I came out of this experience of
studying consciousness and looking at
all the theories of consciousness. I
don't want to give it away but we have
no idea about consciousness really how
it's how how brain matter generates
consciousness if indeed that's how it
happens and there are people who doubt
that's how it happens it could be that
the brain channels consciousness right I
mean that if you conceive of
consciousness as like electromagnetic
waves
>> um brains are like radio receivers or TV
receivers you wouldn't you wouldn't look
in the TV set for the woman who gave you
the weather report you know she's not
there she's
So I don't know that that's true but
coming out of this experience of
studying this I don't dismiss an idea
like that you have to keep an open mind
because our presumption that you know
consciousness is an emergent property of
brain complexity that idea doesn't have
much traction. Welcome to the Hubberman
Lab podcast where we discuss science
[music] and science-based tools for
everyday life.
>> [music]
>> I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor
of neurobiology and opthalmology at
Stanford School of Medicine. My guest
today is Michael Pollen, author of
landmark books including How to Change
Your Mind, which is about psychedelics,
The Botney of Desire, which is about how
humans and plants co-evolved and
collaborated to thrive. And The
Omnivore's Dilemma, which is an
incredible book about food and
nutrition, and most recently, the book A
World Appears: A Journey into
Consciousness. Michael Pollen is
considered by many, including me, to be
one of the most learned and thoughtful
people on topics that matter to all
humans and the things that we can do to
improve the human experience. Today, we
talk about many topics, but mostly we
focus on consciousness. And Michael
brings forward a new perspective that
integrates the best science on this
topic as well as philosophy and beyond.
And we get deep into this notion of the
ego, meaning our notion of self, and how
the ego is both important for and limits
our understanding of ourselves and life.
I should emphasize that the conversation
is not as abstract as I'm making it
sound. What I love about Michael Pollen
is he makes these topics very clear and
very concrete and in many cases
actionable. Thanks to Michael, by the
end of today's conversation, you will be
placed at the front edge of the
conversation and the data on this thing
that we call consciousness. You'll also
be versed on the latest of plant or what
is sometimes called psychedelic medicine
and perhaps most importantly what you
can do in your life to gain new
perspective on yourself, others, and the
planet at large. Before we begin, I'd
like to emphasize that this podcast is
separate from my teaching and research
roles at Stanford. It is however part of
my desire and effort to bring zero cost
to consumer information about science
and science related tools to the general
public. In keeping with that theme,
today's episode does include sponsors.
And now for my discussion with Michael
Pollen. Michael Pollen, welcome.
[clears throat]
>> Thank you. Good to be here.
>> Longtime fan of your books, of you. I've
had the privilege of speaking on stage
next to you, although mostly I was just
listening to you because you are this
amazing intersection of science writer.
You've written about food, psychedelics,
now consciousness. You'll tell us about
your new work on microbiome. I feel like
there's also some Wendel Berry woven in
there. Big Wendleberry.
>> Good. I didn't insult you. I didn't
shout about that.
>> We just lost him, too.
>> Oh, is that right?
>> He died like two weeks ago.
>> Oh my goodness. I know.
>> I'm a I'm like a huge Wendleberry fan.
>> Really? Me, too. Oh my goodness.
>> He taught me how to write and he taught
me how to think about certain things.
But I, you know, he had a huge influence
on I was very fond of him. Did
>> you ever meet him?
>> Oh, yeah. We had I interviewed him on
stage a few times. He interviewed me uh
in Lexington, Kentucky, and um about one
of my books. And I went to his house uh
and saw the long-legged house where he
writes on the river. He was always
trying to convince people like us about
the beauty of the tobacco culture.
and he kind of bracketed the cigarette
piece and the lung cancer piece, but the
culture was so beautiful and it was the
one time where the whole community got
together and racial lines were crossed
and the and the barns are gorgeous that
you know the the the tobacco barns with
the slots for drying. [snorts] So he he
wanted me to see those uh when I when I
came there.
>> Amazing. Yeah, I was feeling a little
anxious about bringing in that reference
in case you weren't a fan or you didn't
like his work, but clearly uh he was
calling in because um he was and for
those who don't know Wendel Barry is
this uh just magnificent poet who
>> and farmer and essaist. Yeah. And he um
you know actually when I was writing my
first book, Second Nature, I was trying
to figure out how to behave in the
garden. Um which is a microcosm of how
do we behave in nature, right? In other
words, I had pests. Uh, I had problems.
I had fertility issues. And the American
tradition of thinking about nature,
which goes back to Thorough and John
Mure and Emerson, is all about
celebrating the the wilderness and being
a spectator in nature. And of course,
the gardener can't afford to do that.
You have to act or you're not going to
have anything to eat. I had a headful of
thorough and Emerson from college and
graduate school and I was kind of
stymied about like what do I do about
weeds? You know there you telling me
weeds have just as much right to be in
your garden as the bean plant which is
crazy. But it was Wendell who who would
write these essays and he and he
convinced me, you know, he said we have
a legitimate quarrel with nature and
that our relationship is, you know, we
do have to make changes in nature to for
us to survive. And that's kind of who we
are is um the species who remakes nature
in various ways, but it has to be done
u sort of more like a marriage than a
domination. And uh so he just had a new
way of thinking about how to relate to
nature that really helped me and and
clarified my whole view of
environmentalism. So yeah, he's a great
hero.
>> Amazing. I'm saddened to hear that he
passed, but he certainly left behind.
>> Well, it's a pretty good run.
>> He had a very good run.
>> We will put some links to his work for
those that aren't familiar, and I
encourage anyone listening to just and
even those who are familiar with Wendell
to go read some of his poems. They're
they're they're an incredible journey
and uh
>> full stop.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah,
>> I'm with you.
>> Let's talk about consciousness.
>> As a neuroscientist, I was taught to
avoid this
>> issue. I hear it was the kiss of death
at a certain point, right?
>> Neuroscientists who had were already
very accomplished and famous in some
specific domain like memory or
neuromuscular junctions or whatever
could talk about it. They had permission
once they had their prizes and their um
stature. But some people have died on
the bed of nails that is the
consciousness discussion.
>> I almost did. [laughter]
>> Clearly not. But uh yeah, but maybe you
can tell us why why it's so so
precarious. But it's hard to define I
think is part of it. And uh kudos to you
for jumping in with uh both feet uh on
this one. So after having written a book
about consciousness essentially, do you
think that we can describe it in a
sentence? Can we give it an operational
definition or
>> it's such a strange phenomenon because
there is nothing we know with more
certainty than the fact that we're
conscious. It's the only thing we can be
sure of. Everything else we know through
consciousness, right? Everything else is
an inference, but we have this thing
that we know we have. But defining it is
difficult. So there are some very simple
definitions like subjective experience.
Um that's pretty good. Uh your toaster
doesn't have subjective experience. And
I would argue AIS don't have subjective
experience, but we can talk about that
later. Another popular, I don't know if
it's a definition exactly, is Thomas
Nagel, the uh the the philosopher in the
1970s wrote a brilliant essay called
what is it like to be a bat? And his
point was if it is like anything, then
you're conscious. So, even though we
don't know exactly what it's like to be
a bat, we can kind of imagine a creature
that navigates the world through sonar,
through sound waves instead of uh light,
photons. And so, okay, we can imagine
that. So, yes, bats are conscious by
that definition. Um, so is it like
something to be a computer is a real
question that I think we're going to
have to face. That's kind of what I use
as a definition. There's a lot of bells
and whistles that that human
consciousness has above that. We're not
just aware, but we're aware that we're
aware. We have self-reflection or
metacognition.
Emotion, you know, add that in. So, I
think humans have a very elaborated
kind of consciousness compared to some
other creatures. I make a distinction in
the book between sensience and
consciousness that some scientists make
and I find really useful. Sensience
being a more basic kind of ground floor
of consciousness that uh includes
awareness of your environment and a
recognition of changes whether they're
good or bad and that may be universal
and that may be a property of life. Um,
you can make a case that uh plants have
sensience, that single-sellled creatures
have sensience, and it may be something
you need to survive in an environment
that's constantly changing that you
can't program instinctually everything
you need to know. So that this would be
very useful. And consciousness is how we
do sensience. You know, we've added on
all these things. And every creature has
its own version of sensience based on
their body type, their sensorium, their
the scale of uh at which they live in in
time and space cuz it's kind of to to to
take our our our version of
consciousness and make that the standard
for everybody seems kind of crazy. This
thing about being able to respond to the
environment being some key component of
consciousness. Um, a plant can respond
to the environment. A barnacle
>> can respond to the environment.
>> Bacteria can.
>> Bacteria can. They can light sense. It's
they actually know the difference
between morning and evening.
>> And they have chemotaxis. They know
between the difference between something
that's good to eat and something that's
toxic.
>> Do you think they know they know? This
is the piece that I feel like the the
responding and the awareness that one is
responding is maybe where in my mind I
want to draw the line for some reason.
like a plant will you know you know
furlur and unfurl uh when in the
presence of light but does it know it's
responding and why I mean I suppose we
all the time respond to things and don't
know why but usually like I if I take a
sip of this tea and and it's too hot um
I have some sense of what I'm going to
do next and why I feel like the the
other stuff is just reflexive. Yeah,
it's reflexive, but it I I don't think
it's it's uh always programmed. I think
that there are novel situations that
even a plant confronts where they have
to have an intelligent response that
isn't necessarily um something
programmed in their genes. I mean, I I
took a deep dive into this field of
plant intelligence, which is
fascinating. I mean, the things we're
learning that plants can do that you
would not have guessed. I mean, you can
take a corn plant and [snorts]
uh it can navigate a maze. You can give
it a maze and and put some uh
fertilizer, some ammonium nitrate in one
like corner of it and the roots will
find the fastest uh path to that
ammonium nitrate. That's not a situation
it really experiences in nature. It has
to um that takes a certain kind of
intelligence, problem solving ability.
If you play the sound of caterpillars
chomping on leaves for a plant, they
will react to the sound uh and send uh
either toxins or bad tasting chemicals
to that leaf to defend themselves. They
can respond to the sound of water and
they will and they're if they if they
feel if they hear water running through
a pipe, they will go down. They have
like 20 senses. We have five or six.
>> They can sense gravity, which we can't
do. They they can sense pH. They can
sense um uh whether nutrient levels are
on a positive gradient or negative
gradient. I mean, it's remarkable. One
of the to me most curious things about
plants is that they respond to the same
anesthetics we do. Now, you might think,
what does it mean to put a plant out? Um
aren't they already out? But actually,
they're just slow. They have behaviors.
They're just very slow. So you take a
you take a plant with a really fast
behavior like a Venus fly trap and you
put it in a bell jar and you put some
anesthetic gas in xenon gas or or any
number of uh you know anything you can
put in gas form and they will not
respond to uh an insect crossing their
threshold where normally they would
clamp down. So that raises a really
interesting question. What exactly are
they losing when they are under? We
would say consciousness, but that's a
long way to go. I mean, I don't use the
word consciousness for plants, although
I met scientists who do, but I would say
that's sensience that that that that
there's a loss of sensience that's
happening when when they uh are
anesthetized. But as you know,
anesthetics are really weird. We don't
even know how they work on us, right? I
mean, xenon gas is inert gas and it puts
you out. How does that work?
>> This scare anyone going in for surgery.
The anesthesia anesthesiologists have
gotten much better. Yes, they know what
they're doing.
>> They know what they're doing.
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Can we go at self versus other as maybe
one potential window into this? I I
don't want to make any assumptions, but
when I think about the consciousness
problem, I I think most people know that
they are them and they know what's not
them. And uh maybe a decent analogy is
when nerve cells grow, they know the
difference between them and other cells.
So at the cellular level, you know, this
is already set up. And in fact, I love
your example of the the root growing
towards the fertilizer because you can
give a nerve cell a simple rule, all
nerve cells a simple rule, which is
essentially grow out as far as you can
and connect with as many other nerve
cells as you possibly can
and know the difference between you and
other. And if you do that
>> even within the same species.
>> Yeah. So, you know, and there are some
exceptions to this, but it turns out to
be it's not straightforward to build a
brain, but you don't need a ton of
signals. You need signals that say grow
here and you need signals that say you
may not grow here.
>> What we call cheotractants and chem
repellants. And then if you think about
that the the dendrites and axons that
the branches of the neurons they often
have these beautiful architectures.
Those are set up by a simple rule of
self- avoidance. Mhm.
>> You they the branches know that they are
that they're in the same of the same
neuron and they just keep growing and
they keep branching every time they get
too close to one of their own and then
you end up with these beautiful
architectures depending on what other
cells are doing that around you. That's
how you get the all these different cell
types and there's other features to it
too.
>> And I was shocked and excited to learn
that that's kind of how tree roots do it
too.
>> Yes, I was going to say.
>> So simple rules can build immense
complexity. That that's that's the the
point. And the self recognizing self
versus other and then a simple rule of
get as much stuff as you can. It sounds
very selfish, right? Sets up a great
system actually because then everyone's
doing that and you end up with
essentially a tiled system.
>> No tree, no neuron gets too much space,
>> right?
>> And while this is all very cellular and
we're literally talking about the
branches of cells, it's not, you know,
thinking. I feel like when you get up to
the whole organism, I know the
difference between me and you, me and
the microphone.
>> These plants seem to know the difference
between them and the fertilizer.
>> So, this lack of confusion about what's
me and what's not me seems to be like
the most important rule that perhaps
builds up to the consciousness thing.
It's just perhaps
>> it's really an important rule and you
see it in plant roots too because if you
put uh two plants that are related to
one another have some genetic connection
but are separate plants they will share
soil
>> and grow together and but if they're not
related even if they're the same species
they will compete. ditto, you know, the
plant that um when plants are shaded by
another plant, they grow fast to get
above it. But if they're shaded by
themselves closer to your example, they
don't they know like, well, that's we're
getting we're getting the light over
there, so I don't have to go there. But
yeah, I think the self and other is is
is a key rule and and I I completely
agree that you can take a set of very
simple rules and build a very complex
creature from it. how that gets you to
consciousness. I mean self and others an
important part of consciousness although
and I talk about the self as kind of the
most elaborate or advanced manifestation
of consciousness. It turns out you can
have consciousness without a self and
that's um uh you know I mean meditators
know this um psychedelics give you and
it can give you an experience of
consciousness without a self. I think we
have it every morning when we wake up.
There's that 500 milliseconds, you know,
when you're reconstituting like who am
I? Where am I? Oh, you know, here I am.
>> And it's 750 milliseconds if you're in a
hotel room as I realized this morning.
>> Yes,
>> that's kind of weird that you can have
that there is a there is a consciousness
that is uh not organized around a self.
And um uh you know, Buddhists have known
this for a long time, but it's it's it's
a strange idea. Going back to the the
plants and their intelligence, you know,
I've spent a little bit of time with
people in the plant medicine community.
Not a lot. I'm not a you like a heavy
psychonaut or anything, but
>> there does seem to be this understanding
there. And I I don't think it's just
conjecture. I think it's a real
understanding of people who spend time
in the jungle, who spend time with plant
medicines. Even pharmacists in this
country will tell you that most drugs
were bioprocted from the jungle. big
pharma are isolated compounds
synthesized, you know, um, as you know,
uh, from jungle plants and other plants.
So, there's this notion that the plants
actually can sense us and that they're
communicating with us. I know this
sounds really wacky, but we can
certainly see them. We can smell them.
They can have, you know, odor effects on
us. Uh, some are poisonous, some are
delicious and and wonderful for for us.
They're nourishing. What do you think
about this sort of cross species
communication? Do you think it's a a
real thing having spent some time you
spent a lot of time on about
>> writing about plants in a garden? Like
my mom gardens and she is convinced and
she's a very rational person. She is
convinced that talking to the plants
while she plants them has a real effect
on the relationship between her and
these plants. I mean, she's not thinking
that they can hear and understand the
language, but that there's some sort of
energetic transfer there. And I don't
think she's alone. People who garden
have a relationship to the plants, and I
certainly feel this way about my dog, to
some extent, my fish, although to a
lesser extent. So,
>> I don't think it's entirely crazy.
>> I don't think it's crazy. I think that
um
I haven't had that experience myself. I
I did have an experience and this was
talk about plant medicine on on
psilocybin that I described in my book
of um feeling that the plants in my
garden were conscious and um aware and
returning my gaze and they were very
benevolent and I took good care of them.
That's good. Otherwise, it could get
scary.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> And I didn't know what to do with that.
I mean there's a whole question with
insights you have on psychedelics like
do they have any value and how do you
judge their value and in my case I
thought back to William James who had
written in in varieties of mystical
experience uh that you can't really
judge the veracity of a of a big insight
on a mystical experience because we
don't know enough but there are two ways
to think about it. Is it a useful thing?
Is it pragmatic to believe that? And
that's one argument in favor. And the
other is treat it as a hypothesis and
see if you can find other ways of
knowing scientific or or otherwise that
could uh support that idea. And that's
what got me into plant um you know
learning about plant intelligence and
plant sensience. We are in relationship
with plants domesticated plants in
particular. I think they manipulate us
in various ways. But it's it's not at
the level of the individual plant. and
it's at the level of the this the
evolution of the species. So um you know
corn came to dominate the landscape in
much of the world because it figured out
what we wanted from it. And when I say
figured out I mean purely by trial and
error. Cannabis too. Cannabis was you
know this plant you know located in
western China I guess and now it's
everywhere. And the reason it did is it
learned that we respond if it produced
this chemical called THC,
it was going to get carried around the
world and reproduced. And so I I I think
we're in this symbiotic relationship
with plants and that they they do
manipulate us. They're um geniuses at
biochemistry as you suggest, you know,
and that's a function of the fact that
they can't get up and run away, right?
They're rooted. They're cesile as it's
called. And so instead of consciousness
like we have and mo and uh the ability
to move around, they they develop
chemicals, this incredible suite of
chemicals. And they hit on some
chemicals that happen to change our
consciousness. And this has been one of
the most successful um strategies. Uh
coffee and tea are are great examples.
They didn't originally make these
chemicals for us. They're probably
defense chemicals, but what's
interesting about the defense chemicals
that they produce is that they're not
they don't kill anything. I mean,
caffeine might kill insects, some
insects. But somewhere along the line,
they learned that it was better to just
kind of with your mind than kill
you outright. Because if they killed you
outright, you would very quickly develop
resistance, right? You'd select for
resistant members of the species.
>> [snorts]
>> The way I learned this, it was courtesy
of my cat, Frank. Frank had a real
catnip problem. And uh every night,
Frank, uh I would go down to my garden
to, you know, harvest some lettuce or
something like that. And I had a catnip
plant. And this is in a fenced garden.
And Frank would follow me and look at
me. And he needed to be reminded where
the catnip was. It's like, you know, why
don't you know where it is? because he
would get so wrecked on catnip that he
would he would forget. And like that's a
brilliant strategy on the part on the
part of the um the plant to get your
predator to forget where you are.
>> Amazing.
>> And the other thing they do, of course,
many plant chemicals, psychoactive
chemicals diminish your appetite.
Another brilliant strategy. So I have
enormous respect for what they do and
what they do to us and I really see them
as active players in this drama. I wrote
a book called Botney of Desire which
really looked at how plants have
mastered our desires as their as their
evolutionary strategy. Desires for
beauty in the case of flowers um desires
for to change consciousness. Uh desires
for food. So I have ultimate respect for
their ingenuity. When you say they've um
that plants have figured out, do you
mean that that sticking with the you
know the rule of evolution, you just
want to make as much of you yourself as
you possibly can?
>> Yeah.
>> In species that nurture young, nurture
young, protect young, proliferate, die,
repeat, right? I mean that's it's like a
harsh way of thinking about it, but
that's those are essentially the simple
rules of evolution. try not to die. Try
to at least live long enough to
proliferate and make sure that the young
make it to
>> and in retrospect it looks like you
figured something out. But in fact,
you're just trying things and certain
things work and the plants that you know
had the most caffeine say um
proliferated in a way the ones that had
the least caffeine did not. Mhm. I mean,
I think about dogs a lot cuz I love
them. And I'm told that dogs descended
from wolves that figured out that if
they were kind enough and they were
patient enough, they might get scraps of
food and [clears throat] eventually that
led to the domestication and the
expansion of all these different breeds
of dogs. I mean, I think that's
essentially the story. So, and they're
not getting together and having a
little, you know, backroom conversation
like we've almost got them. But, but
they so and that's certainly been
advantageous for the domestic dog. Um,
they're very well treated, better than
some humans, in fact.
>> Yeah. And there are only 50,000 wolves
left in this country. And how many dogs
are there? It was a good strategy,
>> right? Yeah. And and I feel like more
people have dogs now than when I was
growing up.
>> Well, co led to a lot of people getting
dogs.
>> Yeah. So it's it's most people don't get
dogs to to do work. They get dogs to be
family members. And so they're really
they're really figuring stuff out. They
[clears throat] got us.
>> They got us. Um but this figuring stuff
out thing is is as it relates to
consciousness is um maybe it brings us
back to the definitions. So does that
mean that you don't have to have
self-awareness that you're doing it?
Plants probably don't realize they're
doing this. They're just following a
rule that's scripted into their genome.
>> Um try and get resources, feel good, not
pain in the moment. and proliferate take
care of young and so forth. Yeah. So do
you think that this consciousness like
of plants or of dogs or of humans can
emerge through the simple flipping of
switches that are hardwired into us or
do they have any say in this? Like do
they realize um that they're doing
better for the next generation? Because
plants don't get to see what happens to
their seeds. And in most cases, dogs
don't really know what happens to their
puppies once they're, you know, um,
adopted out.
>> Yeah.
>> Humans are unique in this way.
>> Oh, I think we are. I mean, I think we
have a uh an awareness, a
self-awareness, um, and a sense of, uh,
you know, we can time travel. You know,
your dog probably can time travel a few
minutes or maybe a half hour if it's
really hungry, you know. Um, but we have
the ability to to imagine the future.
Uh, even a future we're not in. Um,
that's one of the things that's special
about our consciousness. I mean, you
know, well that our brains are doing a
lot more than we're aware of, right? I
mean, 24/7 they're monitoring our body,
you know, reading these interosceptive
signals and making adjustments and
taking in things from the environment
without our awareness. Um, so the
question is why does anything have to
rise to the level of awareness? Why why
wasn't it all automated? I think that's
one of the mysteries. The best
explanation I heard of why that should
be, and this is sort of an evolutionary
just so story, but it's a pretty
persuasive one, is because we are uh
fundamentally social beings that live in
a very and and and being in a human
society is incredibly complex
environment in which you can't program
every move you have to make. There is a
great evolutionary utility in being able
to read the mind of another person and
anticipate what they're going to do or
say to predict. And um this is something
that um you need theory of mind for or
or imagination at the very least. And
that strikes me as a pretty good
explanation of why you would have gone
beyond automatic response to something
much more uh deliberate and aware and I
don't think plants have that. But I do
think that evolution um I really agree.
Michael Leaven is a biologist at TUS uh
who who works with you know creates
little creatures you know organoids and
um what he calls and he's shown that
there are behaviors that are not
dictated by the genes that um that what
evolution creates is cognitive beings
that are very good at solving novel
problems. I mean a lot of his project is
actually deemphasizing genes and showing
that that uh and deemphasizing neurons
too. You know he he also shows that that
[laughter]
>> I accept all of biology. It just so
happens I'm only trained to understand
the the brain stuff.
>> Well he's you know he's shown that um
memory resides in not necessarily in in
neurons there other other way. Yeah.
>> Yeah. The immune system is a good
example. He looks at bioelectric fields
and that these can hold memories uh in
in groups of cells and that these
xenobots that he creates
uh from and he he he does this with um
taking uh skin cells from tadpoles and
he puts it in a solution and they clump
together and they form a new organism.
It only lasts about a week or two. And
that organism repurposes their psyia so
they can have a means of locomotion and
they can be conditioned and navigate
mazes. There's nothing in their genes
that's in encoding those instructions.
Anyway, it's it's taken them to a very
odd place in biology. You know, we used
to hear a lot about the word instinct.
It's funny, you don't hear about it
nearly as much anymore.
>> Yeah, you're right. And I think that
there are things going on that are are
um products of just an intelligent a
being with enough tools and and
cognitive ability to navigate an
unfamiliar world. That's what it takes
to survive in in evolution. When Caesar
Milan, the dog whisperer, came on this
podcast, he uh he said because he came
from a very uh poor uh rural background,
but he said, you know, people who grow
up in that environment um have
incredible instincts about what is safe,
what's not safe. You know, he saw a lot
of death from a young age.
>> Uh people died every day. Um and you
know, stakes were very high. Um and
resources were low. And he said, you
know, that you see a completely
different side of humans. And it's not
all bad. I mean that's the bad stuff
that drives the emergence. Also some
really beautiful stuff like you said you
kids grow up learning where safe harbor
is in in people and they they can really
sense people and animals very well in a
way that in um more affluent societies
we we have all these buffers you know um
and and it struck me as like okay that's
super interesting because I feel like
>> as a neuroscientist I think of okay
there are parts of the brain that are
purely autonomic taking care of heart
rate there's stuff that switches like if
we activate it people go into a age. No
one likes to think about this, but yes,
for them to this would happen. But then
there's all the other stuff that's make,
you know, where we can control our
impulses and um think about past,
present, and future and build
technologies and it's a quotequote
evolved stuff. It's just, you know,
higher order what whatever the language
never quite works, you know, um always
makes it sound hierarchical cuz I would
die in the environment that uh Cesar was
describing, right? Um so higher order
isn't fair. But in any case, I feel like
this damn prefrontal cortex expansion
that happened in humans. Here's here's
where I get really I lose a lot of sleep
over this. And you're [clears throat]
the perfect person to ask this. I've
asked a few guests,
>> but um I have this big problem lately,
which is I think that
>> I know that humans got a lot more
prefrontal cortex real estate, the area
that lets us strategy set, understand
context, integrate, imagine. Great. But
I worry that it's that we have enough of
it that we perhaps have tricked
ourselves into over um investing in our
own importance and our and actually the
whole
meaning and of being here and and here's
where it gets to the microbiome. I'll
try and make this very quick. Justin
Sonnenberg, my colleague who you know at
Stanford working on the microbiome
scared
>> I want to say the out of me but
then pun no pun intended
>> when he said you know these microbiota
that live in all of us and create these
critical chemicals for brain health and
it can impact our behavior whether or
not we feel sick or more energetic more
outgoing I mean there's this incredible
array of ways they influence us
>> he said when we shake hands like we did
today the second time in our lives or
when we um you know if we kiss our
romantic partner or if we um you know
exchange a bill or a credit card swipe
or something at with microbiome is
proliferating and moving and I get
really worked up lately in my own head
about the possibility that all this
stuff like trying to go to Mars um
trying to uh navigate the political
barbed wire that is the United States
and the world right now wars all of it I
worry that all of it is just the damn
and microbiota trying us to trying to
get us to interact with as many other
people as possible and they aren't
sitting there chuckling um cackling
thinking about how we are losing out uh
and suffering or feeling great while we
do this but I just worry that perhaps
Sonnenberg's theory is right which is
we're literally just vehicles and that
>> keeps me up at night I confess it does
>> really
>> but it also keeps me up at night because
I can only have that thought, that
concern because of this excessive
prefrontal cortex real estate.
Otherwise, I would just be busy trying
to get my food and nourishment
proliferate and so on. So, that's two.
So, it sort of bookends the two sort of
levels of quote unquote sophistication
like higher order brain function in
humans, building technologies,
creativity, symphonies, spaceships,
poetry, and on and on. We think it's so
important and it is,
>> but whatever we're diluting ourselves,
it's all just about
>> getting the these microbiota getting us
to get them where they want to go.
>> You know, they've been around a lot
longer than we have, right? I mean, we
evolved in a world dominated by bacteria
and other microbes. And um so from their
perspective, I think it's a perspectival
question, but from their perspective,
this animal comes along that offers
certain advantages like can go all over
the world um and maybe to outer space if
they want to go there. I don't think
they'll do very well there. But so
there's a sense in which it's true, but
it's also true that we're calling the
shots in some ways from our perspective.
But it but we should realize I mean
that's the subtitle of botney desire was
a plant's eye view of the world and
there is a perspective and it's just as
legitimate um in which we are dupes
[laughter] of these bacteria and that
yes they want us to shake hands. They
want us to do all sorts of things
because that this extends their their
range and they want us to be sociable
too. you know, if we were all, you know,
kind of shy and introverted, it would
not serve their purposes. And they are
influencing our moods. So, it is kind of
creepy in a way, but it's also kind of
beautiful that, you know, we don't, you
know, that that life is using us and and
um uh that we are a collective being
too. I mean we are we are a super
organism you know and we have we have
you know more genes more bacterial genes
in our body than we have human genes and
we need those genes that's the other
thing I mean the other story about it is
you could also argue that we are
manipulating them in that we have
outsourced the and Justin's done really
good work on this u we have outsourced
the making of all sorts of metabolites
bacterial metabolites, chemicals we
need. Um, glutamate, GABA, serotonin,
um, I mean, they're making and and then
all these short- chain fatty acids that
are a fuel for our brain, but also are
um, calming our moods, you know,
reducing our anxiety.
So, instead of learning how to make
those chemicals ourselves, we kind of
ingeniously figured out that we could
host these bacteria and they would make
them for us. So, we're manipulating them
at the same time they're manipulating
us. I think it's a two-way street.
>> Okay, that's a fair touch.
>> Hope that helps you sleep.
>> Yeah. Well, yes. I maybe if we don't
make it to Mars, it will be because it
will be because
>> they don't want to go.
>> They get they get up there and they make
people very sick and they die and they
and it So, in that sense, um maybe it
better or worse for everyone. Who knows?
I I don't have any theories about how
this should all go.
>> See, space food is very bad for
bacteria, right? It's it's incredibly
sanitary. It's it talk about
ultrarocessed food. This, you know, the
kind of stuff they bring on on
intergalactic travel is going to be
really bad for the bacteria.
>> Yeah. So, if we don't make it, it's
bacteria know that they don't want to
make it there. Not good for them.
>> They know it's they know Mars is a
shitty habitat.
>> Exactly. I'm only half kidding about
this one and I'm going to try and steer
off it so that I don't, you know, spiral
into the the concern about it because
it's not really a concern. I think that
it gets to another layer perhaps of this
consciousness question which is about
meaning. You know, part of the function
of the prefrontal cortex is that we can
assign meaning to things,
>> right? Like we both like Wendelberry,
>> you know him better than I do, but we
both have feelings associated with
memories. I I can go as deep into this
as as I'll allow myself to. Like I like
the feeling of the paper like is
different for a Wendel Berry poem only
because that was my experience. So I can
place all this meaning on top of things
and that's related to memory and so on.
And
>> we don't know that other species do
that, right? Um I like to think dogs and
cats and apes do that.
>> Elephants perhaps.
>> Yeah. Um we know self versus other.
Yeah, I mean I I try and break it down
to that because I saw this um one of
these beautiful nature documentaries
where they were essentially talking
about these male lions fighting and you
know their hypothalamus looks a lot like
ours and we know the structure
ventromedial hypothalamus a subset of
neurons there if you know mice have
them, we have them, they have them and
these two male lions are basically
trying to kill each other. But then
there's another scene where one is
getting attacked by hyenas and all of a
sudden a different switch gets flipped
where the lion who was just arguably
should let the other one die understands
this us them thing and goes and
essentially fights them off and and it's
very dramatic and the hyenas are the
hyenas are trying to castrate the lions.
It's like a It's as brutal as nature
gets in that moment, but also as
beautiful as it gets because it
illustrates that two members of the same
species that are trying to kill each
other when one is under threat, all of a
sudden the contingency changes. Yeah.
>> So they have enough prefrontal cortex to
take the same circuitry. It's still
aggression and now directed in a new
>> but they redefine the us, right? The the
eye is now plural.
>> Yeah. So it's dynamic. And the reason
I'm asking this, I'd love your thoughts
on this,
>> but I'm seing a question about
collective consciousness. And and so
this us thing within and across species
to me feels like a a critical gate for
for getting closer to understanding what
is consciousness, at least for me. Maybe
I'm too simplistic about it. I mean, I
guess I'd attack it from another
direction, which is, you know, you've
been talking about the cortex and yeah,
the cortex is very cool and we have a
lot of that real estate and that's sort
of what sets us apart and for a long
time it was believed that consciousness
surely as this advanced human
achievement because remember we didn't
think anybody else was conscious for
hundreds of years, right? Since Decart,
we had a monopoly on consciousness. It's
only I think in 1970 the first
experiment mirror test uh on a on a
chimp and we started thinking oh these
primates are conscious also. I mean we
that's a fairly recent that's 50 years
ago 55 years ago.
>> It was assumed that consciousness was a
cortical phenomenon.
There is another line of research though
that I've been that I was persuaded by
um starting with Antonio Damasio in the
'9s and going through Mark SS more
recently uh he's a South African
psychiatrist and neuroscientist
who's a kind of protege of Damasios uh
suggesting that actually consciousness
doesn't begin with thought in the cortex
but with feeling in the brain stem or
feelings registered in the brain stem
and the reason we have consciousness
according to this theory is um because
there are these homeostatic set points
and and that the well back up a little
the brain exists to keep the body alive.
We forget that we often think the body
you because we love the brain. You know,
we're cerebrocentric in so many ways and
the body has to communicate with the the
brain and it does it through feelings
like hunger and warmth or cold and itch
and and all these kind of what they call
homeostatic feelings that register in
the upper brain stem and the cortex only
gets involved afterward. So you register
this sensation of hunger and then the
cortex helps you visualize a meal or
where you might get food or how you
might get or how to book a table in a
restaurant whatever it is that changes
things in in many ways. If indeed this
is true and feelings
have to be felt, right? I mean, a
feeling implies consciousness. It
doesn't solve the hard problem or
anything. I think feelings have a
different status than thoughts do. I
think they're sematic. I think that
they're reinforced by just having a
body. And if that's true, then first of
all, lots more animals are conscious,
right? I mean, everybody's got a brain
stem. Not everybody, but a whole lot of
species have brain stems, whereas cortex
is kind of more exclusive club
>> and um uh I found that a very uh
persuasive way to think about
consciousness and that it starts with uh
feelings in the body and a lot of what
the brain is doing is interpreting those
feelings because they're inco. They're
just signals, right? William James wrote
about this. He said, you know, first
there's the the spike in heart rate and
then there's and then the brain says
fear
>> and so there's this communication going
and and the cortex might get involved in
that process. But pain, for example, is
a conscious phenomenon that doesn't
require a cortex. Their evidence for
this is people who have no cortex,
right? U some children are born without
one. They've decorticated animals and
they find they still have even though
they can't report emotion they have
evidence of, you know, based on
expressions and behaviors that they're
that they're having conscious
experience. So for me that changed the
whole way of thinking about it. You
know, this remains to be proven in
various ways and it doesn't solve this
issue of okay, well, how does a feeling
come to be felt and who's feeling it?
What's the is there a self that's
feeling it? And I find Damasio not
satisfying on that question. He he'll he
he'll say well um and in his new book he
says this that feelings are
spontaneously conscious and that's
that's an an it's not really a
satisfactory answer.
>> It's hard to wrap my head around that
answer.
>> Spontaneous is doing a lot of work
there.
>> Yeah. Yeah. No discredit to him. He's
done amazing work. Yeah. No, no, I'm not
saying you are, but just I think
>> he's directed the whole field to the
importance of feelings and and that's
produced really important work and and
emotion science and and things like
that. Yeah. You know, he's a real
pioneer.
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I feel like the one of the challenges of
being human is that people experience
the world differently enough. It seems
uh right at the level of emotions. Let's
just use that as an example. Some people
I've actually seen this in comments on
Instagram, so it has to be true, right?
Um, no, but somebody once said [snorts]
in in a comments and it really stuck
with me, you know, that they think in
feels. And I thought, this sounds like a
bunch of woo stuff. But I thought maybe
some people really do experience things
more sematically. Okay, check that box.
I totally accept that.
>> And maybe the language labels of emotion
for one person are more crude than for
another. Lisa Feldman Barrett verified
that in cultures where there are many
many different
>> words for types of sadness. I think that
she told me that the that in Japan
there's a specific word for the type of
sadness that you experience when you got
a bad haircut. [laughter]
>> I love it.
>> Amazing. Which also helps people avoid
global statements like I'm feeling
depressed when in fact they're feeling
low. And when they say they're depressed
in certain cultures it really means they
are depressed. So nuance is is very
important but that's coming top down
through language
>> and that's how culture interacts with
biology right I mean you know there
different ways to interpret the same
sensations. I think we learn this with
uh you know when you have kids when
they're when they melt down
they don't know if they're hungry or
tired and the parent has to teach them
you know you you need to eat.
Yeah. And we see this with kids. They're
getting the signals, but they don't have
the mental equipment, the cortical
equipment to interpret what's going on.
>> And so then the question is, are the
signals from the body crude or refined?
I'm I'm not denying their importance.
They're critically important. But we
can't really look to the nerve networks
and say, okay, the brain is
sophisticated and the and the neural
intervation to and from the body is um
not sophisticated. I mean, it's as
precise and as the other. So the problem
seems to be that we don't have language
for it. So like if I'm feeling
wholeheartedly
full of joy, that's an easy one. If I'm
feeling happy, I mean I can I can change
my language, my expression, etc. But
where I would I think neuroscience
really needs some help and I think
you're helping the the conversation
which will inform experiments is how is
it that the body is communicating with
the brain in ways that get us away from
language labels because language labels
are we created those.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. This is very important. I think
like we made that up. Grunts um you know
uh exhales around putrid smells and
inhales around pleasant smells. That's
that's the those are the core components
of of language. I mean words are just
shaped exhales after all, right? Which
is amazing. Uh by the way, I didn't come
up with that statement. Uh Eddie Chang,
chair of neurosurgery at UCSF,
>> who studies speech and language is my
childhood friend. He said, you know, he
said it like like Eddie, you know, he's
very calm, you know, he's a
neurosurgeon. He said, you know, all
speech is just shaped exhales. And I was
like, oh my goodness, amazing. When you
just think it's so wild, but then we
come up with many shaped
>> what we what we've done with it.
>> I know. It's incredible. It's
incredible. And yet we don't know the
language of the body.
>> Movement. Yes. But so this is where I
feel like the consciousness problem is
perhaps a little stuck.
>> Yeah, I think you're right.
>> Like and pain is one example. Pleasure
is another. But at the extremes it's
easy. But in day-to-day
experience outside of those extremes,
it's it's very hard to like what's going
on right now. I don't know. I mean, my
body isn't in pain, but it's I'm not in
rapture either.
>> But your you know, your vag nerve, which
connects the visceral organs to your to
your brain, is um sending this stream of
information. I think 80% of the traffic
is going from body to brain, not the
other way around.
>> Point the neuroscientist. I teach neuro
anatomy. You're you're right. It's 80.
So incredible. Yeah, the descending
projection is about 15 20. Nobody knows
for sure. So you're bang on. So and most
people when they talk about the
neuroscience, they get some things
right. You're bang on. So I just want to
be clear to you like you're exact on
every neuroscience point you've made.
You're exactly right.
>> Thank you. That means a lot coming from
you. Um so what do those signals look
like? I mean how raw are they? I mean um
and uh you know
stress hormones released you know
through inflammation you know change
mood get get to the brain right um I
forget which ones they are and then
suddenly make us feel threatened the
path I think it's really complicated I
you know I think there's some very
precise information reaching the brain
but I also think
>> it needs a brain to interpret it
>> c can we talk about the time scale of
all this because so it's pretty
straightforward to think about us them
um
body versus mind and I'm wondering
whether the body is communicating with
the brain at a time scale that we that
doesn't match to language for instance
maybe how I feel right now and how you
feel right now actually reflects the
integration of everything that happened
over the last 10 hours for you and So
how how your brain is operating right
now reflects that. Like when we when I
think of brain um body communication, I
immediately want to default to like the
now. What's my body feeling now? How
does it impact my brain? But maybe the
signals
>> are of long time scales. Maybe they
integrate across my spleen, my stomach,
and my heart
>> and then my, you know, my liver and my
pancreas are sending another message.
Like we don't know any of this.
>> No, I know. And I it excites me as you
you can probably tell because
I feel like there in lie the answers to
like being able to parse this experience
of life consciousness thing.
>> I'm really struck by the fact that you
know we we we locate our seed of feeling
and emotion in our heads most of us most
of the time. But if you go back in
history, they talked as much about the
spleen and they the liver and the heart
and that emotions they they understood
something about emotions was coming from
the body. My favorite example is uh an
experiment was was done on moral
judgment and disgust moral disgust. They
had two groups of people. One they gave
they each were given a pill, one got a
placebo, one got ginger, powdered
ginger. They then uh exposed people to
um really morally repellent scenarios in
writing about incest and and um uh just
really disgusting um uh scenarios,
eating one's dog, things like that.
>> And um the people who had taken the
ginger were less judgmental
because their stomachs were calmed.
Ginger calms the stomach. And so the
emotion of moral disgust is somehow we
are passing it through. We're doing a
gut check on it. We're passing it
through our digestive organs somehow.
And that you can manipulate with
something as simple as ginger, people's
moral judgment. So that that says to me
this whole system is a lot more
integrated than I think we even realize.
And that the more I learn about this,
the the whole idea of separating mind
and body, you know, brain and body is is
taking us down the wrong way. That that
these things are inextricably bound up
in ways that are just too complex for us
to get. I mean, that's an obvious, you
know, that's a pretty obvious case
because disgust is both a moral and a
physical um sensation or feeling, but I
bet it applies to other things as well.
It's a disgusting but uh yeah, pun
intended but um elegant example of how
this can work.
>> Well, it's kind of brilliant as you know
someone thinking up an experiment. I was
like, "Oh, what a good idea."
>> Yeah, good experiment. I like
experiments that bridge this kind of
higher order like like moral disgust,
you know, is a cortical thing we assume.
Although
>> it clearly involves um you know, other
circuitries. It makes sense. Ginger
calms calms the gut. too. Um, and I know
if I have some minor pain like a like a
back strain or something, I'm much less
patient.
>> Yeah.
>> I, um, I look at the world differently.
Um, and I think we all become more, um,
self-centric
>> when we're in pain, when we feel good.
It's easier to allocate resources to
what's out there. Maybe that takes us a
little bit to psychedelics um, and
collective consciousness. You know, one
of the things that I'm um excited by uh
is that I'm old enough now to have heard
about the counterculture of the 60s,
>> grown up in its wake, um experienced
this health, wellness, public education
thing that I do, touched into science
and and living in California, you know,
I've spent some a little bit of time at
read read some books and getting to know
folks across these generations and a lot
of themes repeat themselves. And one of
the themes that I think we need to
overcome is the lack of adequate
language or dismissing language that can
act as a barrier rather than a conduit
for for understanding. So for instance,
the words collective consciousness
years ago were about like one love.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. And that didn't work um in terms
of convincing people to live in peace
with all other humans and animals
clearly. Sadly. So that doesn't mean
collective consciousness isn't worth
thinking about. But just like we say,
you know, breath work is too broad a
term and um any I don't like anything
that's so that lumps so much that you
lose critical um critical information.
So if I say collective consciousness, I
want to be clear. I'm not talking about
one love. Although that's a great goal.
Wicked peace on earth would be nice. I
don't I don't know that I'm going to see
it in my lifetime. I'm
>> getting frustrated. Probably not, but
I'll hold out hope.
>> We're going the wrong way.
>> It's it's it's tough. It's it's it's
tough. I I have to say it's um uh too
many repeating themes of the sort that I
wouldn't like to see um are are visible.
But
>> so, how do you define collective
consciousness?
>> Well, I've heard the term,
>> right? And when I think about it, I've
not been to Burning Man, but I think
about people who are trying to set aside
miism.
>> Yeah.
in day-to-day interactions so that
everybody wins. It's this notion of
everybody wins,
>> right?
>> And then I kind of try and pressure test
that a little bit and say, is there a
version of collective consciousness
everybody wins that's based on truth
>> that's not based on lies? I think that's
where it failed because people are
people and there are bad humans, there
are good humans, but it's a continuum
and people are fundamentally
self-interested until they're okay and
then they can take care of others. I
think that's true of essentially all
humans.
>> How can we get to a collective
consciousness embracing the idea that
I'm me, you're you, we could work
together, but we have to also
acknowledge the truth that you have
self-interest and I have self-interest.
And that's where I feel like if there's
if there's hope, it's about acknowledge.
Like we can't ourselves into
thinking one love. We can't all take LSD
and expect to get there. In fact, I
think that would make things worse.
Maybe, maybe better. Who knows? But it's
not going to solve the problem. So, I'm
throwing out a huge can of worms here,
but how do you think about this
collective consciousness thing? How
perhaps should it be redefined? Is it
about living in peace and harmony as a
species with other species? Is that what
it's really about? Um because I think
anyone that takes psychedelics or who
has a positive hope for humanity
or both wants that.
>> Yeah. So that's been the dream of
psychedelics for a long time. Um that
they would diminish the ego
um and uh contribute to sort of
pro-social feeling, a a sense of
connection. um we're more alike than
we're different. [snorts]
You know, it doesn't always work. Um we
have cases of ego dissolution and we
have cases of ego inflation
>> with with psychedelics.
>> With psychedelics, some people
>> Can you talk more about that? Yeah.
>> Yeah. So,
a very common uh phenomenon on on
highdose psychedelics is the sense of
losing a sense of self. Um I mentioned
earlier that you can be conscious
without a sense of self. And I've had
that experience. I describe it in in two
of my books um of highdose psilocybin.
I suddenly saw myself
um explode into this cloud of blue
post-it notes that then fluttered to the
ground and coalesed in this pool of blue
paint. Beautiful. It was. And it was
like that sounds scary. But in fact, it
was like yes, I'm blue paint. That's
what I am. And I was observing this
though from this new perspective that
wasn't me. It was completely objective,
total equinimity.
And when that happens and the ego is
laid aside, there's no walls. The ego is
a defensive structure. Um the self is a
defense, right? It's it's as we were
talking about us and them or me and me
and them. You merge with something
larger um because there's nothing to
stand in the way. And some people merge
with the divinity or the universe or or
love or other people. In my case, it was
a piece of music that the guide was
playing this Bach uh cello unaccompanied
cello suite. And I became this piece of
music and it was the most beautiful
experience of music I'd ever had. There
was no subject object distinction. I was
it. I wasn't listening to it. I was it.
This is something that pushes you toward
getting over ego consciousness which is
at the root of a lot of the you know
discord that we feel in the world.
Obviously it's not a permanent state
anyone can be in. But the the legacy of
that experience is I am less I feel I
have more perspective on my ego. I know
when he's up to his old tricks, you
know, when he's being too critical or
aggressive or too self-interested, and I
say, "Oh, that's my ego." And that's
just one voice, and there are other
voices I can listen to. And so, I think
there's a value in having an experience
of ego dissolution. Now, I hasten to say
there are other ways to get there. Um,
uh, meditators get there, too. Um, it's
more work, but you can get there through
meditation and transcend your sense of
ego. uh experiences of awe which you can
get from many different ways diminish
your sense of ego in a way that I think
is very pro-social. Um Derk Kelner who's
a colleague of mine at at Berkeley does
did this really he studies all he wrote
a wonderful book on awe he did this cool
experiment where he asked people to draw
a picture of themselves just a stick
figure on a piece of graph paper and
then he gave them an experience of awe.
He took them river rafting or something
like that and then he had them do it
again and they would they would draw a
picture of themselves at like a third of
the size um because their sense of self
had been diminished in a very positive
way. It felt very very good. We have
such complicated paradoxical feelings
about the ego and the self. We celebrate
it in our society. We want our kids to
have self um confidence and self
asssurance and um and we worship self.
But we also find that some of our
happiest experiences are when we escape
self, right? I mean it happens in sex.
It happens experiences of awe, religious
experience. It happens to people in
church and synagogue all the time. So
where are we on this? And that's why I
don't think it's so simple to say that
there's a collective consciousness. I
think we toggle back and forth of
getting trapped in self and and and of
course self is really important having a
sense of self. You wouldn't spend six
years writing a book if you didn't know
you were going to be the same person at
the end of the six years and it would
benefit you to have finished it. So we
need that sense of self to get things
done but it's also a trap and it
distances us from people and makes us
selfish and and uh so I I just don't
think it's simple. There's another idea
of collective consciousness of course
that consciousness is a field exists
outside us and we're we all take part in
it. I came out of this experience of
studying consciousness and looking at
all the theories of consciousness. I
don't want to give it away but we have
no idea about consciousness
really how it's how how brain matter
generates consciousness if indeed that's
how it happens. And there are people who
doubt that's how it happens. It could be
that the brain channels consciousness,
right? I mean, that if you conceive of
consciousness as like electromagnetic
waves,
>> um, brains are like radio receivers or
TV receivers. You wouldn't you wouldn't
look in the TV set for the woman who
gave you the weather report. You know,
she's not there. She's somewhere else.
>> So, I don't know that that's true. But
coming out of this experience of
studying this, I don't dismiss an idea
like that. I don't dismiss pansychism
too. The idea that the particles in this
table have some ity little bit of
consciousness that somehow gets combined
in conscious beings like us. You have to
keep an open mind because our
presumption that you know consciousness
is an emergent property of brain
complexity that idea is not it doesn't
have much traction. So, so anyway, so
maybe there is a field of consciousness
that we we tune into. How do we prove
it? You know, I mean, we were talking
earlier about Kristoff Ko, who's a
scientist we both greatly admire, and he
was a a real physicalist, a materialist
scientist who believed that it was all
about the brains and uh and he was head
of Allen Brain Institute for many years.
He had a experience on Iawaska that he
shared publicly. I'm not speaking out of
school where he was absolutely convinced
and remains convinced that um
consciousness exists outside of brains.
That's extraordinary for somebody of his
experience to have come to that
conclusion. And he and it's unshakable.
>> I haven't had that experience. I'm not
convinced of that the way he is, but um
but I respect people who hold that idea
now much more than I once did. I'm going
to summarize something you said to make
sure I I got it right, which is that you
had a psychedelic experience. Many
people who take psych psychedelics, not
all, but many have an ego dissolution
experience. It's um very tangible and
rich inside of the psychedelic journey.
There's an export to after the journey,
but it doesn't fundamentally change your
relationship to self at every moment in
your waking life. No,
>> I think that's important for people to
hear because I think a lot of people
think about people who take a lot of
psychedelics and sort of fundamentally
change. They can't go back to their
prior self. So it allows it's a portal
that you can go back into consciously.
It's an awareness. Do I have that right?
Okay.
>> Yeah, that's exactly right. I um uh I
just have a slightly different
understanding of my ego. It's not like
it's gone away.
>> It's [clears throat] there when I need
it.
>> And then the other piece about
consciousness inside versus outside, I
think maybe it will be helpful for
people. Certainly it is for me to think
about um brains and inside outside stuff
this way pit vipers can sense heat
emissions we can't honeybees can see UV
light we can't we experience all of life
through a pretty narrow set of filters I
think when people hear the
electromagnetic energies in the world it
sounds woo to some but it's anything but
it's simply just for clarity uh sake
certain wavelengths of light certain
sound waves that we can detect
mechanical touch chemical sensing combin
bind to our experience. We're
abstracting
our visual image of each other sitting
across this table. There's no
>> and it's limited by our senses.
>> That's right. I can only bring in what I
can bring in. A different animal or even
person would detect you differently. But
the the whole idea is that I'm I'm
putting all that together into an
abstraction of Michael Pollen sitting
here doing a podcast with me. So if in
one model consciousness is an
abstraction that's created within our
brains. We combine electromagnetic
energies whatever other faculties our
neurons can um contribute to those
meaning understanding combining with
with whatever gut whatever and we create
this consciousness experience. But
you're saying there's another model
where there's an energy out in outside
of us that somehow we're detecting that
is already a consciousness. And so it's
we're not we're not abstracting it in
our minds. It's literally entering
through presumably our senses.
>> Maybe there's an additional sense we're
not even aware of and we're experiencing
it, but it's literally out there. I
don't experience you as a bunch of
photons. I experience you as a human.
Right?
>> So I'm either putting it together inside
or it's put together outside and gets um
and gets recapitulated.
>> These are called filter theories of
consciousness and the implication of
them. uh Henri Bericson the French
philosopher was a exponent of this and
Aldis Huxley um uh believed this and
talked about it in doors of perception
that he had h had some access to this
field and and and for him it was
psychedelics. It was a masculine
experience that convinced him of this
and the idea was that there's more
consciousness out there than we can
handle
>> and that [clears throat] um there is a
filter or what what Huxley called a
reducing valve and it basically admits
the what he called the measly trickle of
consciousness we need to survive. God,
that's brilliant because if we took in
all the
>> we would be overwhelmed
>> all the wavelengths of light for
instance, we wouldn't be able to see I'd
be overwhelmed with whatever that would
look like or feel like. I I can't use
that.
>> No, our senses are limiting. Uh they're
not they're not as expansive as they
might be. And and your example, the bees
are right. There's all these spectrums
of light we can't see. It's also worth
remembering that it's it was only like
what 120 or 150 years ago that we
learned there was an electromagnetic
field that you know that you could
actually use to convey information and
it's invisible. I mean that's pretty
heady stuff right there. So their
thinking is well there might be another
field and didn't we just learn about
this other um body system? There's lymph
and blood and there's a third one. What
is it called?
>> There's like the sensitium thing. Yes,
>> it's like a thin sheet that runs through
the body that acupuncturists seem to
have known about for a very long time.
Um, acupuncture is getting tremendous
validation from the rigorous science
now.
>> Yeah, the acupuncturists are all like,
"Yeah, we were telling you about this."
>> Yeah, certain sites can increase or
decrease inflammation. Uh, Chufuma's lab
at Harvard Med is doing beautiful work
on this.
>> It's fascinating. So, so we shouldn't
limit ourselves. I mean it the idea
we've discovered all there is to
discover in terms of fields and
consciousness it may look very
different. So I was talking to Allison
Gobnik who's another colleague in
psychology at Berkeley and you know she
was saying well you know [snorts]
the hard problem we may decide that
consciousness is not one thing and maybe
that's our mistake and we did that with
the vital exp that was going to the one
thing that was going to explain life and
flowist I forget what that was going to
explain but energy or fire or something
like that. So we tend when we have a
mystery we tend to make it singular and
sometimes the answer is breaking it up
into parts
>> and so maybe there's ego self and that's
something and then maybe there's emotion
and maybe self-reflection is something
else entirely. I mean, I've thought
about this with regard to AI. As we get
these AIs, these chat bots that seem
more and more uh to have a sense of
self, say, you know, we call them agents
because they act on their own interest.
And so maybe it's possible to have an
ego without being conscious because I
don't think they're conscious. I don't
know. We may be taking apart this idea
at some point and maybe that'll help us
to understand it.
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>> It's a super intriguing idea. I I
sometimes wonder if AI will tell us what
consciousness is in a way that we aren't
able to solve. And some people might
say, well, that's just very, you know,
pro AI. But I mean, humans have been
putting their heads together around
these sets of problems for a long while.
I do think we're at a new vista now.
>> No, we're stuck. We're absolutely stuck.
And the effort to make a conscious AI,
which is underway. I mean there are
there are individuals and some companies
who are trying to make it conscious not
just intelligent and those are not the
same things. If they fail or succeed
they're going to teach us important
things about consciousness. For example,
if it truly is about feelings and that's
where consciousness originates feelings
depend on having a body, a vulnerable
body and possibly on our mortality.
Are computers going to have feelings? I
don't think so. And I think a computer
simulation of a feeling is very
different than a simulation of a thought
which is as good as a real thought. You
know, it can play chess or go or
whatever.
>> So if they succeed in making
conscious AI, it'll it'll discount the
feeling idea. I don't think they can. I,
you know, as long as we're dealing with
silicon computers, the idea that you
could have a conscious uh computer is
based on a faulty metaphor of the brain
as a computer. And I mean, you know,
enough neuroscience to to to see the
yes, it does some computations, but take
the distinction between hardware and
software that doesn't really exist in
brains. Well, that's a key thing about
computers.
>> And neurons are not just on or off.
They're not simply transistors. They're
affected by chemicals and oscillations.
There's a wonderful quote from Norbert
Weiner who said that the um the price of
metaphor is eternal vigilance.
And I think this metaphor of the brain
is computer is is we're not being
vigilant about that metaphor at all. I
don't think I think it falls apart if
you push on it. I also think computers
are clearly not brains even in the most
modern iterations of AI for the simple
reason at least one simple reason which
is our brains create memories in one or
two structures but then they export them
to a bunch of other areas and computers
have a memory center distributed memory
is you know doesn't exist in most
computers now
>> but also that memory makes a physical
change in the brain right I mean you're
And your brain's different than mine cuz
it was pruned very differently because
of life experiences.
So if you had a computer where the
hardware was being constantly changed,
it would be useless.
>> Yeah. There are these um issues in
neuroscience that never really get
resolved. One of the things that
perplexing to me, maybe you have some
insight on this, is there were two labs,
Suma Tonagawa's lab at MIT, he's got a
Nobel and Mark Mayfford's lab at
Scripps.
essentially ran the same experiment
where they used an animal model where
you could um the animals would learn
something and then you could capture
which neurons were activated during the
learning and were critical for the
expression of that behavior and you'd
say neuron A B C D they fired in a
certain order and it was those neurons
you could and then you could go back and
actually replay those neurons and you
found that if you played them in the
exact same sequence you got the same
behavior.
>> Here's the problem. you could play those
neurons backwards or all at once and get
the exact same behavior. So this throws
a serious wrench into our understanding
of the brain. The notion that you need
things firing in a particular sequence
was completely crapped on by those set
of experiments. I mentioned the Nobel
even though Susumu got it for
immunology. He's a very smart guy.
Mark's a very smart guy. So these papers
have stood the test of time. But it
would be like if I said, "Oh, you know,
this is the the the keys that you play
in a song and it sounds like the song or
then I bang on all of them and you still
get the song."
>> So our whole notion of the temporal
ordering of firing of neurons being
important for for memories is like it's
complete horseshit. It also turns out
that every one of those neurons is
participating in a bunch of other
memories and so some of them are that's
great because that's great allocation of
of resources and redundancy but we can't
we we just I don't want to say we don't
understand the brain there so much
beautiful work has been done over the
last you know 50 hundred years
incredible work but there is this
problem like we don't really understand
how the brain is encoding experiences
even at that level and that's a problem
>> yeah it's a huge problem well I don't
know a lot about this but it sounds to
me like a quantum effect that it's
happening simultaneously.
>> Tell me more about that.
>> This is not my area of expertise. So
anything you say will be new.
>> Me neither. Okay. This is total amateur.
I heard a talk by Mo Kaku the other day
and uh he was talking about quantum
computers and that they will um not work
in a linear way one way after another
after another. When they're solving a
problem they'll do it all at once. Sim
it's simultaneity. will be a hallmark of
that. There's a whole school of thought
that quantum physics may help explain
consciousness. I I honestly don't
understand it, but quantum mechanics
have given us some very uh bizarre
explanations of things such as
entanglement. Um you know that two
particles separated by light years can
nevertheless affect one another. And so
non-locality is and realism, they're
gone. And in biology, we just go along
as if they're still here because we
can't deal with it. Quantum effects have
been discounted in brains because they
seem to we we think they only work at
these tiny scales, but in fact they work
at all scales. We also have questions
about whether they work with a warm wet
in a warm wet environment like a brain.
You know, quantum computers have to be
chilled to like nearly abs absolute
zero. But I think that that is the next
in the next 50 years, I think we'll be
trying to figure out if what we know
about quantum reality may have something
to do with creating consciousness.
>> That's as far as I can go. You know
everything I know about it now.
>> Amazing. I I mean I think um the brain
is a receiver.
>> I've heard that before. Today it really
makes sense to me now that um based on
how you described it. Can I ask about
you? Uh, and can I get some advice from
you? And can our listeners perhaps get
some advice from you? Uh, you've written
10 books and I'm sensing a thread
through all of them about the natural
world, about us, how we how those relate
>> and coming to some better understanding
of self and relating to the world in a
more
>> benevolent way. That's that's my export,
but I'm I know there's much more to you.
But it dawned on me as we were sitting
down, I I think the world knows very
little about you. Maybe that's
intentional, but I just want to know
when you were younger, were you were you
sort of intrigued by or drawn to flora
and fauna? Were you sort of like
thinking about the humans in a certain
way? It it it just strikes me that you
have a very um it's going to sound uh
like a scientist said it, but a very
interdigitated way of thinking about us
them. like you understand the difference
between a human and a plant and a and an
animal, which is great, but you also
find these incredible points of
connectivity
that are really geared towards
self-standing and therefore helping the
relationship. So, can you trace that
back to like something in particular or
is that just your or is this just
downloaded into you? No, I so I started
gardening at a very young age uh
accidentally. I had an experience when I
was four or five. I grew up on Long
Island, suburban Long Island, and I
loved watermelon. And like everybody
thinking about the pits, you know, the
seeds when you swallow them or don't
swallow them. And and my mother would
always encourage me to spit them out.
And I did that. And I I took some
watermelon seeds and I just covered it
with dirt. I was like really young and
then forgot about it. And that must have
been May or June. And I came back in
September and lo and behold there was a
watermelon. It was like the size of a
football but to me it was huge. I was
just so blown away by this and it was it
was just a you know formative moment.
And I was so excited. I picked I picked
it and I was running and we had a
concrete patio behind our house and had
to show my mom this this uh thing that
I'd grown. I hadn't really done anything
and I tripped and fell and the
watermelon just completely splattered um
all over the patio. But I went on I
planted a garden when I was like eight
next to the house. I called it a farm.
Whenever I could grow three or four
strawberries, I'd put them in a Dixie
cup and sell them to my mom. So, it was
a going concern. So, gardening was a
really big part of it. And and you know,
that puts you in relation to nature, an
active relationship to nature. Most of
us have a very kind of observer um type
relationship. We admire it from a
distance on vacation, you know. Um, but
gardening thrusts you right in the
middle of it and you have to make
decisions. Uh, and
that your plants have interests. You
know, you're not the only interested
creature here. Your plants have
interests and to the extent you can
satisfy their interest, they're going to
give you what you're what you what you
want. So that, you know, eventually
years later, I wrote my first book was
about that. And um I realized what was
going on in the garden is no different
than what goes on on the farm. So it was
very easy to go from uh I started
writing these essays about what was
going on in my garden and using that as
a laboratory. Americans generally go to
the wilderness to think about nature or
the desert or the forest. And I actually
think the garden at this point is a a
more valuable laboratory because we've
saved all the land we're going to save.
You know, I think 8% of the American uh
landscape has been we've locked it up,
thrown away the key, which is great.
Although actually Trump's trying to open
the lock again,
>> trying to sell some of it.
>> Yeah. in Utah.
>> I will say just as a quick note if that
like this angers me so much. My friends
who are hunters
>> and like real outdoors people um were
very excited about the protection of
these lands and now have they're
essentially pissed at all forms of
government. Let's just put it that way.
Um because they were promised something
and it was taken away. And I the they're
now truly outside the box of any
political party. They will die before
they let go of this land.
>> Yeah.
>> And but it is really scary. It is truly
scary. Um some of our fishermen also and
you know
>> and so on and um we still need to to
extol the virtues of wilderness. It's
without question. And hunters have been
some of the great conservationists in
American history. I mean you know Teddy
Roosevelt you know really started the
modern conservation movement because he
was a hunter. But we need to know how to
behave in nature at this point right? I
mean in the 94 98% of the or 92% of the
landscape that um because America we've
tended to either you know there's either
virgin nature or raped nature right I
mean we have this this very strong
binary and um and once we've decided
that this is this side goes to
capitalism and the marketplace you know
we abuse it and we have abused it so so
learning how to how to behave in nature
I think is really important and that's
that's guided a lot of my work. You're
right in your take. Consciousness, you
know,
is part of that. It's like where do
where do our minds engage with matter
and and nature and and biology and and
and it's amazing we don't know yet.
>> You also strike me as somebody who you
think about these very high level
problems. I don't know when that came
about. Um but clearly you're observant
and you and you think a lot. But many
people who talk about psychedelics,
write about psychedelics and think about
collective consciousness and um and are
friendly with plants and plants like
them. They're not like feet on the
ground like so did do you have like
practical people in your lineage? Were
you were you taught like cuz gardening
also is has a practical aspect. You
can't just wish the plants to grow. You
can't just dance around them and play
them sound bowls. I'm not I think listen
I think sound bowl therapy we'll
probably discover has some very
important effects on the nervous system.
So, I'm not being disparaging of it at
all, but it's one thing to like these
things and and feel you have a
relationship to them. Um, but you've
made great efforts to try and get many
people, millions of people to to
appreciate and lean into these
relationships in ways that can serve
them and and the world. So, where does
that come from?
>> Well, I don't know exactly. I've been
kind of surprised that a couple of my
books have actually changed a public
conversation around food and then
>> about dilemma was very present in you
know when I was going through you know
college and and around that time I think
it was a graduate
>> 2006
>> okay so yeah short it was after college
but that book was everywhere
>> and the mantra from that book right you
know food not too much mostly plants
right
>> so I never, you know, I didn't set out
to um start something and and certainly
there were other important books that
came out around the same period. Eric
Schlloer's Fast Food Nation and Marian
Nestle wrote a book called Food Politics
that was very influential.
>> The difference I would say they're great
and I great admiration for them, but I
would say that those were about what not
to do.
>> Yeah.
>> Like this is bad, you know, and um and
like growing up I read the one was it
was Tom Robbins wrote a book from the
Baskin Robins family. What was that
book? I forget the title. something
about sugar,
>> but it was about I mean you read it and
you're just like the atrocities of the
of the meat industry. So So they're hard
books to form a relationship to because
it's like a they're it's a bad rel it's
a great they're great books but about
bad relationships.
>> Good point.
>> Whereas your book it was about the the
love of these things and so it was like
this benevolence.
>> Well, I've always felt if there's any
way to put hope in a story, you need to
put hope in a story because we need
hope. we it's our it's our air, you
know. And I remember I wrote a a a piece
for the New York Times that became a
chapter in Omnivore's Dilemma about um
about the meat industry. And I followed
this one cow through the whole process,
you know, from insemination to
slaughter. And it's a pretty dark story
about how we produce beef in this
country. And it's a long story. It's
like 8,000 words. But I made a point to
like, well, what are the alternatives?
And I learned about grass-fed,
grass-finished beef, which at the time
was a tiny little market.
>> And um I had a couple paragraphs on
this. There's another way to do it.
There's another So I was making the
point that the the food chain from which
most of us are eating beef is floating
on a sea of oil and that um it's fossil
fuel to grow the corn um that feeds the
animal. And then you need the
pharmaceuticals because the corn makes
the animal sick. And it's just it's just
such a pathological system and it's so
dark. Um, but there's another food chain
that takes sunlight captured by grass
that feeds this animal. I juxtapose
these two food chains, an oil-based food
chain and a sunlight based food chain.
And
you know, my editors were like, "Hey,
this piece is already 8,000 words.
You've got four paragraphs about
grass-fed beef, which no one knows
anything about and doesn't know where to
get. You know, we got to cut that." And
I said, "No, we have to leave that. That
just shows the hope that we can grow our
food using sunlight, not oil." And I won
the fight, luckily. And was so
gratified. A couple weeks after this
piece came out, this piece made quite a
bit of noise at the time. I walked into
a butcher shop on College Avenue in
Oakland, and I just I was kind of
curious. I I wonder if they have
grass-fed beef. And so I asked the
butcher, "Do you have grass-fed beef?"
And he goes, "What is going on? you're
the sixth person this week who asked me
for grass-fed beef and he got it.
>> Um, so that satisfies me a lot. I I like
writing where we can point a direction
that it might be useful for and that
that individuals can have some agency
and not be just victims of these big
systems.
>> And I'm an optimistic person finally.
>> You said finally [laughter] not not your
entire life.
>> No, no, I I think I have been. I I think
I'm optimistic. I also think that I'm
the oldest of four kids.
My father, who's no longer with us, was
alcoholic. I had a lot of responsibility
for being a sane person in the family
dynamic. Uh helping my mother with, you
know, the household and things cuz my
dad was kind of checked out. And um uh
so I think I do I do value practical
things and and and that's why my
instinct is always like start with
materialism and if materialism fails
then we'll look at other weirder ideas.
sorry to hear about your father and why
why you had to step into that role but
the world's um fortunate that you did
because when I look at the the the
important what I would call the
important movements of the last 50 60
years of and I think psychedelics is one
of them and but when I say that I want
to be clear I'm talking about
neuroplasticity to make people feel and
be better versions of themselves may not
come from psychedelics or even therapy
or or the sematics or breath work or
>> health and fitness all of it, you know,
I feel like where each of those quote
unquote movements reached its cliff
was when the individual or individuals
that were leading that movement were
either too emotive
and not practical enough. They weren't
thinking about how they could export the
knowledge in a way that people could
really make use of it. um that
acknowledged the variety of truths that
were out there that people weren't all
gonna just like
>> move to San Francisco or Big Su, you
know, that kind of thing, but that
people couldn't be so practical and and
removed from thinking about new
possibilities, new ways of humans being
that they like dismissed it. And I feel
like we're we are at an important
repetition point where if we're going to
break through, I feel like those two
things have to really um be married in
the in the movements. and and I and I
see it in you and I'm I'm I like in your
relationship to these things. So the
practical side and the it you know the
the clearly deep relationship to to
plants in the world.
>> I mean I do finally want to push the
world in one direction and not in
another. I mean and I you know I I mean
you know that's considered advocacy in
journalism and I I I I own up to it. Um,
once I I mean there's a point when I'm
starting on a subject where I don't know
a lot that I wouldn't pretend to know
where the world should go or where the
food industry should go, but a certain
point you've you've mastered the subject
and you it would be disingenuous not to
think that I think we need to move this
way. Not that you know we had such
success. I mean I'm I just wrote a new
introduction to Omnivore's Dilemma and I
wish the book were more dated than it
is. Um, it's, you know, the food system
is still screwed up. I I think we have
more awareness of it. People have a
better idea where their food comes from.
They're they're they're making the link
between um what they're eating and their
health in a way thanks to people like
you, but a whole lot of other people,
but we're still eating a terrible diet
for the most part in this country. And
um we still have a agriculture
that is all about growing corn and soy
which are the building blocks of
ultrarocessed food which is making us
sick and killing us. Um so we have a
long way to go. In a way we've made more
progress with psychedelics but in the
case of psychedelics there was no
opposition. I mean there was some
cultural opposition you know that you
know holdovers from the 60s. Yeah. The
drug war and things like that.
>> He didn't like drugs. Now, now the the
the red side is all about Ibeain for
veterans.
>> It's the most amazing transformation.
>> Rick Perry self-described. I like Rick.
I get along with him. He's very
bipartisan about this psychedelic thing.
And he just self-described.
You said it, Rick. He calls himself a
knuckle dragging Republican who's into
heart medicine. He used those those
words publicly, so I'm happy to repeat
it. He he really wants these medicines
to be available to all veterans who are
experiencing PTSD and substance abuse
issues. And he's worked very very hard
across the aisle to try and bring these
things to legal safe.
>> And this is the only way in in our
current political moment anything gets
done is is you need you need support on
the right as well as the left. And and
that's been a lesson of the food
movement which was coded kind of left
liberal. Now you have Maha and there are
a lot of problems with Maha. Um but
there are areas of agreement on
pesticides and on ultrarocessed food
getting it out of the schools. You know
used to hear the food movement was
elitist. You don't hear that anymore and
that's because you have people on the
right who are supporting want to push
the world in the same direction.
>> That's a really good we have some hope.
There's some hope there.
>> Yeah. No, that's a gosh we've got to
really break down the divisions to move
healthy eating forward. I was just going
to um end psychedelics in the in the
safest way. I I was struck when I would
started to look at the like the new food
pyramid stuff. I realized that um the
American foods have never been healthy.
Like if people talk about how they eat
in Europe and my dad's from Argentina
and how they eat the grass-fed beef was
that was all they had, right? You know,
um there's some unhealthy elements about
the diet there too when they eat heavy
meals late and you know, but now it's
people have improved their diet.
information travels. But you know, we
think fried chicken, we think um hot
dogs, hamburgers, mac and cheese, French
fries, like cotton candy. These are the
most American apple as American as apple
pie, right? We don't we don't right. So
the so the the classic American foods
were all very unhealthy. So I wonder if
there's a way to redefine what American
food is. That and that to me would be
cool because Americans also pride
themselves on being pioneers of all
sorts of things including physical
endeavors that require a lot of vitality
and strength, endurance and coordination
like you know so those generally don't
come from the foods I described.
>> No, they don't. And you know America's
not never had a s a real food tradition
till the till fast food is our is really
our our food.
>> Bummer.
>> I'm sorry to say.
>> Bummer. But people came from all these
other countries and they had a food
tradition and it got kind of stomped out
of them. I think part of the problem is
since we didn't have this deep these
deep roots and this food tradition we
were much more vulnerable to marketing
and then say the you know the French are
the Italians are um and they had they
had something to resist um what the
marketplace wanted to do with food which
is of course to process it you know the
cheapest possible raw ingredients. So
yeah, we need to build an American
cuisine that um is healthy. Um but it's
easier said than done or we borrow I
mean look, we talk about the
Mediterranean diet, right? It's you know
one of the diets we we have good reason
to believe is healthier than others and
uh and is attractive to a lot of people.
>> So it doesn't have to be ours. I suppose
you know we could borrow it from
somewhere else. Um but it's very hard to
change people's eating habits. um and
one of the hardest things and habit in
general, right? So I, you know, I don't
I don't see it as easy and in general
the fact that you now there's a there's
a growing recognition though that that
most of the chronic diseases we're
dealing with, the ones that are killing
us are food related, diet related. And I
think you can attack that from the
cultural stance and get people to eat
different food, but as long as the the
policies are making the the bad food
cheap, which they are. I mean, we
subsidize
corn, which gives us high fructose corn
syrup, which gives us diabetes.
>> So, we're we're we're s we're supporting
both sides in the war on type 2
diabetes, right? We're supporting the
sugar and we're supporting the
treatment. It's insane.
>> It is insane. and it's costing us a
fortune. So, we have to change the
policy and make healthy food cheaper
relative to unhealthy food.
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EarthBar as well. Is the current
administration with the emphasis uh on
healthy eating that they that they're
out there with is are they
>> they're not doing anything?
>> They're not doing it.
>> No. I mean, RFK Jr. has been talking a
good game on this. But um meanwhile, the
the big beautiful bill
um eliminated all sorts of farm to
school and farm to um other institution
uh supporting small agriculture,
regenerative agriculture. They're
cutting all that stuff while they talk
about it. And uh the only change they've
made on food after over 2 years has been
getting food companies to voluntarily
remove some dyes from cereal.
I don't think that's that big a deal. I
don't think dyes are a a crucial health
problem and it's voluntary. So this
administration is not going to regulate
anything. Um and the changes we need in
the food system, getting ultrarocessed
food out of the school lunch program is
going to require regulations. uh and
they're deregulating pesticides like
crazy.
>> Yeah, that's concerning.
>> Very concerning. So, no, I I don't think
it's uh an honest effort. I but I do
think what RFK Jr. has done that is
valuable is he's surfaced this other
constituency that we we were not aware
of. And these are mothers, many of whom
have kids with serious illnesses that
they're trying to treat with a better
diet. [snorts] And I met them without
knowing it when I was writing Omnivore's
Dilemma. I was hanging out on Joel
Salatin's farm. He's a very progressive
farmer in um in Virginia who has
pioneered a kind of grass-based
agriculture where he rotates different
species over the same grasslands and and
grows amazing food, um eggs and meat, uh
especially. And he's in the middle of
nowhere. He's like 45 minutes from the
interstate. And these people would show
up on Saturdays to pick up their
pastured chickens and and and I was
wondering who are these people and how
do they know about him? And they were
part of a whole network
and they were they were these Maha Moms
before they were called that. And uh
they were members of something called
the Western Price Society um which is uh
long story but um promotes grass-based
uh animal protein and um has been around
since the 30s or so. Um and has a very
big network that no one on the coast
notices, but it's out there. And uh and
I would talk to these mothers and they
they you know they had their thing with
seed oils and food is medicine and you
know they were not aligned with science
always but they were passionate about
clean food and um uh and were willing to
drive a 100 miles to get it then.
>> Wow. So Kennedy surfaced these people
and now they're engaged politically. And
if the food movement can make common
cause with them and we've seen some some
early signs, there was a a bill in
Congress that the administration was
supporting that would have exempted
uh pesticide makers from from lawsuits,
all lawsuits.
And um and it was in an appropriations
bill. And um Shelley Pingri, who's a
food movement leader and an organic
farmer from Maine in Congress, she got
together with Maha activists and they
got it stripped out of the bill and they
did it twice.
>> Right.
>> So that's what we need. That's the kind
of politics just like psychedelics right
and left together. You can get things
done.
>> Yeah. Amen to that. I
am forever stamped in my brain is, you
know, Rick Perry and I forget who it was
on the Democratic side like literally
holding the hands of like we're for
heart medicine and this was at a
veterans um benefit. Um and it's
interesting similarly to well in in sort
of parallel construction with as you
said with the whereas the food uh slow
food and and you know movement um
healthy food movement used to be
considered elitist and now it's not.
in the psychedelics thing used to be
like big sir hippies very left-leaning
and what seems to have moved the most
intense of all the psychedelics I gain
looks like it's going to cross the line
as into a true um supported therapeutic
by the FDA it's not there yet was the
veterans community which of course is
right and left but tends to lean right
if we're honest and that's pretty
remarkable
>> yeah it is it is and something I would
not have foreseen No, no. And and it's
really to the credit, I think, of of the
veterans like um Marcus Latrrell and and
um Marcus Capone and but also Rick, you
know. I'll say like I you know um
>> Rick Perry also I would add Rick Din
>> and Rick Dolin. The Ricks.
>> The Ricks Ricks.
>> The Ricks. Two very different
characters.
>> I'll say
>> actually here's a funny one about Rick
Davlin. Uh that at this event he got up
there and he he said it was room full of
veterans. um a lot of SEALs, a lot of
spee spec ops folks and um and the first
thing he said was that he was a
conscientious objector during the
Vietnam War. [laughter] And the room
just went silent and then I looked
around and there were a lot of smiles.
They appreciated his honesty. Honesty
>> and you know I I
adore him too. I adore him too.
>> But he but he very deliberately reached
out to the right years ago. I remember
he took a a contribution from Rebecca
Mercer who was a big Trump one supporter
and and people gave him a lot of grief
in in his organization and you know why
are you in bed with someone from the
right and he said no this is really
important this is how we're going to get
change so I he's a visionary
>> and uh and he reached out to the
veterans groups and um so he deserves
some of the credit too
>> definitely the Ricks excuse me I for not
crediting you dolin has the worst diet
ever. We're working on him. He has like
croissants and orange juice for
breakfast. And he has more energy than
any human being alive. Awake and
cheerful and and clear of mind
>> for 20 hours.
>> And a journalist dream. He never goes
off the record and he'll tell you
exactly what he thinks.
>> I love it.
>> Um, couple more questions about
psychedelics and then I want to talk
about the most important drug on the
planet um, which is caffeine. But when
do you think MDMA andor psilocybin will
get FDA approval given what you
understand? Cuz it's kind of wild that
Ibagane, the one psychedelic that no
one's would even want to use
recreationally, is going to get there
first. It's
>> and hasn't been, by the way, subjected
to university drug trials,
>> right?
>> That's kind of incredible.
>> It's incredible.
>> Yeah.
>> So, what about MDMA and psilocybin?
>> They're closer. Um, so the resilient is
the name of the company. It used to be
LIOS. It was part of MAPS. They've put
forward MDMA uh in the treatment of uh
trauma and they were turned down once,
but they've resubmitted with some
additional data. It looks like they're
fast-tracked. The same um executive
order that um is fasttracking Ibeane is
fasttracking other psychedelics. It was
apparently originally written for
Ibagane and somebody in the White House
said it's kind of crazy to just do this
one. Um there are these others that are
closer to having the data we need. And
then psilocybin coming from Compass uh a
company called Compass Pathways is also
close. You know, I hear before the end
of the year, but I I I it's hard to
believe. You know, I've been hearing
it's close for a long time. I think it
really is close this time. Mhm.
>> The reason it's happening, we should be
clear, is because uh Joe Rogan texted
the president and said, "This is really
important." He had done a show on
Ibagain
uh and um President Trump having lost
the the the manosphere vote or afraid of
losing the manosphere vote um wanted to
give Rogan something he cared about. And
um you know, is this the way to do drug
approvals in America? I have some
questions about that. Um I think I think
Trump's doing the right thing for the
wrong reasons, but there we are. So I
think it will happen soon. It's going to
be uh an earthquake when it happens
because
they'll be approved as medicines and to
be administered in a certain way with
some regulations. But the message that
the public will take that the society
will take is that these things that we
thought were dangerous drugs are
medicines. people who haven't thought
about psychedelics. We are in a small
community of people thinking who've been
thinking about psychedelics for the last
10 years. Everyone's going to be saying,
"Is this for me? Is this for my kid? Is
this for my parents?"
>> Yikes. Well, except for the parents
part. I'm just kidding. I'm just
kidding. [laughter]
>> I wouldn't mind doing psychedelics with
my parents, but uh but I I hear you loud
and clear. I mean, there are people who
have pre predisposition to psychosis or
heart issues that
>> Yeah.
>> And look what's happened with cannabis.
I mean, you know, we thought cannabis
was a very safe drug, but now that it is
being used so widely, we're we're
learning about addiction psychosis
>> and psychosis. And so, you know, it's
going to be a I think there's a lot of
public education to be done uh to help
people navigate this. And, you know,
they're not for everybody and there are
people who definitely should stay away
from psychedelics. And, uh, so it's
going to be a very interesting couple
years after it's approved. Um, and I
hope it's done with some care. Um, but
but we'll see. I mean, there is enormous
hope here and and many people we can
talk about the risk. They're real risks,
but there are people whose lives will be
saved by this. I mean I have interviewed
so many people who've had transformative
experiences
um that have uh you know uh cured their
addictions um their depression
uh their
OCD um obsessivecompulsive disorder. I
mean there is a lot of potential here
and the field of mental health needs new
tools. The ones they have just don't
work very well. If we do this right,
we're gonna we're gonna um benefit an
[clears throat] enormous number of
people. But doing it right is not gonna
be easy.
>> No. No. You made all the critical
points. And I also want to extend my
gratitude to you and Tim Ferrris um
who've worked really really hard.
>> Tim's done amazing work.
>> Amazing work to get this to where it is
and hopefully across the line and done
right. I I think I know you both care a
lot about that and there are others, but
you guys have really stuck your neck
necks out there early when it was when
it was risky and have really continued
to to
>> I remember how nervous I was when I
published how to change your mind. I was
talking about my own psychedelic
experience. I didn't know what would
happen. I thought the police would be
knocking at the door.
>> I mean, landed right. The timing was
right.
>> Yeah, the timing was right.
>> You were like really early but not so
early that
>> the police would be at your door and
Yeah.
>> Wild. I listened to because as I recall
it's only in audio book your book about
um doing this absolutely stupid
experiment. No, I'm kidding. of uh it
was so awesome. I I love this book where
you quit caffeine and um I drink a lot
of caffeine from the first time I took a
sip of mate. I was like this completes
me,
>> you know, in some way, you know, the the
same way some people who drink alcohol
feel. And I'm grateful it's caffeine and
not alcohol.
>> Much better drug.
>> Yeah. I I think so. So, and 90% of the
world's adults consume it every day and
and on and on and um and I love it and
unless I've been sick, I I don't really
know life without caffeine. What
>> You should try it, though.
>> Yeah. So, I was going to say, what do
you think an experiment like quitting
caffeine for an extended period of time
could do for somebody like me or for
somebody listening that would perhaps
allow the caffeine to be even a better
experience after? Is that what it's
about? or what did you discover about
consciousness? What did you seriously
what did you discover about um your
relationship to substances or work or
focus or anything? What what was
revealed there? I read the book. I
listened to the book and I highly
recommend it as I do all your books
>> and it is in a print book too. There's I
I subsequently put it in a book called
This is Your Mind on Plants and um uh
which came out a couple years ago and
it's one of three chapters in that book.
So caffeine is a really interesting
drug. First of all, most of us don't
think of it as a drug. Um, but it is a
drug to which most of us are addicted
and something like 90% yeah use it on a
daily basis whether it's in the form of
coffee, tea or or herb mate or a couple
other substances. I interviewed Roland
Griffith u when I started writing about
caffeine because before he got involved
he's he's the was the
psychopharmarmacologist at Johns Hopkins
who did the initial work on psilocybin
and really launched the psychedelic
renaissance and um but before he worked
on psychedelics he worked on caffeine so
I I wanted to talk to him about it and
during this interview he said you know
the only way you can really understand a
drug that you're taking habitually is to
get off it you can't understand it until
you it's out of your system completely.
So, he proposed that I go on this
caffeine fast.
I started really young, like 8 or 10. It
was a way to be with my dad. He would
get up really early in the morning and
he got home very late at night and as I
said, he's sort of absent a lot of the
time, but the time I could really
connect with him was at breakfast. I'd
get my drag myself out of bed and have
coffee with him. And um so my addiction
started very early. It was very hard to
get off. If you go cold turkey, people
describe flu-l like symptoms. I just
felt off. I could not focus. I felt like
I had ADHD.
I didn't feel myself, which is odd. And
I couldn't write at all. I mean, it was
so wired into my writing process. It was
just forget it. You know, that idea of
sitting at a desk. And it was just
really hard to do to shake it. After a
couple days, the symptoms started to
subside. And I finally got to this point
where I had no caffeine in my system and
I wasn't having tea either. And but even
then I didn't feel like myself. And I
thought, well, isn't that weird? You
feel more yourself on a drug than not on
the drug. I just felt like I was
somebody else. It was hard. I did it for
about three months and all the while I'm
researching caffeine and learning about
it and learning, you know, it's it's not
bad for you. You can overuse it. It has
a lot of very positive health effects up
to seven or eight cups a day and at that
point problems
>> begin and some people get jittery on a
lot less than that. Um but for most
people it is addictive but aside from
you know jitteriness if you get it then
the negative effects are are are
outweighed by positive effects. Helps
people with Parkinson's reduces blood
pressure. I forget I had a whole list of
all the health benefits. There are a lot
of and some of them are not tied to the
caffeine. Of course, they're also very
valuable polyphenols in coffee and tea,
which are a great boon to the
microbiome. But the day I got back on
caffeine, my first cup, it was it was
just the best drug experience. Better
than any psychedelic experience I've
had. It was so powerful. I was just
flying. I had all this energy and I came
home and I cleaned my closet which I I
never do. Uh I I cleaned up the garden.
I just was just I was a superman. It was
just wonderful. And then I had another
cup and it was like not as special. And
uh but I thought to myself, is there a
way to preserve that power? because
getting back on caffeine is very
different than the daily experience of
getting to baseline, which is
essentially what you're doing with a
addiction like that. So I thought, okay,
I'm only going to do caffeine one day a
week. Saturdays, I'll have coffee,
nothing none else. And it worked for a
few weeks and my Saturday coffee was
wonderful. But then I had a big deadline
on a Thursday and I thought, you know,
this would really get me over the hump
if I have a cup and slippery slope back
to, you know, every day. But I
appreciate it. I have no no bad faith
about drinking coffee. I think it's
God's gift to mankind in so many ways.
Tea, too. I also drink green tea.
>> I think we're very lucky to have it.
>> It does have very positive cognitive
benefits in terms of focus. I mean
people, you know, they've done tests on
students who preparing for an exam. If
they have a cup of coffee or tea,
>> or maybe it's done with pills cuz they
had a placebo control, probably with
pills. The the ones who had caffeine
perform better on the tests. It's uh a
really great focus drug. It's cocaine
without all the problems.
>> Love it. Well, and you live in a great
city for great coffee.
>> We have such good coffee. the original
pizza is just down the street and the
cheese board and yeah.
>> Well, I'm so grateful you wrote the book
and that you did the experiment. I I
will seriously consider doing the
experiment.
>> Give it a try. You learn a lot and it's
it's just about thinking about your
relationship to drugs in general. I
mean, they are part of our lives. It's a
normal part of human life.
>> Our thinking about drugs has been really
contaminated by the drug war. Drugs are
not good or bad. I mean there it's all
about context and caffeine is a really
great case study and and it'll you learn
something about yourself getting off it
and and then getting back on it.
>> Well, I'm excited. The way you describe
it and that the fact that you share the
belief that it is God's gift to mankind
is uh is a reason enough.
>> Michael, thank you so much for coming
here today, sharing your knowledge and
for writing all these books. I mean, you
have humanized plants in a way that
makes people healthier when they pay
attention to and act on the information.
Your care for humanity is is
self-evident and for animals and and
plants, too. The whole You strike me as
somebody who really has like the whole
picture. And yet,
>> I'm trying.
>> You're not just running around saying
one love and everyone should drop acid.
[laughter] Thank goodness. I mean,
you're obviously a super serious scholar
of everything. you uh put your uh your
pen to and and when you speak I learn
and people really learn. Um I know you
have a book that you're working on now
about the microbiome. Maybe we have you
back to talk about that if you're
willing.
>> Happy to when it comes out. Yeah, it's
an audio book. It's another short audio
book and it'll be out sometime next
year.
>> Great. Well, I would love to have you
back around that time. Sounds good.
>> And I know I speak on behalf of like
millions and millions of people. Thank
you for doing what you do. And
>> you're so generous.
>> I'm so glad you dropped those watermelon
seeds into the ground. [laughter] Here
we are.
>> Me, too. Thank you, Andrew. I appreciate
it.
>> Thank you for joining me for today's
discussion with Michael Pollen. To learn
more about his work and to find links to
his many excellent books, including his
most recent book on consciousness.
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