12 Books I Enjoyed Reading In 2023

The first three books in this list deal with consciousness and related subjects. They share strong arguments for the computational model and the emergent nature of consciousness, arguing for a strong material basis for the phenomenon that has intrigued philosophers and neuroscientists for quite a few centuries.

Written by Oxford biologist John Parrington, Consciousness: How Our Brains Turn Matter into Meaning, is part of the larger worldview of Parrington and follows his 2021 work, Mindshift.

The author contends that rapid cultural changes, driven by technological advancements, are reshaping the human mind, leading to increased brain plasticity and improved higher functions like imagination.

The book presents a thorough case for human self-conscious awareness, defining consciousness as our reflective understanding of ourselves. It asserts that this awareness emerges from two distinct human traits: the ability to use language and the continuous transformation of our environment through tool design and utilization.

The next is, The Four Realms of Existence: A New Theory of Being Human, by neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux. Right in the preface he makes it clear what the four levels of existence he presents in the book are:

Thus he builds an evolutionary ascension of biological, neuro-biological, cognitive and finally conscious existence. It is a material evolution. But consciousness can be understood as subsuming all these dimensions of evolution.

This is quite a comprehensive historic view of consciousness in the context of the evolutionary unfolding of life.

Perhaps the most thoroughly researched book, though not on consciousness but freewill, is the book, Determined: Life Without Freewill, by Robert Sapolsky.

The book argues that we do not have a free will in the conventional and even a deeper sense of the term. Our actions are held by strings of hormones, bio-chemical path ways and evolutionary deep strands.

Is free will then an illusion?

Is it an illusion born out of evolutionary necessity?

If we are not responsible for our actions then what about morality and ethics?

Sapolsky brilliantly argues for a more humane value system that arises out of our understanding of the lack of freewill. From social amoeba forming a slime mould to serial killer Ted Bundy, from the famous Libet experiment on freewill to the importance of reductionism in scientific inquiry, the book is an epic odyssey into this important question – do we have free will?

The book explores whether consciousness serves as a mediator in "preconscious brain decisions." The author challenges the idea that consciousness is merely an illusory sense of control. Sapolsky skillfully navigates a maze of reductionism, offering a comprehensive view of our evolving self-awareness.

Undoubtedly, this stands out as the premier book of the year in the field of consciousness studies.

The next four books look at the alternative forms of intelligence around us and beyond us.

Philosopher of science Paco Calvo highlights the extraordinary sensory abilities of plants in his book Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence.

The book begins by addressing "plant blindness," our tendency to undervalue plants due to their perceived immobility compared to animals. Through the juxtaposition of Georgia O'Keeffe's 'Papaya Tree' painting and a micrograph from Jagadish Chandra Bose's book, the reader is immersed in the aesthetic universe that unveils plant intelligence.

The question of whether plants think is explored, with the author highlighting the need to bridge the gap between physiology and behaviour to truly understand their cognitive processes. A must-read book of the 2023.

If one wants to move from hard science to some mystic musings, then the book, Why Can’t We be More Like Trees by Judith Polich is for you.

Polich is a lawyer-turned-environmentalist. The book eloquently weaves together ancient pagan Goddesses and recent research on plant cognition, particularly the underground root networks' interaction with fungi.

The book also emphasizes the potential beauty of religions embracing ecological and evolutionary understanding, transforming sacred texts into metaphysical poetry. Warts and all, a good read.

For nearly a decade, Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has been advocating for a reconsideration of our approach to searching for extraterrestrial intelligence in the skies. This year he has come up with another book, Interstellar-The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Our Future Beyond Earth.

From the rigorous search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) to the phenomenon now termed unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), the book underscores a crucial point: the future of humanity extends beyond our solar system. Avi Loeb advocates for a shift from solely looking for radio waves to actively searching for alien artifacts in space. He explores 'Oumuamua, possibly the first interstellar object, highlighting its unusual features that defy natural explanations.

Taking readers on an epic voyage, the book explores the mystery of whether we are alone and delves into the cultural, political, and societal impacts of such an enquiry, urging us to elevate our curiosity beyond narrow perspectives.

Even as we raise our eyes to the stars above, right on earth, in the deep oceans, under the rocks, we have a very alien-looking organism with an intelligence that amazes us. Marine biologist David Scheel in his Many Things Under a Rock: The Mysteries of Octopuses provides a fascinating account of this animal, its habitat, variety, behaviour, evolutionary history, human interactions and the threats this animal faces with the modern human encounter.

Science has been continuously discovering cognitive abilities of this cephalopod species. Their arms challenge the notion of one brain one mind that we vertebrate animals are so familiar with. The neurobiology of the octopus tentacles suggest their capacity to learn ‘outside the brain’.

Is Octopus a group of minds in one body?

The distributed nature of the octopus challenges our conventional notions of intelligence of an organism.

The book delves into this mysterious realm of evolution, exploring our evolutionary cousins with an intelligence so alien, yet present right here on our own planet.

Artificial Intelligence is taking the world by storm. It is completely changing the way we work, the way we make our choices and even the way we think about our surroundings and ourselves. Two important books on AI last year were physicist-futurist Michio Kaku’s, Quantum Supremacy, and Mustafa Sulaiman’s The Coming Wave.

Kaku's book outlines the history of AI, noting shifts from a computational brain model to a learning model. The book provides a clear introduction to how quantum computing is transforming our present and shaping the future.

Mustafa Sulaiman is the co-founder of Deepmind and Inflection AI which has also launched the very popular AI chatbot PI. His book The Coming Wave is a mind-exhilarating surfing of a tremendous wave that is changing human evolution and also our future. The wave he is talking about in a very Toffler-Third Wave fashion is the wave of two technologies, AI and biology.

The next three books we see are India-centric.

The first one is computational scientist and a historian of science and philosophy Prof. Subash Kak’s, The Idea of India: Bharat as a Civilization.

The book's significance goes beyond awakening India to Indians, as a famous sage once emphasized. As observed in numerous books, there exists a realm in nearly all sciences where the interaction between the inner and outer dimensions takes place. Grasping this space in its entirety is crucial for creating springboards to delve deeper and launchpads to ascend higher into the mysteries of science. Indian knowledge systems inherently possess this capacity.

In his book, Subhash Kak eloquently elucidates this aspect in his own graceful manner.

The next book is, Nalin Mehta’s India’s Techade which encapsulates a very human-centric IT revolution. The book, through empirical precision but a lucid narrative, shows how the government integrated cutting-edge digital technologies into the daily lives of Indians.

This revolution, though nearly unparalleled, often remains under-reported and is frequently taken for granted.

The book starts with the author meeting Prime Minister Modi and asking him about Aadhaar scheme which the latter opposed as the Chief Minister of Gujarat. The PM explains that his opposition was not to the scheme but specific ground-level concerns that needed addressing before implementation. Modi also suggests that the author meet Nandan Nilekani, the chief architect of Aadhaar, who had incidentally contested the 2014 elections against the BJP.

What follows is a vision that transcends political boundaries, driving India through an exceptionally humanistic tech transformation. Nalin Mehta illuminates a crucial and vital part of how this Indian wave has been generated in this decade.

The last book on the list is the autobiography of Kashmiri sage of Kundalini, Gopi Krishna. Teri Degler's Gopi Krishna: A Biography, published by the Institute for Conscious Research this year, offers a captivating and insightful portrayal of this scientific yogi's life.

The biography lists and provides the core-content of his interaction with various scholars, seers and scientists. Of particular interest are the interactions with Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, physicist-turned-philosopher, Julian Huxley, the Darwinian evolutionist and Edgar Mitchell, astronaut-aerospace technologist. A must read for a clear understanding of the most non-Guru like Guru who remained authentic to his roots and global in his vision.