[jimduk]

As you point out, the books don't solve consciousness in a formal way (or they would be more famous), and they have a significant amount of analogy. They are more 'grounded' than say Daniel Dennett. I liked the attractor analogy because a) at some level it addresses why we don't ( normally) get stuck in a conscious rut - e.g. we are not like the sphex wasp discussed by Hofstadter who always repeats the same loop b) It resonates with the idea that your conscious mind wanders, but its experience seems linear. However to get insight of scientific value one would have to follow up on the ideas in Edelman's work and see if they were actually neurologically correct. I haven't read either for a while, and I do maths/computer stuff not neurology so have no expert view. I think there's no harm in reading the Remembered Present quickly, it's fairly easy. Edelman worked with Tononi - I haven't followed his work, but the Wikipedia page on Integrated information theory doesn't appeal to me.