From a respected philosopher of the mind comes this lucid, provocative argument that provides a radically new picture of human consciousness–panpsychism

Focusing on how brains produce consciousness is among the great scientific issues of our age. Some philosophers claim that consciousness can be something ‘extra,’ beyond the physical workings of the brain. Others think that if we persist in our regular scientific strategies, our queries about consciousness will eventually become answered. And some about Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a fresh Science of Awareness suggest that the mystery is indeed deep, it’ll never be solved.

In Galileo’s Mistake, Philip Goff provides an exciting alternative that could pave the way forward. Rooted within an analysis from the philosophical underpinnings of contemporary science and predicated on the early twentieth-century function of Arthur Eddington and Bertrand Russell, Goff makes the case for panpsychism, a theory which posits that consciousness is not restricted to natural entities but is certainly a simple feature of all physical matter–from subatomic particles to the human brain. This is actually the first step on a fresh path to the final theory of human being consciousness.

Cover picture: Silver Beam Collision Recorded at Superstar. Copyright Brookhaven Country wide Laboratory (Innovative Commons). Full picture available at Flickr.com.