However transparent the evidence of our self – of “being oneself” – may seem to us, there is nothing more complex than consciousness, the product of the joint work of billions of neurons that make us experience reality “in the first person” and create in our minds an interpretation of the world we inhabit. Because the world as we perceive it is that: an interpretation, or, in the words of Anil Seth, a kind of controlled hallucination. Our minds construct for us a universe of colors, shapes and sounds, and it is through this construction that we interact and relate to the world and to others.

Can the degree of consciousness be measured as we do, for example, with temperature? Do animals have consciousness? Why do we experience life in the first person? Do we inhabit a shared reality or does each “I” have its own? Can we know what is hidden behind the veil of consciousness? In this fascinating essay, which didactically and absorbingly mixes science, philosophy, literature and autobiographical notes, Anil Seth, a world-renowned authority on the study of the brain, demolishes many of the preconceived ideas about the mind, consciousness, memory, the self and free will, dismantling inherited beliefs and superstitions, and offering a stimulating state of the art: consciousness exists, Seth tells us, although it is very different from what we thought it was.