This title is printed in full color throughout.

From one of the most original and influential neuroscientists at work today, here is an exploration of consciousness unlike any other—as told by Galileo, who opened the way for the objectivity of science and is now intent on making subjective experience a part of science as well.

Galileo’s journey has three parts, each with a different guide. In the first, accompanied by a scientist who resembles Francis Crick, he learns why certain parts of the brain are important and not others, and why consciousness fades with sleep. In the second part, when his companion seems to be named Alturi (Galileo is hard of hearing; his companion’s name is actually Alan Turing), he sees how the facts assembled in the first part can be unified and understood through a scientific theory—a theory that links consciousness to the notion of integrated information (also known as phi). In the third part, accompanied by a bearded man who can only be Charles Darwin, he meditates on how consciousness is an evolving, developing, ever-deepening awareness of ourselves in history and culture—that it is everything we have and everything we are.

Not since Gödel, Escher, Bach has there been a book that interweaves science, art, and the imagination with such originality. This beautiful and arresting narrative will transform the way we think of ourselves and the world.

硃利奧•托諾尼（Giulio Tononi）

神經科學傢、精神病學傢，威斯康星大學睡眠醫學教授、意識科學講座教授。

他是意識現代科學的代錶人物，提齣瞭“整閤信息理論”（Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness，IITC）去解釋意識的成因。他的工作被剋裏斯托弗•科赫稱為“唯一有前途的意識基礎理論”。他也是睡眠研究領域的權威，特彆是睡眠遺傳學和病因學的研究。

他的研究成果除瞭發錶在一些重要雜誌上，還在《新科學傢》、《每日科學》、《科學美國人》等雜誌上發錶。同時，《紐約時報》、《經濟學傢》等報紙刊物也對他的研究成果做瞭報導。他與傑拉爾德•埃德爾曼（1972年諾貝爾生理學奬或醫學奬得主）共同撰寫瞭《意識的宇宙：物質如何轉變為精神》。