A World Appears
A Journey into Consciousness
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Feb 24, 2026
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by The New York Times, TIME, and Oprah Daily
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind, a panoptic exploration of consciousness—what it is, who has it, and why—and a meditation on the essence of our humanity
When it comes to the phenomenon that is consciousness, there is one point on which scientists, philosophers, and artists all agree: it feels like something to be us. Yet the fact that we have subjective experience of the world remains one of nature’s greatest mysteries. How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by feelings, thoughts, and a sense of self? What would a scientific investigation of our inner life look like, when we have as little distance and perspective on it as fish do of the sea? In A World Appears, Michael Pollan traces the unmapped continent that is consciousness, bringing radically different perspectives—scientific, philosophical, literary, spiritual and psychedelic—to see what each can teach us about this central fact of life.
When neuroscientists began studying consciousness in the early 1990s, they sought to explain how and why three pounds of spongy gray matter could generate a subjective point of view—assuming that the brain is the source of our perceived reality. Pollan takes us to the cutting edge of the field, where scientists are entertaining more radical (and less materialist) theories of consciousness. He introduces us to “plant neurobiologists” searching for the first flicker of consciousness in plants, scientists striving to engineer feelings into AI, and psychologists and novelists seeking to capture the felt experience of our slippery stream of consciousness.
In Pollan’s dazzling exploration of consciousness, he discovers a world far deeper and stranger than our everyday reality. Eye-opening and mind-expanding, A World Appears takes us into the laboratories of our own minds, ultimately showing us how we might make better use of the gift of awareness to more meaningfully connect with the world and our deepest selves.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Jumping into the deep end of perhaps the greatest debate in science and philosophy, Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) dares to ask: What is consciousness? Simply trying to define it sparks disagreement. Where our sense of ourselves and our world come from remains a mystery, but that doesn’t stop the parade of theories. As a longtime journalist with a particular interest in expanded consciousness, Pollan sorts through possibilities that range from neuroscience to science fiction. (Scientists who study plants raise doubts about whether consciousness is even a product of the brain.) He also delves into the billion-dollar AI question of whether machines can achieve something akin to human consciousness. (Probably not, but they might be able to fake it really well.) More than anything, A World Appears reinforces how little we know about why we’re aware while offering plenty of thought-provoking information for your inner monologue (if you have one!) to consider.
