Once we came out of the jungle and found time to think of something besides food, sex, and shelter, we confronted the fundamental questions: what are we? Who are we? Is a person a body, a soul? How do we access the external world if we are nothing but brains encased in bodies?
As neuroscientists map the most detailed aspects of the human brain and its interplay with the rest of the body, they remain baffled by what is essentially human: our selves. In most of the existing scientific literature, information processing has taken the place of the soul. Yet thus far, no convincing account has been presented of exactly where and how consciousness is stored in our bodies.
In
The Spread Mind, Riccardo Manzotti convincingly argues that our bodies do not contain subjective experience. Yet consciousness is real, and, like any other real phenomenon, is physical. Where is it, then? Manzotti's radical hypothesis is that consciousness is one and the same as the physical world surrounding us.
Drawing on Einstein's theories of relativity, evidence about dreams and hallucination, and the geometry of light in perception, and using vivid, real-world examples to illustrate his ideas, Manzotti argues that consciousness is not a ''movie in the head.'' Experience is not in our head: it is the actual world we move in.
An Italian philosopher, psychologist and robotics engineer, Manzotti presents an alternative and ecological hypothesis about how consciousness exists in the real world.
Praise for The Spread Mind
"In
The Spread Mind: Why Consciousness and the World Are One he strenuously denies that there is anything in the head but neurons and electrochemistry; the experience that constitutes our lives lies outside, one with the object, which is as it is thanks to the presence of our bodies and indeed our neurons. What is extraordinary is how systematically and engagingly Manzotti is able to reconcile this externalist and physicalist approach with the findings of neuroscience, the theory of relativity and even quantum mechanics." -
The Guardian
"
The Spread Mind presents a game-changing idea, one that when recognized will take Riccardo Manzotti right to the top. . . . It is difficult, when considering work so conceptionally revolutionary as Riccardo Manzotti's, to know whether one is looking at the real thing or an abberration. After long reflection, I am convinced it is the real thing." -Tim Parks, author of
In Extremis and
Europa
