A World Appears
A Journey into Consciousness
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- US$16.99
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"Pollan’s real genius—the word is not too strong—remains intact. That is his uncanny ability to scent the direction in which the culture is headed. He did it with food and psychedelics, and now, though A World Appears focuses on AI only intermittently, he has done it again." —Charles Finch, The Atlantic
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Pollan (This Is Your Mind on Plants) delivers an enlightening exploration of what is and isn't known about consciousness. Noting that scientists have yet to arrive at a sturdy explanation of why "a world appears when you open your eyes," Pollan takes readers through leading theories, shedding light on sentience, feeling, thought, and selfness. He questions whether a brain is a prerequisite for consciousness and describes how a growing cadre of plant neurobiologists have found plants to be "highly intelligent beings, able to read their environment and solve novel problems." He probes the role of emotions in consciousness and interviews neurologist Antonio Damasio, who makes the case that "feelings are the body's way of getting the mind's attention in order to keep us alive." Turning to the contents of consciousness—thoughts—he cites studies that suggest thinking looks different for everyone; people can have an inner monologue or picture visual images, while a few "live in a world of pure perception" with few traces of an inner experience at all. Elsewhere, he explores how the brain stitches memories together to form a sense of self and how chemicals from caffeine to LSD alter that experience. Pollan's inquisitiveness makes him an accessible and entertaining guide through the "labyrinth" of consciousness. Readers will be captivated by this tour of the inner workings of the mind.
