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I have been listening to the audiobook of by Anil Seth (pictured above). This is a fascinating exploration of his idea that consciousness is the result of the biological processes of our bodies and that the sensation of selfhood – of being “you” – and our sense of reality itself emerge from what he calls “the brain’s controlled hallucination”, based on predictions of the body’s internal state.

Seth draws on research from his own lab and discusses competing ideas about neuroscience and philosophical debates that have grappled with the enigma of consciousness over hundreds of years.

I am also tackling Robert Musil’s modernist novel . Set in Austria in the early 20th century, this 1500-page book explores how people contended with the shift in values caused by scientific theories of evolution and the unconscious, which – much like Seth’s ideas –revealed the controlled hallucination of the self.

Gerardo Bandera

Deputy audience editor

New York