About this episode

Michael Taft interviews Michael Pollan about consciousness, its mysteries, and the insights from various fields including literature and psychedelics.

Host Michael Taft talks with bestselling author Michael Pollan about his new book, A World Appears , and the enduring mystery of consciousness. They explore the hidden biases of consciousness researchers, the limits of scientific materialism, the embodied nature of feeling, and what literature, meditation, psychedelics, and the arts can reveal that laboratory science cannot. The conversation turns to artificial intelligence and the unsettling possibility that machines may possess ego-like structures without any genuine inner awareness, raising urgent questions about emotional attachment to algorithms and the need for “consciousness hygiene.” They also discuss ego dissolution, the microbiome’s surprising influence on mind and behavior, the increasingly blurry boundary between self and world, and practical ways of becoming more fully conscious through meditation, nature, travel, art, gardening, animals, and time away from technology. Michael Pollan is one of America’s most influential writers on the intersection of human life and the natural world—especially food, agriculture, consciousness, and the mind. He is the author of numerous bestselling books, including The Omnivore’s…

People in this episode

Host: Michael W. Taft

Guest: Michael Pollan

Topics covered

• consciousness
• psychedelics
• ego dissolution
• art and literature
• meditation
• technology and AI

Keywords

• consciousness
• Michael Pollan
• psychedelics
• ego dissolution
• meditation
• technology
• literature
• microbiome

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: UC Berkeley, Harvard, UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics

Books & works: A World Appears, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food, Cooked, How to Change Your Mind, This Is Your Mind on Plants

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