Anil Seth

With a degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Computer Sciences and Artificial Intelligence from the University of Sussex where he is presently professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, he is also co-director of the university’s Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. Through the study of consciousness and thanks to the discoveries of recent years, Anil Seth explores questions related with philosophy, such as existence and experience of the world, and suggests that the most recent advances offer a new perspective making it possible to understand where emotions come from and how they are connected with bodily perceptions, and also the essentials of experience of ourselves. He has been involved throughout his career in artistic and educational projects including the immersive film installation Escape to Reality (2018), the “From Body to Being” installations, which were programmed in the 2017 British Science Festival, and the Wellcome Foundation’s exhibition “States of Mind: Tracing the Edges of Consciousness” (2016). As a science educator, he is editor of 30-Second Brain: The 50 Most Mind-Blowing Ideas in Neuroscience, Each Explained in Half a Minute (in Spanish 50 temas fascinantes de la neurociencia, Blume, 2015) and author of several books, including Being You: A New Science of Consciousness (Faber & Faber, 2021), a journey through the biological bases of consciousness which was an instant Sunday Times bestseller and a 2021 Book of the Year for The Economist, The New Statesman, and Bloomberg Business, and a Science Book of the Year for The Guardian and The Financial Times. He is also editor-in-chief of the academic journal Neuroscience of Consciousness (Oxford University Press) and has published more than a hundred articles in such diverse areas as computer sciences, psychology, and philosophy.