Matter Over Mind

Michael's marriage is threatened by a growing infatuation with a girlfriend from schooldays who has contacted him unexpectedly. It had aways seemed self-evident to him that falling in love is something over which we have no control. And now, experiencing it himself, he probes more deeply into the subject, and is surprised to find that most neuroscientists now more or less agree that we are just biological machines operating in the tramlines of physical causes and effects. The minds, souls or spirits - the ghosts in the machine that are supposed tell our bodies what to do - are increasingly seeming like folk psychology. It follows that free will is an illusion, and consequently we are not responsible for anything we do. Michael writes an article suggesting that as we come to understand that without our souls we may be looking into a void, spiralling down to a terminal heart of darkness. His article attracts the attention an undercover government agency that is already drawing up plans to avoid the possibility of a meltdown in law and order when we get to know too much for our own good. He is recruited to work with the agency. But the government's involvement, well-intentioned and promising at first, veers off track and begins to take a sinister turn.