ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
Innovative thoughts on thinking about thinking
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
The Spread Mind: Why Consciousness and the World Are One
by Riccardo Manzotti
(O/R Books, £17)
EVEN readers familiar with key concepts in neuroscience and cognitive psychology are likely to find The Spread Mind a tricky read.
Not because Riccardo Manzotti is a poor communicator of complex material or that he lacks commitment to widening access to the science of consciousness but because the idea at the heart of his latest book is so profoundly subversive of scientific orthodoxy it demands careful reconsideration of experimental evidence and personal experience.
Experience is key to Manzotti’s theory of consciousness. Conscious experience is an aspect of nature, he suggests, and has no special status as a simulation or reconstruction of reality.
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