Start the Week Consciousness and Identity
11 snips
Mar 16, 2026 
Fay Bound-Alberti, cultural historian of the face, traces facehood, physiognomy and selfies. Mary Costello, novelist focused on interiority and memory, explores narrative, dreams and individuation. Michael Pollan, science writer on psychedelics and plant life, surveys theories of consciousness, plant sentience and brain‑body debates. They discuss memory, art, recognition and how selves are seen and told.
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Consciousness Begins In The Body
- Consciousness is deeply embodied and grounded in bodily feelings that signal needs and states.
- Pollan describes feelings as the body's language to the brain and uses moral disgust experiments with ginger to show physiology alters moral response.
Psychedelics Prompted The Plant Inquiry
- Michael Pollan used psychedelics and found they reveal consciousness by smudging the windscreen between self and world.
- He tested these experiences against scientific research and botanical observations, prompting his plant-consciousness investigations.
Why AI Probably Won't Be Truly Conscious
- Embodiment implies machines lack genuine feelings because they don't have vulnerable, mortal bodies that produce felt experiences.
- Pollan argues AI can simulate feelings but those simulations are 'weightless' without bodily stakes.
