Consciousness, Free Will, and the Limits of Science

Erik Hoel in his Substack, The Intrinsic Perspective:

For most of 2022 I was quietly working on my second book, The World Behind the World, which is now being published by Simon & Schuster on July 25th. Its subtitle gives you a stronger hint of what it’s about: Consciousness, Free Will, and the Limits of Science.

What is TWBTW? It is a book that tells the story of the twin perspectives that humanity has taken on the world. First, there is the extrinsic perspective, which describes the mechanical, the scientific. Then, there is the intrinsic perspective, which describes human consciousness and its myriad contents (thus: “The Intrinsic Perspective,” the very name of this Substack). Humans can, with facility, discuss both the mechanical and the mental, but we use very different languages for each. I argue that much of the work of civilization was in the development of these two, often opposing, perspectives—and TWBTW tells that historical tale, focusing on science as the means we developed to best describe the extrinsic and literature as the means to best describe the intrinsic.

More here.