Annaka Harris - Conscious (Harper Collins, 2019) **½

This book was written. It was written by the body of Annaka Harris, who actually became conscious of it having been written by her after the act. Since she has no free will, I wonder whether her name should even be mentioned on the cover.

Annaka Harris is the spouse of Sam Harris, and a science journalist and writer herself. In this book, she tries to give an overview of possible thoughts and explanations of our consciousness. One of the theories she expands on the most is "panpsychism", the theory that claims that consciousness is everywhere, and not only as a consequence of the activity of our brain. She gives interesting examples of how plants and animals 'experience' things in the outside world by sending and receiving (bio)chemical signals and acting upon them. She gives other interesting examples of how our 'free will' can be colonised by parasites to make us act differently. While these are interesting facts by themselvs, the link between them and the workings or even limits of our consciousness is still a major leap that is not substantiated.

Sam Harris wrote an interesting book on free will - called "Free Will" - and its limits. Like her husband, Annaka Harris expands the definition of both 'free will' and 'consciousness' to areas beyond their normal practical day-to-day use. Instead of enlightening and clarifying things, it tends to confuse things. Even if it is true that is hard to determine the real boundary between conscious experience and decision-making and the more basic chemical reactions between a plant and its environment, I can still determine whether to drink or ingest food, or to write a book for that matter.

Yet it's always good to question our establishd thoughts and assumptions. But that's possibly the only value of this book.