Being You: A New Science of Consciousness

by Anil Seth

Everything in conscious experience is a perception of sorts, and every perception is a kind of controlled—or controlling—hallucination. What excites me most about this way of thinking is how far it may take us. Experiences of free will are perceptions. The flow of time is a perception.

What good is a science of consciousness unless it sheds new light on our individual mental lives, and on the inner lives of those around us? This is the real promise of the real problem.

We will see how our inner universe is part of, and not apart from, the rest of nature. And, though we may not think of it as often as we might, we will have the chance to make a new peace with what happens—or does not happen—when the controlled hallucination of being you finally breaks down into nothingness. When oblivion is not an anesthesia-induced interruption to the river of consciousness, but a return to the eternity that each of us at one time emerged from.