Navigating neurotechnology and astrobiology in Richard Powers’s Bewilderment

This paper explores Richard Powers’s Bewilderment (2021) and its engagement with neurotechnology and astrobiology, focusing on the intertwined intricacies of feeling and thinking to examine how explorations of the neurological brain and the speculative diversity of life beyond our planet open new pathways for navigating personal and environmental crises. The novel is narrated from the perspective of university astrobiologist Theo Byrne, tasked with raising his behaviorally challenged son, Robin, following the sudden death of his wife, Aly, an animal rights environmentalist. In an effort to help his son, whose sensitivity and emotional volatility have intensified since his mother’s death, Theo enrolls Robin in an experimental decoded feedback therapy that uses Aly’s brain recordings. This paper discusses how Powers’s novel depicts attempts to facilitate empathetic emotions to cultivate self–other connections through neurotechnological tools and astrobiological hypotheses, while acknowledging how technical limitations and conjectural uncertainties complicate these processes.