13 min 50 sec

Available in:

English

Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind

Name: Conscious
Rating: 4.3 (10 reviews)
Author: Annaka Harris
ISBN: 9780062906717

By Annaka Harris

Annaka Harris separates consciousness from the traits we usually attach to it, from decisions to the sense of self. She then shows why the idea that all matter has some form of experience deserves a serious hearing.

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Table of Content

1. Introduction

1 min 04 sec

If the word consciousness makes you think of clever thoughts, a sense of self and human intelligence, Annaka Harris suggests you are looking at only the smallest corner of the subject. In Conscious, she argues that experience can be separated from nearly everything we link it with, from making decisions to the feeling of being a me. Take those traits away and a startling possibility is left standing: some form of experience could run through all matter, and not only through brains.

Harris, a writer who edits and advises science authors working in neuroscience and physics, builds the case one careful step at a time. She tests our gut feelings first. Then she turns to trees that feed their young, a mind that learns of its own choices last, drug and meditation states that dissolve the self, and patients whose brains were surgically split in two. By the end, the oldest puzzle about the mind becomes a set of questions you can actually reason through, and your own sense of being in charge looks rather different.

2. Test your gut before trusting it on minds

1 min 54 sec

A gut feeling can warn you about a stranger on a train before you know why. The same instinct once insisted the Earth was flat, so which one should judge what has a mind?

3. Rethink what forests can sense and remember

1 min 50 sec

Under the soil of a forest, trees pass food to struggling neighbors and pick out their own young. Either they experience something, or our ideas about awareness need a hard second look.

4. Catch how much of your day runs on autopilot

1 min 56 sec

You feel like the author of your choices and your thoughts. Studies on the timing of perception suggest awareness arrives after the work is done, more like a passenger than a driver.

5. Hold your sense of self more lightly

1 min 56 sec

Nothing feels more real than the me at the center of your experience. Yet some people lose it on LSD or on a meditation cushion, and their awareness carries on without it.

6. Discover how a mind-filled universe could be the simpler theory

2 min 01 sec

The claim that all matter has some form of experience sounds like fantasy. Harris argues the alternative, a line where feeling suddenly switches on, may be the stranger idea for science to defend.

7. What a split brain teaches about combined minds

2 min 00 sec

A patient holds a key in his hand and insists he is holding nothing. His strange answer hints at how separate pockets of experience might join to form a single human mind.

8. Conclusion

1 min 09 sec

Harris’s book works like a careful subtraction. Take away cleverness, memory, choice, the stream of thoughts and even the feeling of being a self, and something remains: the plain fact that it is like something to be you. Once that fact stands alone, there is no obvious reason to fence it inside human skulls, and the idea that experience runs through all matter starts to look less like fantasy and more like tidy science. Harris does not claim to have solved the mystery. She claims we have been approaching it with the wrong intuitions.

That shift has everyday uses. When a gut feeling tells you what can or cannot have a mind, hold it up against the flat Earth and the nervous airline passenger before trusting it. When a thought or impulse arrives, notice that it came on its own, and that you are free to simply watch it. And when the self feels heavy, remember that meditation and psychedelics like LSD both show how it can loosen or even fade while consciousness carries on.

The chair you are sitting on may or may not feel anything. Harris’s point is that you can no longer be certain.

About this book

What is this book about?

Consciousness is the most familiar thing in our lives and one of the least understood. Most of us link it with clever thinking, making choices and feeling like a self. Annaka Harris argues that those links are much weaker than they seem, and that our gut feelings about which things have minds often lead us astray. Harris works through the question step by step. She begins with a simple test from the philosopher Thomas Nagel: a thing is conscious when being that thing feels like something. From there she looks at Douglas firs that feed their offspring through underground fungal networks, at the brain's habit of finishing its decisions before awareness catches up, at LSD and meditation states in which the self dissolves, and at split-brain patients who seem to carry two streams of experience in one body. Readers get a short, clear guide to the deepest puzzle about the mind. They also get a fair case for panpsychism, the view that experience may be part of all matter, and a new way to look at their own thoughts, impulses and sense of being in charge.

Book Information

Rating:

Genre:

Philosophy, Science

Topics:

Neuroscience

Publisher:

HarperCollins

Language:

English

Narrator:

Caleb

First published:

June 4, 2019

Pages:

144

Length:

13 min 50 sec

Get the book:

Amazon

Who it's for

Curious about consciousness
Curious readers who want a clear, short entry into the puzzle of consciousness without a philosophy degree.
Meditators and anxious overthinkers
Meditators and people prone to anxious self-focus who want to understand why the self can feel so solid.
Science buffs
Science fans intrigued by plant communication, split-brain studies and the case for panpsychism.

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About the Author

Annaka Harris

Annaka Harris is an American writer, born in 1976. Her 2019 book Conscious became a New York Times bestseller, and she also wrote the children's book I Wonder, published in 2013. She edits and advises other science writers, with a focus on neuroscience and physics, and her own writing has appeared in The New York Times. She worked on Susan Kaiser Greenland's Mindful Games Activity Cards and volunteers as a mindfulness teacher with the Inner Kids organization.

Ratings & Reviews

Ratings at a glance

4.3

Overall score based on 234 ratings.

What people think

Listeners find the book thought-provoking, with one mentioning how it makes understanding the unconscious accessible to the unscientific mind. Furthermore, it serves as a useful popular introduction to the subject, and one listener highlights its fantastic job of posing deep questions. Listeners also value its readability, as it is an easy read for complex topics that doesn't bury the audience in too much detail, all while maintaining a concise, fast-paced style. They characterize it as an enjoyable, stimulating, and well-written introduction to the topic. However, the work’s length draws mixed reactions, with several listeners noting its brevity.

Top reviews

Kom

Annaka Harris manages to take a massive, terrifying subject and distill it into something truly digestible. She avoids the typical trap of burying her readers under dense academic jargon that usually plagues philosophy books. Instead, this text focuses on the sheer weirdness of our subjective experience. I was particularly struck by the sections on how our brains fabricate a sense of time and agency. The prose is clean and fast-paced, making it easy to finish in a single sitting. While it doesn't offer a final answer, the questions it poses about the 'hard problem' are deeply stimulating. It is an absolute must-read for anyone curious about the nature of reality.

Niramai

Wow, this little volume packs a serious punch for its size. I was fascinated by the descriptions of altered states, whether through meditation or pharmacological means, and how they challenge our sense of 'self.' Harris writes with a clarity that is rare in this field, posing deep questions without ever sounding pretentious. The way she explains 'binding' and how the brain synchronizes sensory input was a total revelation for me. Not gonna lie, I had to stop and stare at the wall for a few minutes after the chapter on panpsychism. It is a wonderfully stimulating introduction that doesn't overstay its welcome. This is exactly the kind of book I will be gifting to my more intellectually curious friends.

Tantipat

Picking this up was the best decision I made for my morning commute this week. It is rare to find a science book that feels this poetic and accessible while still tackling the deepest mysteries of existence. The way Harris explains that our conscious self is often the last to know about our decisions is mind-blowing. I particularly loved the sections on how plants react to stimuli, which really challenged my biases about what qualifies as 'aware.' It is a short, punchy, and well-written exploration that leaves you with more questions than answers. Even if you don't agree with her conclusions, the journey is well worth the time. It really makes you appreciate the simple fact of being awake.

Jack

After hearing about this on several podcasts, I finally dove in and found the discussion on free will particularly jarring. Harris argues that our sense of agency might just be an illusion created by the brain after the fact. While that is a tough pill to swallow, her explanation of neuroscientific case studies makes a compelling, if unsettling, case. The book does a fantastic job of making the unscientific mind feel welcome in a very complex conversation. I appreciated the brief tour of panpsychism, even if the idea of a conscious thermostat still feels a bit like science fiction. My only gripe is that the ending felt somewhat abrupt. Still, it’s a thought-provoking journey through the biggest mystery in the universe.

Niphon

The chapter exploring panpsychism really shifted my perspective on what matter actually is. Harris suggests that consciousness might be a fundamental property of the universe, much like gravity or mass. It is a bold claim, but she presents it in a way that feels rational rather than mystical. Personally, I found the sections on how we perceive the color red versus the actual wavelengths of light to be very helpful. The book is concise and doesn't waste a single word, which I appreciated. Some might find it too short, but I think the brevity helps keep the focus on the big metaphysical questions. It’s a well-written, accessible bridge between hard science and philosophy.

Mia

Ever wonder if your dog—or even a grain of sand—has some tiny glimmer of an inner life? This book dives straight into those types of questions without getting bogged down in dense academic history. Harris uses the 'lights turning on' metaphor to great effect, making the concept of qualia easy to grasp. I liked how she addressed the 'philosophical zombie' problem, which is genuinely unnerving once you think about it. The book is an easy read for such complex topics and serves as a great companion to the work of her husband, Sam Harris. It’s not a definitive textbook, but it is a fantastic conversation starter. I finished it in two hours and felt significantly more confused about reality, in a good way.

Pear

Is it possible for a book to be too concise? At barely one hundred pages, this felt more like a long-form magazine essay than a comprehensive guide to the mind. Harris touches on fascinating edge cases like split-brain patients and the potential consciousness of plants, yet she moves on before the implications truly sink in. To be fair, her writing is incredibly clear and accessible for those without a science background. I just wanted more depth and a few more competing viewpoints to balance out the narrative. It functions well as a very basic primer, but seasoned readers of neuroscience will likely find it a bit superficial. It’s an enjoyable read that unfortunately ends right as it starts getting good.

Milk

As someone who has always been curious about why we feel like 'us,' this was a decent starting point. The book is very readable and provides a useful popular introduction to the hard problem of consciousness. However, the truth is that it relies quite heavily on citations from Aeon magazine and other non-academic sources. This made some of the more radical theories feel a bit less grounded than I would have preferred. I enjoyed the anecdotes about 'locked-in syndrome' and the way our brains process information unconsciously. It’s a fast-paced read that will definitely spark some interesting dinner party conversations. I just wish it had explored the actual mechanics of the brain in slightly more detail.

Fort

Gotta say, I am a bit torn on this one. On one hand, the writing is beautiful and the examples of brain damage affecting personality are truly haunting. On the other hand, the author’s bias toward hard determinism is evident throughout the entire narrative. She dismisses the complexity of the free will debate a bit too quickly for my liking. The book is certainly thought-provoking, and I found the discussion on the 'remembered present' to be quite brilliant. It’s just that it feels more like a gateway drug to better books than a standalone masterpiece. If you are looking for a quick, fast-paced introduction, this will definitely satisfy your curiosity. Just be prepared to do a lot more follow-up reading.

Tar

Frankly, I found the leap from acknowledging the mystery of consciousness to declaring free will an illusion to be logically inconsistent. Harris admits we have no idea how subjective experience arises from matter, yet she insists it must follow rigid physical laws. This contradiction made it difficult for me to take her later arguments about panpsychism seriously. The total omission of philosophers like Daniel Dennett also felt like a major blind spot for a book claiming to be a guide. The writing style is certainly accessible and the pace is fast, but the content lacks the necessary nuance for such a heavy topic. If you want a rigorous philosophical debate, you should probably look elsewhere. It felt more like an advocacy piece for a specific worldview.

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Questions about this book

What is the main idea of Conscious by Annaka Harris?

Harris argues that consciousness simply means having experience, so that being a given thing feels like something. She then shows that traits we link with it, such as memory, decisions, thoughts and the sense of self, can be separated from it. With those removed, she argues that panpsychism, the view that all matter has some form of consciousness, is a serious hypothesis that fits biology and physics.

What is panpsychism in Conscious?

Panpsychism is the view that all matter has some form of consciousness. Harris stresses that it does not mean a rock feels like a human. It allows countless forms of experience, some perhaps as simple as registering light versus darkness. She argues it avoids radical emergence, the idea that experience suddenly switches on in some arrangements of matter, and notes that philosopher Galen Strawson treats experience as an intrinsic part of energy.

What do split-brain studies show about consciousness?

Since the 1960s, some patients with severe seizures have had the corpus callosum cut, which stops the two halves of the brain from communicating. If such a patient holds a key in his left hand out of sight, he says he holds nothing, because his speaking left hemisphere never learns what the right hemisphere feels. Harris takes this as evidence that two conscious experiences can exist in one body.

Does Harris say we have free will over our actions?

Harris argues that most moment-to-moment behavior is automatic, driven by the brain’s programming from genes, instinct and past learning. Because the senses must be bound together first, consciousness is the last to know. She compares the brain to a driverless car that takes in information and reacts, with consciousness watching. She does allow that we can plan ahead and choose future actions.

How can I apply the ideas in Conscious to daily life?

The book suggests a few habits. Treat strong intuitions about minds as hypotheses, remembering that instinct once said the Earth was flat. Notice that thoughts arrive on their own rather than being summoned, which makes them easier to watch. And see the self as a model the brain builds, one that meditation can loosen, as practitioners describe feeling less attached to it and more connected to the world.