3.5
A World Appears
ByPublisher Description
The Instant New York Times Bestseller
"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.
"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.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesA World Appears Reviews
3.5
“I am, and most likely will be, a huge Michael Pollan fanboy until the day he (Or I) exit this mortal realm, so I am undeniably biased here, however this was a beautiful, eloquent dive into a subject that I feel is one of the last frontiers of biological science; Human consciousness.
For all we know about how the body works, we know a surprisingly small amount about what consciousness even *is*, and why it's even something that occurs with humans. And I feel Pollan is best suited to explore this realm, with his insatiable curiosity , approachable nature, multiple transcribed psychedelic forays, and ability to distill the complex eloquently into a simple phrase, he takes us along with him through discussions with pertinent scientists and philosophers to uncover all we know about this phenomenon, and does so with humility and his signature childlike curiosity.
My only complaint is that I wish the book wasn't already over. I could read 3000 pages of this, if he were to write it. Time to dip back into my TBR list, and bide my time until his next book comes out.”
CaptivatingChallengingEducationalEngagingFascinatingLife-changingPersuasiveThought-provokingAuthoritativeCredible sourcesData-drivenIn-depth analysisPersonal experienceScientificThoroughWell-researchedAddresses counterargumentsBalanced perspectivesFlows wellWell-arguedWell-organizedWell-pacedAccessibleClearConciseConversationalEasy to readEffective visuals
“I read this book for my book club- I never would have picked this up on my own volition, and with that knowledge in mind I don’t think I can give an accurate or profound ‘review’ of this book.
If science and philosophy are your cup of tea, you are absolutely going to eat this up. As someone who has always struggled with science, and probably does not give as much thought as I should to philosophy, this read too much like a textbook for me to really find it enjoyable, with the occasional hallucinogenic anecdote thrown in for good measure.
I don’t think this book was bad by any means- it was well written and it’s very obvious that he is passionate and well versed in the topic. And while this book did make me think about my own stream of consciousness and how my brain works, I would say my main problem lies in the fact that I am just simply not passionate about this topic, and was therefore bored for the bulk of it.”
About Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan is the author of ten books, including This Is Your Mind on Plants, How to Change Your Mind, Cooked, Food Rules, In Defense of Food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and The Botany of Desire, all of which were New York Times bestsellers. He is also the author of the audiobook Caffeine. A Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellow, Pollan has taught writing at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Harvard University. In 2010, Time named him one of the one hundred most influential people in the world.
Other books by Michael Pollan
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