Noë, Alva

Alva is a philosopher working on consciousness at the University of California in Berkeley. His new book Out of our Heads: Why You Are Not your Brain and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness will be published in February 2009 by Farrar Strauss and Giroux. Alva's work explores the idea that consciousness isn't something that happens in us, in our brain or anywhere else; it is something we do. In recent work he has turned to the relation between art and consciousness and is now working closely with dancers. In addition to many articles, he is the author Action In Perception (MIT Press 2004), in which he argues that only by understanding the action of the body in the world can one understand perception and consciousness.