Explaining consciousness is one of the last great unanswered scientific and philosophical problems. Immediately known, familiar and obvious, consciousness is also baffling, opaque, and strange. How and when did we become conscious? What exactly is consciousness? A gift from God? Some kind of emergent property of our brain? A sequence of electrical sparks off electro-chemical neural activity?

This introduction to these and many of the other problems posed by consciousness discusses the most important work of cognitive science, neurophysiology and philosophy of the past thirty years and presents an up-to-date assessment of the issues and debates.