A World Appears

Whether Michael is looking at a meal or a mind-altering experience, the through-line of his work is the different ways humans have become disconnected from nature and how we might begin to reconnect.

His books include A World Appears, How to Change Your Mind, and The Omnivore's Dilemma, which marks its 20th anniversary this year.

He's also a professor at Harvard and UC Berkeley and leads the Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.

In this episode, Michael and I talk about his start as a magazine writer and how his curiosity propelled him to write about everything from his garden to exploring psychedelics.

But it was true.

I unlearned a lot of things in the process of trying to answer the question, you know, how does consciousness arise?

Let's talk about that for a moment, because your book, A World Appears, really focused on this incredibly complex but interesting topic of consciousness.

And when you were younger, what was your conception of what consciousness was? And I'm curious, was it shaped by science, by faith, by life experience, by something else? It's funny,

It's being polluted in certain ways.

I've found talking to people on book tour that a lot of people feel like their heads are full of things they would rather not be there and that they're being colonized.

I'm Preet Bharara.

This week, we're revisiting a conversation I had with journalist and New York Times bestselling author Michael Pollan in April of this year.

Pollan's books have changed how people think about food, plants, and psychedelics.

And now he's out with a new one.

It's called A World Appears, A Journey Into Consciousness.

Very good

This mind makes everything really puzzles me, you know, like how mind makes nature, you know, can you tell us more about what you mean by that?

There is an amazing book, bestseller in the United States, but I think more than the United States, called A World Appears by Michael Pollan, P-O-L-L-A-N.

He goes and interviews all the scientists studying consciousness and the many levels.

Even are plants conscious? And what do we know about this? And when you start to look at this, for instance, let's say I see some danger.

Welcome, everyone, to this very special live episode of Science of Perception Box.

I'm Elizabeth Koch, and I brought my copy of Michael Pollan's latest book, A World Appears.

You can tell I kinda liked it.

There's a few Post-its in here, and there's lots of hearts on all the Post-its, too.

And we couldn't be more thrilled to have our special guest, Michael Pollan.

He is a journalist and bestselling author of This Is Your Mind On Plants, How to Change Your Mind, and The Omnivore's Dilemma.

And his latest book, his tenth book, A World Appears, investigates questions that I know has motivated Christof, myself, and many of the people in this room and the people watching at home.

What is consciousness? Do we need a brain or a body to experience this phenomenon? Is consciousness limited to human experience, or does it feel like something to be a plant or a lobster or an AI chatbot? I'm thrilled to have this brilliant mind joining us to explore these questions.

You have Elizabeth Strout's "The Things We Never Say," diving into the quiet, unspoken undercurrents of human relationships

Then he pivots to nonfiction with Michael Pollan's "A World Appears"

Looking at nature and consciousness.

The breadth is key here.

Let's switch over to consciousness.

You know, uh, actually, on a side note, I did just finish Michael Pollan's new book.

It's called The World Appears.

I liked it.

I think it's got a lot to teach us about the self and where AI's at, and he did a good job interviewing a lot of different interesting people in that book.

So yeah, a little book recommendation if you guys are, are bored.

But now we'll hop over to Stefan Martin's thoughts on what Mustafa Suleyman has been saying.

Uh, Mustafa is in charge of AI at Microsoft.

I want to come back to it.

It's called A World Appears.

Hmm.

And he explores this whole concept of what we mean by consciousness, and especially be- because of the rise of artificial intelligence, and, uh, I think a legitimate fear that these, uh, algorithms, basically that's what they are, will make decisions without real consciousness, without a soul, we know that, without a heart.

What's the name of the book?

A World Appears.

Uh-huh.

Michael Pollan, who's been here to Cal Poly, and, uh, he's spoken, um, at least once I know of.