— p.k. house —

I’m a former neuroscientist who left the lab to write books about brains. I care about mind-control parasites, free will, elegance, consciousness, A.I., and anything that echolocates.

I am currently the writer in residence at Stanford's Center for the Explanation of Consciousness. 

I have a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Stanford University, advised by Dr. Robert Sapolsky. My Ph.D. focused on Toxoplasma gondii, a protozoan, mind-control parasite. It gets into mouse brains and messes around with their fear of cats.

NINETEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT CONSCIOUSNESS (St Martin’s, 2022) is my first book. It is about how the brain telling itself stories is a kind of mind control because, really, what’s the difference between a protozoan, an electrode, or a fiction, as long as it gets in there and changes things?

I’ve written essays/profiles on A.I., brains, robots, virtual reality, climate, genetic engineering, cat people, caption contests, etc. for The New Yorker, Slate, and L.A. Review of Books.

I was the inaugural writer in residence at the Allen Institute for Brain Science; and wrote science fiction at OpenAI alongside an early version of GPT. I also spent three years at a neurotechnology startup, Kernel.co, which makes non-invasive fNIRS technology.