[Dent]

Spoiler Alert (lengthy quotes from Waking Up)

On Binding (chapter 2)

Here is where the distinction between studying consciousness itself and studying its contents becomes paramount. It is easy to see how the contents of consciousness might be understood in neurophysiological terms. Consider, for instance, our experience of seeing an object: Its color, contours, apparent motion, and location in space arise in consciousness as a seamless unity, even though this information is processed by many separate systems in the brain. Thus, when a golfer prepares to hit a shot, he does not first see the ball’s roundness, then its whiteness, and only then its position on the tee. Rather, he enjoys a unified perception of the ball. Many neuroscientists believe that this phenomenon of “binding” can be explained by disparate groups of neurons firing in synchrony. Whether or not this theory is true, it is at least intelligible—because synchronous activity seems just the sort of thing that could explain the unity of a percept.
This work suggests, as many other findings in neuroscience do, that the contents of consciousness can often be made sense of in terms of their underlying neurophysiology.However, when we ask why such phenomena should be experienced in the first place, we are returned to the mystery of consciousness in full.

On ‘mergence (chapter 5)

As should be clear from the preceding chapters, unlike many scientists and philosophers, I remain agnostic on the question of how consciousness is related to the physical world. There are good reasons to believe that it is an emergent property of brain activity, just as the rest of the human mind is. But we know nothing about how such a miracle of emergence might occur. And if consciousness were irreducible—or even separable from the brain in a way that would give comfort to Saint Augustine—my worldview would not be overturned. I know that we do not understand consciousness, and nothing that I think I know about the cosmos or about the patent falsity of most religious beliefs requires that I deny this. So, although I am an atheist who can be expected to be critical of religious dogma, I am not reflexively hostile to claims of the sort Alexander has made. In principle, my mind is open. (It really is.)

On Ism (chapter 5)

Whatever the case, the action of these drugs does not rule out dualism, or the existence of realms of mind beyond the brain—but then, nothing does. That is one of the problems with views of this kind: They appear to be unfalsifiable. Physicalism, by contrast, could easily be falsified. If science ever established the existence of ghosts or reincarnation or any other phenomenon that placed the human mind (in whole or in part) outside the brain, physicalism would be dead. The fact that dualists can never say what might count as evidence against their views makes this ancient philosophical position very difficult to distinguish from religious faith.

On drugs and the brain

Many people wonder about the difference between meditation (and other contemplative practices) and psychedelics. Are these drugs a form of cheating, or are they the only means of authentic awakening? They are neither. All psychoactive drugs modulate the existing neurochemistry of the brain—either by mimicking specific neurotransmitters or by causing the neurotransmitters themselves to be more or less active. Everything that one can experience on a drug is, at some level, an expression of the brain’s potential. Hence, whatever one has seen or felt after ingesting LSD is likely to have been seen or felt by someone, somewhere, without it.

Not from the book, Pearce on psychedelic plants.

Malaise-ridden "ordinary waking consciousness" has probably been more important in human progress to date than psychedelics. After all, plants manufacture such compounds to reduce the fitness of animals who ate them. By contrast, interventions radically to raise hedonic set-points needn't impair rational serial thought.