Michael Pollan explores the science and mystery of conscious
A wide-ranging investigation into what consciousness is, where it might come from, and why it remains one of science’s hardest puzzles. Pollan travels from brain labs to philosophy and contemplative practice to question what it truly means to be alive.
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A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness
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Michael Pollan explores the science and mystery of conscious
A wide-ranging investigation into what consciousness is, where it might come from, and why it remains one of science’s hardest puzzles. Pollan travels from brain labs to philosophy and contemplative practice to question what it truly means to be alive.
- Book Synopsis
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'Big, generous, illuminating and beautifully written' John Banville, Financial Times
From the best-selling author of How to Change Your Mind, a pioneering search for consciousness in the brain and beyond
A World Appears is the story of the quest to solve the greatest mystery in nature: consciousness.
How does it feel to be you with your own personal feelings, thoughts and experiences? Every one of us is intimately familiar with consciousness, but no one knows how - or why - it came to be that three pounds of grey matter can generate a subjective point of view.
The early 1990s marked the birth of a new science of consciousness, based on the assumption that the phenomenon could be explained in terms of brain activity, but that effort is faltering, and wilder ideas, such as panpsychism, are now getting a hearing.
Indeed, there is now reason to doubt that 'objective science' as we have known it since Galileo has the right tools to plumb first-person experience.
A World Appears takes Michael Pollan from the laboratories where scientists are searching for the neural correlates of consciousness to encounters with philosophers and novelists and Buddhist monks, whom he finds have just as much to teach us about consciousness, if not more.
A story that begins in a brain lab in Seattle ends, of all places, in a cave in the mountains of New Mexico, where the author discovers that explaining consciousness may be less urgent than learning to practice it in our everyday lives.
Ideal for readers who…
- want an accessible but ambitious exploration of consciousness, from neuroscience to philosophy
- are fascinated by big questions about the mind, subjective experience, and what it means to be human
- enjoy narrative non-fiction that moves between science, literature, spirituality, and lived inquiry
- liked Michael Pollan’s curiosity-driven style and want his take on one of nature’s deepest mysteries
- are open to a book that asks not only how consciousness works, but how we might better practice it in daily life
- About The Author
- Michael Pollan is an award-winning author, activist and journalist. His international best-selling books about the way we live today -including How to Change Your Mind, This Is Your Mind on Plants, In Defence of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemma- - combine meticulous reporting with anthropology, philosophy, culture, health and natural history. Time Magazine has named him one of the hundred most influential people in the world. He lives in the Bay Area of California with his wife.
- Product Details
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- ISBN
- 9780241509470
- Format
- Hardback
- Publisher
- Allen Lane, (24 February 2026)
- Number of Pages
- 320
- Weight
- 518 grams
- Language
- English
- Dimensions
- 241 x 163 x 32 mm
- Categories: