Michael Pollan On The Mystery Of Consciousness

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Feb 27, 2026

Michael Pollan, bestselling writer on food, mind, and culture, discusses his new book A World Appears. He tours theories of consciousness from panpsychism to global workspace and critiques the brain-as-computer idea. Conversation ranges from phenomenology and novels that capture inner life to mind-wandering, the effects of smartphones, children’s consciousness, and why walks and boredom matter for thinking.

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INSIGHT

Consciousness Defined As Subjective Experience

Consciousness is simply subjective experience: if it feels like anything to be a creature, it's conscious.
Michael Pollan uses Thomas Nagel's bat example to show consciousness requires imagining another creature's unique experiential perspective.

INSIGHT

Panpsychism Tries To Rescue Materialism

Panpsychism posits consciousness is a basic feature of matter to rescue materialism from failing to explain subjective experience.
Pollan notes the combination problem: tiny bits of psyche must somehow compose into human self-awareness.

INSIGHT

Neural Correlates Don't Explain Subjectivity

Early scientific attempts sought neural correlates of consciousness, hoping to locate a 'consciousness center' in the brain.
Pollan recounts Francis Crick and Christoph Koch's realization that correlations (e.g., brain waves) don't explain how subjective experience arises.

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Michael is quite simply one of the best nonfiction writers out the planet: a real role model. He’s been a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine since 1987, and he’s the bestselling author of many books, including How to Change Your Mind — which I reviewed in 2018 — and its sequel, This Is Your Mind on Plants, which we discussed on the Dishcast in 2021. This week we covered his new book, A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness.

For two clips of our convo — on the magic of spontaneous thoughts, and the consciousness of kids — head to our YouTube page.

Other topics: toasters and other things that don’t have consciousness; Thomas Nagel’s bat; panpsychism; Francis Crick trying to solve consciousness; the global neuronal workspace theory; how brains are not like computers; AI and consciousness; Proust; James Joyce; Wordsworth and the Romantics; William James and stream of consciousness; Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport; words on the tip of your tongue; phenomenology; letting your mind wander; Addison’s Walk at Oxford; how smartphones distract from thinking; Trump taking up our headspace; Oakeshott and “the deadliness of doing”; AI and UBI; Allison Gopnik’s lantern vs spotlight consciousness; how a child’s brain resembles an adult’s on psychedelics; ego death; the default mode network; meditation; the flow state of deep reading; the benefits of boredom; habit and ritual; my 10-day silent meditation retreat; the sentience of plants; Buddhism and Matthieu Ricard; the soul; the film Into Great Silence; and the disenchantment of the Enlightenment.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy. Coming up: Jeffrey Toobin on the pardon power, Derek Thompson on abundance, Matt Goodwin on the earthquake in UK politics, Jonah Goldberg on the state of conservatism, Tom Holland on the Christian roots of liberalism, Tiffany Jenkins on privacy, Adrian Wooldridge on “the lost genius of liberalism,” Tom Junod on his memoir and masculinity, and Kathryn Paige Harden on the genetics of vice and virtue. As always, please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.