This book explores how consciousness is not simply a deep mystery for science, but the source of all value in the universe. Furthermore, this value is not merely imagined; it is as undeniably real as the existence of consciousness itself.

This book investigates the implications of an emerging view; that certain conscious states have an inherent ethical significance that is independent of our beliefs, judgments, cultures, and traditions. This view provides the basis of an emerging moral realism with the power to make sense of the unseen moral realities of our world, our unique moment in history, and the vast and uncertain future that lies ahead for conscious life in the universe.

This is a journey that takes us beyond the realm of theory, from the hidden hells of factory farms to transcendent peaks of conscious flourishing; from your immediate experience in this very moment to conscious states occurring trillions of years in the future; from the world-changing potential of superintelligent AI to the possibility of truly conscious artificial minds; from the sentient inner lives of octopuses and nonhuman animals to alien minds in the depths of space.

Clear-eyed, urgent, and expansive in scope, this book offers not only a foundation for ethics, but a guide to rethinking who we are, what we owe to one another, and how we might shape the future of consciousness itself.