Bibliography of the Depths

Carson, Rachel. The Sea Around Us.

New York: Oxford University Press, 1951.

The classic that taught the world to see the ocean as a living ecosystem.

Nouvian, Claire. The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

An illustrated catalogue of abyssal creatures — the bestiary that inspired many metaphors.

Jamieson, Alan J. The Hadal Zone: Life in the Deepest Oceans.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Chalmers, David J. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory.

New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

The text that defined the "hard problem" of consciousness.

Nagel, Thomas. "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"

The Philosophical Review 83, no. 4 (1974): 435-450.

The foundational essay on the subjectivity of experience.

Godfrey-Smith, Peter. Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness.

New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.

Octopus intelligence as a window onto other forms of mind.

Nagarjuna. Mulamadhyamakakarika (Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way).

Circa 2nd century CE.

The foundational text on sunyata (emptiness).

Laozi. Tao Te Ching.

Circa 6th-4th century BCE.

"The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao."

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Mystical Theology.

Circa 5th-6th century CE.

The foundation of Western negative theology.

Psalm 42:7 — "Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls."

New International Version.

Heart Sutra (Prajnaparamita Hrdaya Sutra)

"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form."