquently as Oliver Sacks. During the last few months of his life, he wrote a set of essays in which he movingly explored his feelings about completing a life and coming to terms with his own death.
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To the Point, Yet Told From the Heart
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SACKS IS AN ABSOLUTE JOY !!
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Hallucinations don’t belong wholly to the insane. Much more commonly, they are linked to sensory deprivation, intoxication, illness, or injury. Here Dr. Sacks weaves together stories of his patients and of his own mind-altering experiences to illuminate what hallucinations tell us about the organization and structure of our brains, how they have influenced every culture’s folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all.
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Not Just Hallucinations
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From the best-selling author of Gratitude and On the Move, a final volume of essays that showcase Sacks's broad range of interests - from his passion for ferns, swimming, and horsetails, to his final case histories exploring schizophrenia, dementia, and Alzheimer's.
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Missing Sacks
- By Brandy on 12-02-19
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Awakenings
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Awakenings - which inspired the major motion picture - is the remarkable story of a group of patients who contracted sleeping sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I. Frozen for decades in a trance-like state, these men and women were given up as hopeless until 1969, when Dr. Oliver Sacks gave them the then-new drug L-DOPA, which had an astonishing, explosive, "awakening" effect. Dr. Sacks recounts the moving case histories of his patients, their lives, and their extraordinary transformations.
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Absolute classic!
- By Douglas on 09-01-12
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The Mind's Eye
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An exploration of vision through the case histories of six individuals - including a renowned pianist who continues to give concerts despite losing the ability to read the score, and a neurobiologist born with crossed eyes who, late in life, suddenly acquires binocular vision, and how her brain adapts to that new skill.
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Same ole Sacks--great yarns as usual.
- By Rlelli07 on 10-26-10
By: Oliver Sacks
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-
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- By LJT on 01-18-16
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An Anthropologist on Mars
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To these seven narratives of neurological disorder Dr. Sacks brings the same humanity, poetic observation, and infectious sense of wonder that are apparent in his bestsellers Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. These men, women, and one extraordinary child emerge as brilliantly adaptive personalities, whose conditions have not so much debilitated them as ushered them into another reality.
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SACKS IS AN ABSOLUTE JOY !!
- By Jeff on 09-22-13
By: Oliver Sacks
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Hallucinations
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Hallucinations don’t belong wholly to the insane. Much more commonly, they are linked to sensory deprivation, intoxication, illness, or injury. Here Dr. Sacks weaves together stories of his patients and of his own mind-altering experiences to illuminate what hallucinations tell us about the organization and structure of our brains, how they have influenced every culture’s folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all.
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Not Just Hallucinations
- By Pamela Harvey on 01-05-13
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Missing Sacks
- By Brandy on 12-02-19
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Awakenings
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Absolute classic!
- By Douglas on 09-01-12
By: Oliver Sacks
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The Mind's Eye
- By: Oliver Sacks
- Narrated by: Oliver Sacks, Richard Davidson
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
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An exploration of vision through the case histories of six individuals - including a renowned pianist who continues to give concerts despite losing the ability to read the score, and a neurobiologist born with crossed eyes who, late in life, suddenly acquires binocular vision, and how her brain adapts to that new skill.
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Same ole Sacks--great yarns as usual.
- By Rlelli07 on 10-26-10
By: Oliver Sacks
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Musicophilia
- Tales of Music and the Brain
- By: Oliver Sacks
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
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Music can move us to the heights or depths of emotion. It can persuade us to buy something, or remind us of our first date. It can lift us out of depression when nothing else can. It can get us dancing to its beat. But the power of music goes much, much further. Indeed, music occupies more areas of our brain than language does - humans are a musical species.
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The Best Of Sacks...
- By Douglas on 11-23-12
By: Oliver Sacks
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The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: and Other Clinical Tales
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Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; who are stricken with violent tics and grimaces or who shout involuntary obscenities; whose limbs have become alien; who have been dismissed as retarded yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.
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I rarely stop reading a book halfway through...
- By Rusty on 09-04-15
By: Oliver Sacks
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Uncle Tungsten
- Memories of a Chemical Boyhood
- By: Oliver Sacks
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
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Long before Oliver Sacks became a distinguished neurologist and best-selling writer, he was a small English boy fascinated by metals - also by chemical reactions (the louder and smellier the better), photography, squids and cuttlefish, H.G. Wells, and the periodic table. In this endlessly charming and eloquent memoir, the he chronicles his love affair with science and the magnificently odd and sometimes harrowing childhood in which that love affair unfolded.
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FOR COMMITED LOVERS OF OLIVER SACKS WORK
- By Jeff on 05-02-12
By: Oliver Sacks
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Letters
- By: Oliver Sacks, Kate Edgar - editor
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- Unabridged
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Sensitively introduced and edited by Kate Edgar, Sacks’s longtime editor, the letters deliver a portrait of Sacks as he wrestles with the workings of the brain and mind. We see, through his eyes, the beginnings of modern neuroscience, following the thought processes of one of the great intellectuals of our time, whose words, as evidenced in this book, were unfailingly shaped with generosity and wonder toward other people.
By: Oliver Sacks, and others
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A Leg to Stand On
- By: Oliver Sacks
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Oliver Sacks - introduction
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Dr. Oliver Sacks's books Awakenings, An Anthropologist on Mars and the best-selling The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat have been acclaimed for their compassion in the treatment of patients affected with profound disorders. In A Leg to Stand On, it is Sacks himself who is the patient: an encounter with a bull on a desolate mountain in Norway has left him with a severely damaged leg. But what should be a routine recuperation is actually the beginning of a strange medical journey.
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Not sure what he was trying for here
- By John S. on 08-17-11
By: Oliver Sacks
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Seeing Voices
- A Journey Into the World of the Deaf
- By: Oliver Sacks
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Oliver Sacks - introduction
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In Seeing Voices, Oliver Sacks turns his attention to the subject of deafness, and the result is a deeply felt portrait of a minority struggling for recognition and respect - a minority with its own rich, sometimes astonishing, culture and unique visual language, an extraordinary mode of communication that tells us much about the basis of language in hearing people as well.
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A Rich Experience
- By Douglas on 11-27-12
By: Oliver Sacks
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Consciousness and the Brain
- Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts
- By: Stanislas Dehaene
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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How does the brain generate a conscious thought? And why does so much of our knowledge remain unconscious? Thanks to clever psychological and brain-imaging experiments, scientists are closer to cracking this mystery than ever before. In this lively book, Stanislas Dehaene describes the pioneering work his lab and the labs of other cognitive neuroscientists worldwide have accomplished in defining, testing, and explaining the brain events behind a conscious state.
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I had no idea we knew this much.
- By Tristan on 01-18-16
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The Consciousness Instinct
- Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind
- By: Michael S. Gazzaniga
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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How do neurons turn into minds? The problem of consciousness has gnawed at us for millennia. In the last century there have been massive breakthroughs that have rewritten the science of the brain, and yet the puzzles faced by the ancient Greeks are still present. In The Consciousness Instinct, the neuroscience pioneer Michael S. Gazzaniga puts the latest research in conversation with the history of human thinking about the mind, giving a big-picture view of what science has revealed about consciousness.
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Not recommended
- By PMonaco on 01-19-19
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Oaxaca Journal
- By: Oliver Sacks
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Oliver Sacks - introduction
- Length: 4 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Oliver Sacks is well known as an explorer of the human mind - a neurologist with a gift for complex, insightful portrayals of people and their conditions. However, he is also a card-carrying member of the American Fern Society, and since childhood has been fascinated by these primitive plants and their ability to survive and adapt in many climates. Oaxaca Journal is Sacks' spellbinding account of his trip with a group of fellow fern enthusiasts to the beautiful, history-steeped province of Oaxaca, Mexico.
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A gem
- By Daniela on 06-04-15
By: Oliver Sacks
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Other Minds
- The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
- By: Peter Godfrey-Smith
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
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In Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a bold new story of how subjective experience crept into being—how nature became aware of itself. As Godfrey-Smith stresses, it is a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared.
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Mischief and Craft
- By Darwin8u on 08-10-17
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Beyond Biocentrism
- Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death
- By: Robert Lanza, Bob Berman
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In Beyond Biocentrism, acclaimed biologist Robert Lanza and astronomer Bob Berman take the listener on an intellectual thrill ride as they reexamine everything we thought we knew about life, death, the universe, and the nature of reality itself. The first step is acknowledging that our existing model of reality is looking increasingly creaky in the face of recent scientific discoveries.
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Here's the thing
- By Mikal on 11-09-18
By: Robert Lanza, and others
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Being You
- A New Science of Consciousness
- By: Anil Seth
- Narrated by: Anil Seth
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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What does it mean to “be you” - that is, to have a specific, conscious experience of the world around you and yourself within it? There may be no more elusive or fascinating question. Historically, humanity has considered the nature of consciousness to be a primarily spiritual or philosophical inquiry, but scientific research is now mapping out compelling biological theories and explanations for consciousness and selfhood.
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Not engaging, nothing new
- By Tristan on 11-22-21
By: Anil Seth
What listeners say about The River of Consciousness
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- egsalle
- 02-02-21
interesting, but hard to listen to
A good work, but a very dry listen. Luckily these are well packaged essays by Oliver Sacks and can be read all together or individually.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Peter Greaney
- 12-30-18
Interesting content, uneven pacing
Overall a very good mix of anecdote and fact/science. The pacing was a bit uneven; some if the chapters got off to a slow start. It was very entertaining.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Peter Frishauf
- 10-23-24
Great book. The wrong narrator
The brilliant, kind endearing Sachs read without the passion and joy that inspires us. Still worthwhile because the content is so interesting and informative and memorable, like the story of Einstein s dream of riding a light beam. If only it was read in a voice more like Oliver’.
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- Michael
- 11-16-17
Important but Less Interesting
This was written based upon an outline and notes from Oliver Sacks after his death and is quite a bit more rambling that most of Sacks' books. This book is about the brain and quirks of brain processing but is very different from most Sacks' books. It seems the underlying theme is the dysfunction of science blinded by prevalent theories and the old ideas of influential scientists. The book describes how these influences can stymie scientific progress for decades leaving well meaning scientists effectively blind to obvious evidence right before their eyes.
Perhaps this is Sacks' most important book but it was not the most interesting or compelling of his books.
This was worth reading, but I would read everything else by Sacks first.
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37 people found this helpful
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- Mark Taylor
- 04-20-19
Fantastic book
Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. What an amazing man. Highly recommended.I am now reading “On the Move”
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1 person found this helpful
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- Brenda Hayes
- 11-11-22
intriguing storytelling
I wasn't sure about this in the beginning however the mear smoothness of the reader kept me wanting to listen after that I was hooked on the information as well. I will be reading more Oliver Sacks in the future.
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- Marcia L.
- 07-02-18
Essential Scientific overview and philosophical topics naughts
Dr. Sacks is a scientific omnivore, historian, contributor and philosopher in the broadest sense. In this brief treatise, he shows the beauty of scientific history, the painful
Losses of information through social rejection and scientific ill-preparedness, laments the losses of carefully descriptive observations that have contribute meaningfully to present day science, even when exhumed centuries later.
Characteristically unemotional but always poetic, he describes his experience of recovery from radio pharmaceutical ablation of his melanoma metastatic to liver, his recovery after legs surgery in Switzerland and his experiences of migraines and how these informed his understanding of the experience and mechanism of disease.
He elucidates how, from seemingly humble beginnings, the understanding of the physiology of consciousness is emerging.
Most importantly, he shares a truly final observation that we all lose out when new ideas and evidence are eschewed by rigid minds and egos that perceive self destruction rather than curiosity and the potential for growth in the face of the unexpected.
Dr.Sacks’ death is a tragedy for us all, but we can rejoice that he left many of his thoughts on paper, to be enjoyed by all who are curious and open to new ways of understanding the world.
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10 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Dani Nagler
- 03-08-19
so much information
I'm a random information lover and this just felt like and onslaught of it. I'm a little easily distracted so sometimes it was hard for my to listen to this book. overall though so much fun science information!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Timothy Crabtree
- 11-27-17
Fascinating
Absorbing and relatable, historically educational and philosophically engaging. I loved every subject and supposition, constantly feeling like Sacks asked (and answered) questions I had not considered since childhood.
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- BigSky
- 04-09-18
Rehash
Nothing new here. Brilliant mind, wonderful man, but here are old info and ideas rehashed.
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2 people found this helpful