Tim Crane on consciousness, in TLS: ‘Michael Pollan’s new book is an engaging and insightful account of the hard problem of consciousness and today’s attempts to solve it. Pollan is particularly known for his writings on food – his In Defence of Food (2008) contains the memorable and wise advice: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants”. He is neither a philosopher nor a neuroscientist, and accordingly A World Appears is lucid and intelligible to non-specialists.’

And: ‘When it comes to the supposed possibility of AI consciousness, Pollan is refreshingly assertive and sceptical. The claim that brains are computers is “a metaphor parading as fact”, and he comes down strongly in favour of those such as Seth and Ned Block, who hold that consciousness is fundamentally a biological rather than a computational phenomenon.’

Too many metaphors parading as facts.

The main question: does science have anything to say about aliveness?

(a sf 2094)