PositiveThe Washington PostChalmers...is adept at making the hypothesis clear without sacrificing its complexity. Indeed, Reality+ sometimes reads like two books in one. It stands as a welcoming work for first-time readers of philosophy, full of genial references to cultural touchstones such as The Matrix and Rick and Morty. Simultaneously, it remains substantial enough for those familiar with the field and its ongoing conversations ... Reality+ is frequently weird, wild and wonderful; it captivates the common reader by refusing to condescend ... Chalmers’s writing is perspicuous and teacherly—an approach that keeps it from collapsing into recalcitrant obscurity ... The beauty we appreciated when we looked at those simulated blooms was authentic, so why would it matter that they’re not \'real\'? Chalmers argues this thesis tirelessly and well. To my mind, though, he is less convincing when he seeks to extend it ... Chalmers too quickly waves away the obvious counter-argument: that technology, while seemingly enriching life or making existence easier, necessarily alienates, diminishes and restricts.
Mark Solms
RaveThe Washington Post... exciting ... Drawing on extensive cognitive science research — much of it his own — Solms argues that Freud’s theories anticipate some key findings in current brain research. In Solms’s reckoning, those controversial ideas weren’t just ahead of their time; he proposes that they still have something to teach neuroscience today ... [Solms] makes a convincing case for paying more attention to the \'densely knotted core of the brainstem\' ... What is perhaps most striking about Solms’s project, though, is his insistence that Freud already laid the groundwork ... Thankfully, The Hidden Spring provides a necessary reminder that rational thinking isn’t all it seems to be.
Jimena Canales
PositiveThe Washington PostThe opening chapters...deftly sprint through centuries of scientific history in the course of introducing the...demons of Descartes, Laplace and Maxwell. But the book’s pace becomes more relaxed once it arrives at the 20th century ... Canales’s impressive facility with the problems and personalities of 20th-century physics serves her story well at this point. In the hands of a lesser scholar, pandemonium would threaten to take hold in the book’s concluding chapters ... Canales remains a steady, if less leisurely, guide ... Bedeviled admirably insists on recording the plain history of science. It just so happens that the history of that most rational of human endeavors reads at times like a Gothic tale, one replete with evil geniuses, time travelers and uncanny intelligences lurking in reality’s obscure corners.