[the notes from the book were retrieved with kobogarden, with the purpose of aiding to create a map of the ideas the book left me. The full list of book highlights can be found here.]

Michael Pollan has a new book. He's a curious fellow, and his work has taken an interesting trajectory from food to the mind.

The emergence of a self is perhaps the apotheosis of consciousness in humans: the intuitive sense that we each have located somewhere within our heads a continuous, stable, and abiding “I” that is the subject of all our experiences. The self, we assume, is the perceiver of our perceptions and the thinker of our thoughts. Yet many scientists, philosophers, and Buddhists maintain that this self is purely a fabrication, though a useful one. Why do we cling so tightly to this idea of an enduring self at the same time that we go to such lengths to transcend it, whether by way of drugs, meditation, sensory deprivation, extreme sports, or experiences of art and awe?