Radiant Cool

An innovative theory of consciousness, drawing on the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and supported by brain-imaging, presented in the form of a hardboiled detective story.

Professor Grue is dead (or is he?). When graduate student/sleuth Miranda Sharpe discovers him slumped over his keyboard, she does the sensible thing-she grabs her dissertation and runs. Little does she suspect that soon she will be probing the heart of two mysteries, trying to discover what happened to Max Grue, and trying to solve the profound neurophilosophical problem of consciousness. Radiant Cool may be the first novel of ideas that actually breaks new theoretical ground, as Dan Lloyd uses a neo-noir (neuro-noir?), hard-boiled framework to propose a new theory of consciousness.In the course of her sleuthing, Miranda encounters characters who share her urgency to get to the bottom of the mystery of consciousness, although not always with the most innocent motives. Who holds the key to Max Grue's ultimate vision? Is it the computer-inspired pop psychologist talk-show host? The video-gaming geek with a passion for artificial neural networks? The Russian multi-dimensional data detective, or the sophisticated neuroscientist with the big book contract? Ultimately Miranda teams up with the author's fictional alter ego, "Dan Lloyd," and together they build on the phenomenological theories of philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) to construct testable hypotheses about the implementation of consciousness in the brain. Will the clues of phenomenology and neuroscience converge in time to avert a catastrophe? (The dramatic ending cannot be revealed here.) Outside the fictional world of the novel, Dan Lloyd (the author) appends a lengthy afterword, explaining the proposed theory of consciousness in more scholarly form. Radiant Cool is a real metaphysical thriller-based in current philosophy of mind-and a genuine scientific detective story-revealing a new interpretation of functional brain imaging. With its ingenious plot and its novel theory, Radiant Cool will be enjoyed in the classroom and the study for its entertaining presentation of phenomenology, neural networks, and brain imaging; but, most importantly, it will find its place as a groundbreaking theory of consciousness.

Review:

A deft and engrossing noir mystery.

-Daniel C. Dennett, TLS

[A] book that is both a gripping story and an intellectual challenge.

-Susan Blackmore, New Scientist

As Lloyd's final pages make clear, consciousness may in principle by partly opaque.

-George Scialabba, Boston Sunday Globe

Radiant Cool is likely to become a campus classic.

-Durrants

... ingenious and compelling.

-Jonathan Derbyshire, Time Out London

Other writers...have used literature to illuminate science. Lloyd...[has] done it the other way round.

-Walter Ellis, Times Higher Education Supplement

...A fine read for anyone interested in consciousness studies as well as fictionalized science.

-Jaak Panksepp, JAMA

As Lloyd's final pages make clear, consciousness may in principle by partly opaque.

-George Scialabba, Boston Sunday Globe

Other writers, including Umberto Eco, have used literature to illuminate science. Lloyd...[has] done it the other way round.

- Walter Ellis, Times Higher Education Supplement