Any book about consciousness that is not about neurons and how their signals instantiate consciousness is a scientifically flawed book.
All the empirical evidence in neuroscience to date points to neurons + signals as responsible for all functions, including memory, feelings, emotions, and regulations. So, whatever consciousness must be, it should be theorized with neurons and their signals.
This includes the concept of the self, or what is termed subjectivity. Then, free will, or intent, strictly means the possibility to do something like move the hands or legs.
Whatever it is, should be explained with neurons and/or signals. Some people have said consciousness is in the brainstem. Others said it is the thalamocortical pathway.
Whatever location is mentioned, neurons and signals are there. In a coma, some neurons and signals are still working. It is the same under general anesthesia, deep sleep, and so forth. Even in the cerebellum, where some people have said there is no consciousness, neurons and signals are there.
Neurons and signals are often active somewhere. So, whatever consciousness has to be, may not, for now, exceed neurons or their signals. This means that developing a theory of consciousness has to look at neurons and exhaust it, as an option. If it is impossible to develop a theory based on neurons alone, then neurons and signals should be explored.
If it is impossible to do so, by including neurons, then just a theory of consciousness based on electrical and chemical signals can be developed. This is where the opportunity is, to make progress in consciousness science. Consciousness is not a philosophical problem or some materialist or physicalist forte.
Consciousness is what is done by neurons and their signals. So, finding a way to explain it solves everything else. With neurons and signals, consciousness is not a problem — hard, easy, real, or whatever else.
AI Consciousness
Now, what neurons [and signals] do, say memory [including intelligence, language, thought, perception, imagination], emotions [including love, hate, fear, anxiety, worry, delight], feelings [pain, thirst, hunger, satiation,] and control of internal senses or interoception [regulation of digestion, circulation, and so forth], all these can be classified as divisions [and their subdivisions].
So, because humans are the standard, total consciousness for humans can be assumed to be equal to 1.
Then, because all the divisions and their subdivisions are [active] possibilities, but not that they are all active at the same time, there are graders, or attributes that determine the extent to which they function [or say are active].
These graders include attention, awareness [or less than attention], subjectivity, and intent. These graders also ensure that even all that are active, do not do so to the same degree, at the same time.
So, while functions may be localized to certain areas in the brain, whenever neurons [and signals] mechanize those functions, they do so, at the direction of attributes — there.
This means that even as functions are different, they all have similar attributes [or graders] that determine the extent to which those functions.
It is the total of these attributes [and the functions] that becomes the entire consciousness per moment, or 1.
So, maybe a memory [and attention] or a feeling [and intent] or an emotion [and subjectivity]. The total, in a moment, is 1.
Therefore, to estimate if AI is conscious, or even say other organisms, including plants, it is possible to look at these major functions [or divisions] and their subdivisions. Then, to also look at the attributes present, in comparison to humans, and then make a total estimate, after deductions from 1.
Humans have advanced languages. Other organisms do not. Humans have an extensive range of emotions since language can be used to determine some emotions. The same, as well, for feelings. However, humans having more, totaling 1, means a deduction for other organisms.
For AI, it does not have feelings and emotions at least for now, but it has language, in the range of the use case of humans for writing, reading, speaking, listening, thinking, signing, singing, and so forth.
Since language is under the memory division for humans, and using language comes with the attributes, it is possible to explore how much larger language models [LLMs] range on this, then estimate a fraction for them, above 0 but less than 0.4.
This means that sentience, for LLMs, can be estimated, at least using a model that derives from neurons [and their signals].
This is the approach in Conceptual Biomarkers and Theoretical Biological Factors for Psychiatric and Intelligence Nosology.
A World Appears
There is a recent [February, 2026] analysis by the California Review of Books, A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness by Michael Pollan, stating that:
“Pollan sees a fundamental dilemma involving an actual debate for the consideration of consciousness: “To delve into the subject of consciousness is to quickly discover how little we know about a phenomenon we all know so well. It doesn’t help that scientists and philosophers who work on the problem don’t agree on what they mean by the word consciousness or on what, exactly, they are trying to explain.”
“Does that word have a single actuality behind it? Or at most we can have just information about a collection of disparate traits among living creatures that don’t all fit under a singular definition.”
“Beyond the matter of the self, Pollan notes that he is surprised that the many scientists he has interviewed do not talk about the unconscious, ignoring it to focus on conscious perception.”
A Flawed Book
There are brain problems that are more important to the world, such that their applications, even conceptually, would have broader usefulness than solving consciousness.
How does the world solve drug overdoses? What theory of neurons and signals can be explored? How about human intelligence in this AI era?
So, say writing a book about human intelligence, what it is in the brain, how it works, what its types are, how do neurons [and signals] mechanize it, how it can be induced for problem-solving, and so forth, are answers that would be pivotal, amid the rise of artificial intelligence.
There is no book like this on earth currently. There is no human intelligence research lab on Earth currently. There is no effort to explore what to do about human intelligence, going forward. So, what should a visionary author do: take on human intelligence, or waste time with consciousness?
While it is true that there are several ways that consciousness can be applied, what should strike promise is even trying in the right direction, of neurons and their signals.
Nothing, not whatever some ‘expert’ who has been working on consciousness forever, not anyone else, may have anything viable to say, as long as the science of consciousness is concerned, without looking at neurons and their signals, based on the current evidence in neuroscience.
So, A World Appears is not a book on science. It is not a useful book. It is not a promising book. It is not worth reading. It is nothing more than a ruse, a grift, a distraction, a lazy hustle, a shoddy work, an effort without rigor, a participation trophy, a deceptive interplay, a sham, a disgrace to literature, a waste of human literacy.
It would have been better to even try to work on psychiatry. If an author claims to understand psychedelics, then how do you explain mental disorders as chemical signals, as configurators of functions?
A World Appears is being reviewed everywhere, hyped, and promoted as if it were some groundbreaking work. It is not. It speaks to what some people sell to the world, like they play their game, and the world is their casualty.
This article was written for WHN by David Stephen, who currently does research in conceptual brain science with a focus on the electrical and chemical signals for how they mechanize the human mind, with implications for mental health, disorders, neurotechnology, consciousness, learning, artificial intelligence, and nurture. He was a visiting scholar in medical entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL. He did computer vision research at Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona.
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