Episode · The Ezra Klein Show · 2026-03-31
Books mentioned on The More You Study Consciousness, the Weirder It Gets | The Ezra Klein Show
Michael Pollan recommended The Blind Spot by Adam Frank and others, Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann, and Being You by Anil Seth, and discussed The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James, What Is It Like to Be a Bat? by Thomas Nagel, The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness by Mark Solms, and Descartes' Error by Antonio Damasio.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The Varieties of Religious Experience
The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James is a foundational work of psychology and philosophy based on the author's landmark lectures on human consciousness and spirituality.
Discussed“And I first got acquainted with him when I was working on how to change your mind, because he’d written the varieties of religious experience, and there’s a fantastic chapter there on mystical experience.”
Where to get it
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What Is It Like to Be a Bat?
Thomas Nagel's philosophical essay What Is It Like to Be a Bat? explores the fundamental nature of consciousness and the limitations of physicalist explanations.
Discussed“There’s the famous definition of Thomas Nagel, who wrote this great essay called "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" And his test for consciousness is if it is like anything to be a creature, that creature then is conscious.”
Where to get it
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The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness
The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness by Mark Solms is a neuroscience book that argues consciousness originates in the brainstem rather than the cortex and arises specifically from felt uncertainty when tasks cannot be automated.
Discussed“And he’s written a really interesting book called "The Hidden Spring" And his theory is that consciousness arises when you can’t automate things.”
Where to get it
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Descartes' Error
Descartes' Error by Antonio Damasio is a foundational work in neuroscience that examines how emotions are deeply intertwined with human reasoning and decision-making.
Discussed“I mean, in a way, this is the lesson of Antonio Damasio’s first book in 1994, "Descartes' Error," it was called, and he was basically showing that feelings and emotions should be admitted into the decision making process...”
Where to get it
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The Blind Spot
The Blind Spot by Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser, and Evan Thompson is a critical examination of Western science that argues against strict materialism by reintegrating human experience into the scientific process.
Recommended“Well, a book that was really influential in the writing of this book is a book called "The Blind Spot" It’s by a philosopher, Evan Thompson, and two physicists, Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser. It’s a critique of Western science, and it makes a very powerful case that the blind spot of the physical sciences is inability to deal with”
Where to get it
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Ducks, Newburyport
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann is a massive, highly experimental stream-of-consciousness novel told almost entirely through a single, sprawling sentence spanning roughly one thousand pages.
Recommended“Another book that was really influential as I was working on the stream of consciousness is a stream-of-consciousness novel by Lucy Ellmann called "Ducks, Newburyport" It’s 1,000 pages, one sentence. And that sounds I know that sounds really daunting and I’m not going to pick that up. You can open it anywhere you want, read 10 pages...”
Where to get it
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Being You
Anil Seth's Being You is an exploration of human consciousness and perception, presented from the perspective of an English neuroscientist who treats the self as a perception rather than a fixed internal essence.
Recommended“Lastly, there was a book about conscience. There were several books on consciousness I liked, but the one I want to recommend is "Being You" by Anil Seth. He’s an English neuroscientist, and it’s a book about the self, and he treats the self as a perception.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (1) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“In his new book, "A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness," the science writer Michael Pollan takes a tour of those efforts, of those theories, of those experiments, of those psychedelic trips and meditation retreats, and he keeps finding himself in stranger and stranger territory deeper inside the mystery.”