The howl of the bedside clock-radio carves through your dreams like a buzz-saw through butter, and you are awake. In another place.

Never mind the bright yellow sunlight that flecks your pillow and warms your face; you are rudely awake, and resent it. Gah!

You roll onto your side, cantilever your legs over the side of the bed and plant your feet squarely on the carpet. You rub your face. Massage your neck. Oh, what it is to be alive!--and conscious--oh oh oh, indeed.

But what is it to be alive, and conscious?

Alive, we have some inkling of; you eat, you sleep, you exercise. You stay healthy and keep your body going as best you can. But conscious? What even is that?

A good question is what that is, and a question for which this book has an answer.

So in this text, first I set the scene:

• Did our consciousness evolve?
• Does consciousness give us free will?
• Which animals do we think are conscious?
• Where does consciousness go when we sleep?
• How does consciousness deliver meaning?
• What might a theory of consciousness look like?

Then I propose:

• A model for consciousness at the macro scale
• A mechanism for consciousness at the micro scale

Finally, I suggest some real world tests that science will one day be able to perform which will either corroborate or invalidate the theory I present here. This is a workable, testable theory. Science and philosophy demand nothing less.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. A Poodle Ate My Homework

2. Life Is a Comic Strip

3. How Do You Explain Anything?

4. As Time Goes By (A Kiss Is Just a Kiss)

5. This See, Is the Conscious Bit

6. Qualia, the Possible and a Particular

7. Evolution and Free Will

8. The Good, the Bad and the Choosy

9. Finally, Making It All Work

A must-read for the curious-minded, which you are, are you not? So read on...