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What Humans, Animals and Plants Tell Us About Consciousness | Michael Pollan — Transcript

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0:00I came out of this experience of
0:02studying consciousness and looking at
0:04all the theories of consciousness. I
0:06don't want to give it away but we have
0:07no idea about consciousness really how
0:10it's how how brain matter generates
0:12consciousness if indeed that's how it
0:14happens and there are people who doubt
0:16that's how it happens it could be that
0:18the brain channels consciousness right I
0:20mean that if you conceive of
0:22consciousness as like electromagnetic
0:24waves
0:26>> um brains are like radio receivers or TV
0:28receivers you wouldn't you wouldn't look
0:30in the TV set for the woman who gave you
0:33the weather report you know she's not
0:35there she's
0:36So I don't know that that's true but
0:38coming out of this experience of
0:41studying this I don't dismiss an idea
0:43like that you have to keep an open mind
0:45because our presumption that you know
0:48consciousness is an emergent property of
0:51brain complexity that idea doesn't have
0:53much traction. Welcome to the Hubberman
0:56Lab podcast where we discuss science
0:58[music] and science-based tools for
1:00everyday life.
1:03>> [music]
1:04>> I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor
1:06of neurobiology and opthalmology at
1:08Stanford School of Medicine. My guest
1:10today is Michael Pollen, author of
1:12landmark books including How to Change
1:14Your Mind, which is about psychedelics,
1:17The Botney of Desire, which is about how
1:19humans and plants co-evolved and
1:21collaborated to thrive. And The
1:23Omnivore's Dilemma, which is an
1:24incredible book about food and
1:26nutrition, and most recently, the book A
1:29World Appears: A Journey into
1:30Consciousness. Michael Pollen is
1:32considered by many, including me, to be
1:34one of the most learned and thoughtful
1:36people on topics that matter to all
1:38humans and the things that we can do to
1:40improve the human experience. Today, we
1:42talk about many topics, but mostly we
1:44focus on consciousness. And Michael
1:46brings forward a new perspective that
1:48integrates the best science on this
1:50topic as well as philosophy and beyond.
1:52And we get deep into this notion of the
1:54ego, meaning our notion of self, and how
1:57the ego is both important for and limits
1:59our understanding of ourselves and life.
2:02I should emphasize that the conversation
2:04is not as abstract as I'm making it
2:05sound. What I love about Michael Pollen
2:07is he makes these topics very clear and
2:09very concrete and in many cases
2:11actionable. Thanks to Michael, by the
2:13end of today's conversation, you will be
2:15placed at the front edge of the
2:16conversation and the data on this thing
2:18that we call consciousness. You'll also
2:20be versed on the latest of plant or what
2:22is sometimes called psychedelic medicine
2:24and perhaps most importantly what you
2:26can do in your life to gain new
2:27perspective on yourself, others, and the
2:30planet at large. Before we begin, I'd
2:32like to emphasize that this podcast is
2:34separate from my teaching and research
2:35roles at Stanford. It is however part of
2:37my desire and effort to bring zero cost
2:39to consumer information about science
2:41and science related tools to the general
2:43public. In keeping with that theme,
2:45today's episode does include sponsors.
2:47And now for my discussion with Michael
2:49Pollen. Michael Pollen, welcome.
2:51[clears throat]
2:52>> Thank you. Good to be here.
2:53>> Longtime fan of your books, of you. I've
2:56had the privilege of speaking on stage
2:59next to you, although mostly I was just
3:01listening to you because you are this
3:03amazing intersection of science writer.
3:08You've written about food, psychedelics,
3:10now consciousness. You'll tell us about
3:11your new work on microbiome. I feel like
3:14there's also some Wendel Berry woven in
3:16there. Big Wendleberry.
3:17>> Good. I didn't insult you. I didn't
3:19shout about that.
3:20>> We just lost him, too.
3:21>> Oh, is that right?
3:22>> He died like two weeks ago.
3:23>> Oh my goodness. I know.
3:24>> I'm a I'm like a huge Wendleberry fan.
3:27>> Really? Me, too. Oh my goodness.
3:28>> He taught me how to write and he taught
3:30me how to think about certain things.
3:33But I, you know, he had a huge influence
3:34on I was very fond of him. Did
3:36>> you ever meet him?
3:37>> Oh, yeah. We had I interviewed him on
3:39stage a few times. He interviewed me uh
3:42in Lexington, Kentucky, and um about one
3:45of my books. And I went to his house uh
3:48and saw the long-legged house where he
3:50writes on the river. He was always
3:53trying to convince people like us about
3:55the beauty of the tobacco culture.
3:58and he kind of bracketed the cigarette
4:01piece and the lung cancer piece, but the
4:05culture was so beautiful and it was the
4:07one time where the whole community got
4:08together and racial lines were crossed
4:11and the and the barns are gorgeous that
4:13you know the the the tobacco barns with
4:15the slots for drying. [snorts] So he he
4:18wanted me to see those uh when I when I
4:20came there.
4:20>> Amazing. Yeah, I was feeling a little
4:22anxious about bringing in that reference
4:24in case you weren't a fan or you didn't
4:26like his work, but clearly uh he was
4:28calling in because um he was and for
4:30those who don't know Wendel Barry is
4:32this uh just magnificent poet who
4:34>> and farmer and essaist. Yeah. And he um
4:39you know actually when I was writing my
4:41first book, Second Nature, I was trying
4:43to figure out how to behave in the
4:45garden. Um which is a microcosm of how
4:48do we behave in nature, right? In other
4:50words, I had pests. Uh, I had problems.
4:53I had fertility issues. And the American
4:56tradition of thinking about nature,
4:58which goes back to Thorough and John
5:00Mure and Emerson, is all about
5:03celebrating the the wilderness and being
5:06a spectator in nature. And of course,
5:09the gardener can't afford to do that.
5:10You have to act or you're not going to
5:12have anything to eat. I had a headful of
5:15thorough and Emerson from college and
5:17graduate school and I was kind of
5:20stymied about like what do I do about
5:22weeds? You know there you telling me
5:25weeds have just as much right to be in
5:26your garden as the bean plant which is
5:28crazy. But it was Wendell who who would
5:32write these essays and he and he
5:34convinced me, you know, he said we have
5:35a legitimate quarrel with nature and
5:38that our relationship is, you know, we
5:40do have to make changes in nature to for
5:42us to survive. And that's kind of who we
5:44are is um the species who remakes nature
5:47in various ways, but it has to be done
5:51u sort of more like a marriage than a
5:53domination. And uh so he just had a new
5:56way of thinking about how to relate to
5:58nature that really helped me and and
6:01clarified my whole view of
6:02environmentalism. So yeah, he's a great
6:05hero.
6:05>> Amazing. I'm saddened to hear that he
6:07passed, but he certainly left behind.
6:11>> Well, it's a pretty good run.
6:13>> He had a very good run.
6:14>> We will put some links to his work for
6:15those that aren't familiar, and I
6:17encourage anyone listening to just and
6:20even those who are familiar with Wendell
6:21to go read some of his poems. They're
6:23they're they're an incredible journey
6:25and uh
6:27>> full stop.
6:28>> Yeah.
6:28>> Yeah,
6:29>> I'm with you.
6:30>> Let's talk about consciousness.
6:32>> As a neuroscientist, I was taught to
6:33avoid this
6:35>> issue. I hear it was the kiss of death
6:37at a certain point, right?
6:38>> Neuroscientists who had were already
6:40very accomplished and famous in some
6:42specific domain like memory or
6:43neuromuscular junctions or whatever
6:46could talk about it. They had permission
6:47once they had their prizes and their um
6:50stature. But some people have died on
6:53the bed of nails that is the
6:55consciousness discussion.
6:56>> I almost did. [laughter]
6:58>> Clearly not. But uh yeah, but maybe you
7:00can tell us why why it's so so
7:02precarious. But it's hard to define I
7:05think is part of it. And uh kudos to you
7:07for jumping in with uh both feet uh on
7:10this one. So after having written a book
7:14about consciousness essentially, do you
7:17think that we can describe it in a
7:19sentence? Can we give it an operational
7:21definition or
7:22>> it's such a strange phenomenon because
7:24there is nothing we know with more
7:26certainty than the fact that we're
7:27conscious. It's the only thing we can be
7:30sure of. Everything else we know through
7:32consciousness, right? Everything else is
7:33an inference, but we have this thing
7:36that we know we have. But defining it is
7:39difficult. So there are some very simple
7:41definitions like subjective experience.
7:44Um that's pretty good. Uh your toaster
7:47doesn't have subjective experience. And
7:49I would argue AIS don't have subjective
7:51experience, but we can talk about that
7:53later. Another popular, I don't know if
7:56it's a definition exactly, is Thomas
7:58Nagel, the uh the the philosopher in the
8:011970s wrote a brilliant essay called
8:04what is it like to be a bat? And his
8:08point was if it is like anything, then
8:11you're conscious. So, even though we
8:13don't know exactly what it's like to be
8:14a bat, we can kind of imagine a creature
8:17that navigates the world through sonar,
8:19through sound waves instead of uh light,
8:22photons. And so, okay, we can imagine
8:25that. So, yes, bats are conscious by
8:28that definition. Um, so is it like
8:30something to be a computer is a real
8:32question that I think we're going to
8:33have to face. That's kind of what I use
8:35as a definition. There's a lot of bells
8:38and whistles that that human
8:40consciousness has above that. We're not
8:41just aware, but we're aware that we're
8:43aware. We have self-reflection or
8:46metacognition.
8:47Emotion, you know, add that in. So, I
8:51think humans have a very elaborated
8:55kind of consciousness compared to some
8:57other creatures. I make a distinction in
8:59the book between sensience and
9:01consciousness that some scientists make
9:03and I find really useful. Sensience
9:06being a more basic kind of ground floor
9:09of consciousness that uh includes
9:13awareness of your environment and a
9:16recognition of changes whether they're
9:18good or bad and that may be universal
9:21and that may be a property of life. Um,
9:23you can make a case that uh plants have
9:26sensience, that single-sellled creatures
9:29have sensience, and it may be something
9:31you need to survive in an environment
9:33that's constantly changing that you
9:34can't program instinctually everything
9:37you need to know. So that this would be
9:39very useful. And consciousness is how we
9:42do sensience. You know, we've added on
9:44all these things. And every creature has
9:46its own version of sensience based on
9:49their body type, their sensorium, their
9:52the scale of uh at which they live in in
9:55time and space cuz it's kind of to to to
9:59take our our our version of
10:01consciousness and make that the standard
10:02for everybody seems kind of crazy. This
10:04thing about being able to respond to the
10:07environment being some key component of
10:09consciousness. Um, a plant can respond
10:12to the environment. A barnacle
10:14>> can respond to the environment.
10:15>> Bacteria can.
10:16>> Bacteria can. They can light sense. It's
10:18they actually know the difference
10:19between morning and evening.
10:21>> And they have chemotaxis. They know
10:22between the difference between something
10:24that's good to eat and something that's
10:25toxic.
10:26>> Do you think they know they know? This
10:28is the piece that I feel like the the
10:30responding and the awareness that one is
10:32responding is maybe where in my mind I
10:34want to draw the line for some reason.
10:36like a plant will you know you know
10:39furlur and unfurl uh when in the
10:41presence of light but does it know it's
10:43responding and why I mean I suppose we
10:47all the time respond to things and don't
10:48know why but usually like I if I take a
10:50sip of this tea and and it's too hot um
10:53I have some sense of what I'm going to
10:56do next and why I feel like the the
10:58other stuff is just reflexive. Yeah,
11:01it's reflexive, but it I I don't think
11:03it's it's uh always programmed. I think
11:06that there are novel situations that
11:08even a plant confronts where they have
11:10to have an intelligent response that
11:13isn't necessarily um something
11:15programmed in their genes. I mean, I I
11:18took a deep dive into this field of
11:21plant intelligence, which is
11:22fascinating. I mean, the things we're
11:24learning that plants can do that you
11:25would not have guessed. I mean, you can
11:27take a corn plant and [snorts]
11:30uh it can navigate a maze. You can give
11:32it a maze and and put some uh
11:34fertilizer, some ammonium nitrate in one
11:37like corner of it and the roots will
11:39find the fastest uh path to that
11:43ammonium nitrate. That's not a situation
11:46it really experiences in nature. It has
11:48to um that takes a certain kind of
11:51intelligence, problem solving ability.
11:53If you play the sound of caterpillars
11:56chomping on leaves for a plant, they
11:58will react to the sound uh and send uh
12:03either toxins or bad tasting chemicals
12:05to that leaf to defend themselves. They
12:08can respond to the sound of water and
12:10they will and they're if they if they
12:12feel if they hear water running through
12:14a pipe, they will go down. They have
12:16like 20 senses. We have five or six.
12:19>> They can sense gravity, which we can't
12:21do. They they can sense pH. They can
12:23sense um uh whether nutrient levels are
12:27on a positive gradient or negative
12:30gradient. I mean, it's remarkable. One
12:32of the to me most curious things about
12:36plants is that they respond to the same
12:39anesthetics we do. Now, you might think,
12:42what does it mean to put a plant out? Um
12:45aren't they already out? But actually,
12:47they're just slow. They have behaviors.
12:49They're just very slow. So you take a
12:51you take a plant with a really fast
12:52behavior like a Venus fly trap and you
12:55put it in a bell jar and you put some
12:58anesthetic gas in xenon gas or or any
13:01number of uh you know anything you can
13:03put in gas form and they will not
13:05respond to uh an insect crossing their
13:08threshold where normally they would
13:11clamp down. So that raises a really
13:14interesting question. What exactly are
13:16they losing when they are under? We
13:19would say consciousness, but that's a
13:22long way to go. I mean, I don't use the
13:23word consciousness for plants, although
13:25I met scientists who do, but I would say
13:27that's sensience that that that that
13:30there's a loss of sensience that's
13:32happening when when they uh are
13:34anesthetized. But as you know,
13:36anesthetics are really weird. We don't
13:38even know how they work on us, right? I
13:39mean, xenon gas is inert gas and it puts
13:42you out. How does that work?
13:44>> This scare anyone going in for surgery.
13:46The anesthesia anesthesiologists have
13:48gotten much better. Yes, they know what
13:50they're doing.
13:50>> They know what they're doing.
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16:39Can we go at self versus other as maybe
16:43one potential window into this? I I
16:45don't want to make any assumptions, but
16:47when I think about the consciousness
16:48problem, I I think most people know that
16:51they are them and they know what's not
16:53them. And uh maybe a decent analogy is
16:57when nerve cells grow, they know the
17:00difference between them and other cells.
17:03So at the cellular level, you know, this
17:05is already set up. And in fact, I love
17:08your example of the the root growing
17:10towards the fertilizer because you can
17:13give a nerve cell a simple rule, all
17:15nerve cells a simple rule, which is
17:16essentially grow out as far as you can
17:18and connect with as many other nerve
17:20cells as you possibly can
17:23and know the difference between you and
17:25other. And if you do that
17:26>> even within the same species.
17:28>> Yeah. So, you know, and there are some
17:30exceptions to this, but it turns out to
17:32be it's not straightforward to build a
17:33brain, but you don't need a ton of
17:35signals. You need signals that say grow
17:37here and you need signals that say you
17:39may not grow here.
17:40>> What we call cheotractants and chem
17:42repellants. And then if you think about
17:44that the the dendrites and axons that
17:46the branches of the neurons they often
17:48have these beautiful architectures.
17:49Those are set up by a simple rule of
17:51self- avoidance. Mhm.
17:52>> You they the branches know that they are
17:55that they're in the same of the same
17:56neuron and they just keep growing and
17:58they keep branching every time they get
18:00too close to one of their own and then
18:02you end up with these beautiful
18:02architectures depending on what other
18:04cells are doing that around you. That's
18:06how you get the all these different cell
18:08types and there's other features to it
18:10too.
18:11>> And I was shocked and excited to learn
18:12that that's kind of how tree roots do it
18:14too.
18:15>> Yes, I was going to say.
18:16>> So simple rules can build immense
18:18complexity. That that's that's the the
18:19point. And the self recognizing self
18:22versus other and then a simple rule of
18:25get as much stuff as you can. It sounds
18:27very selfish, right? Sets up a great
18:30system actually because then everyone's
18:32doing that and you end up with
18:34essentially a tiled system.
18:35>> No tree, no neuron gets too much space,
18:38>> right?
18:38>> And while this is all very cellular and
18:41we're literally talking about the
18:42branches of cells, it's not, you know,
18:44thinking. I feel like when you get up to
18:47the whole organism, I know the
18:48difference between me and you, me and
18:50the microphone.
18:51>> These plants seem to know the difference
18:52between them and the fertilizer.
18:55>> So, this lack of confusion about what's
18:57me and what's not me seems to be like
18:59the most important rule that perhaps
19:01builds up to the consciousness thing.
19:03It's just perhaps
19:04>> it's really an important rule and you
19:06see it in plant roots too because if you
19:09put uh two plants that are related to
19:12one another have some genetic connection
19:14but are separate plants they will share
19:17soil
19:18>> and grow together and but if they're not
19:21related even if they're the same species
19:24they will compete. ditto, you know, the
19:27plant that um when plants are shaded by
19:30another plant, they grow fast to get
19:32above it. But if they're shaded by
19:34themselves closer to your example, they
19:37don't they know like, well, that's we're
19:40getting we're getting the light over
19:41there, so I don't have to go there. But
19:43yeah, I think the self and other is is
19:45is a key rule and and I I completely
19:48agree that you can take a set of very
19:50simple rules and build a very complex
19:53creature from it. how that gets you to
19:55consciousness. I mean self and others an
19:58important part of consciousness although
20:01and I talk about the self as kind of the
20:03most elaborate or advanced manifestation
20:05of consciousness. It turns out you can
20:07have consciousness without a self and
20:10that's um uh you know I mean meditators
20:13know this um psychedelics give you and
20:16it can give you an experience of
20:18consciousness without a self. I think we
20:20have it every morning when we wake up.
20:22There's that 500 milliseconds, you know,
20:25when you're reconstituting like who am
20:27I? Where am I? Oh, you know, here I am.
20:30>> And it's 750 milliseconds if you're in a
20:32hotel room as I realized this morning.
20:35>> Yes,
20:36>> that's kind of weird that you can have
20:37that there is a there is a consciousness
20:39that is uh not organized around a self.
20:44And um uh you know, Buddhists have known
20:46this for a long time, but it's it's it's
20:48a strange idea. Going back to the the
20:50plants and their intelligence, you know,
20:52I've spent a little bit of time with
20:53people in the plant medicine community.
20:55Not a lot. I'm not a you like a heavy
20:57psychonaut or anything, but
20:59>> there does seem to be this understanding
21:01there. And I I don't think it's just
21:02conjecture. I think it's a real
21:03understanding of people who spend time
21:05in the jungle, who spend time with plant
21:07medicines. Even pharmacists in this
21:10country will tell you that most drugs
21:11were bioprocted from the jungle. big
21:14pharma are isolated compounds
21:16synthesized, you know, um, as you know,
21:19uh, from jungle plants and other plants.
21:22So, there's this notion that the plants
21:24actually can sense us and that they're
21:28communicating with us. I know this
21:29sounds really wacky, but we can
21:31certainly see them. We can smell them.
21:34They can have, you know, odor effects on
21:36us. Uh, some are poisonous, some are
21:38delicious and and wonderful for for us.
21:41They're nourishing. What do you think
21:43about this sort of cross species
21:45communication? Do you think it's a a
21:47real thing having spent some time you
21:49spent a lot of time on about
21:51>> writing about plants in a garden? Like
21:54my mom gardens and she is convinced and
21:57she's a very rational person. She is
21:59convinced that talking to the plants
22:02while she plants them has a real effect
22:05on the relationship between her and
22:07these plants. I mean, she's not thinking
22:08that they can hear and understand the
22:10language, but that there's some sort of
22:12energetic transfer there. And I don't
22:14think she's alone. People who garden
22:16have a relationship to the plants, and I
22:18certainly feel this way about my dog, to
22:20some extent, my fish, although to a
22:22lesser extent. So,
22:24>> I don't think it's entirely crazy.
22:26>> I don't think it's crazy. I think that
22:28um
22:30I haven't had that experience myself. I
22:32I did have an experience and this was
22:35talk about plant medicine on on
22:37psilocybin that I described in my book
22:39of um feeling that the plants in my
22:42garden were conscious and um aware and
22:46returning my gaze and they were very
22:48benevolent and I took good care of them.
22:50That's good. Otherwise, it could get
22:52scary.
22:52>> Yeah. Yeah.
22:53>> And I didn't know what to do with that.
22:55I mean there's a whole question with
22:57insights you have on psychedelics like
22:59do they have any value and how do you
23:01judge their value and in my case I
23:05thought back to William James who had
23:07written in in varieties of mystical
23:09experience uh that you can't really
23:12judge the veracity of a of a big insight
23:15on a mystical experience because we
23:18don't know enough but there are two ways
23:20to think about it. Is it a useful thing?
23:22Is it pragmatic to believe that? And
23:24that's one argument in favor. And the
23:26other is treat it as a hypothesis and
23:30see if you can find other ways of
23:31knowing scientific or or otherwise that
23:34could uh support that idea. And that's
23:36what got me into plant um you know
23:39learning about plant intelligence and
23:40plant sensience. We are in relationship
23:43with plants domesticated plants in
23:45particular. I think they manipulate us
23:47in various ways. But it's it's not at
23:50the level of the individual plant. and
23:51it's at the level of the this the
23:53evolution of the species. So um you know
23:57corn came to dominate the landscape in
24:00much of the world because it figured out
24:03what we wanted from it. And when I say
24:05figured out I mean purely by trial and
24:07error. Cannabis too. Cannabis was you
24:10know this plant you know located in
24:13western China I guess and now it's
24:15everywhere. And the reason it did is it
24:18learned that we respond if it produced
24:22this chemical called THC,
24:24it was going to get carried around the
24:26world and reproduced. And so I I I think
24:30we're in this symbiotic relationship
24:32with plants and that they they do
24:34manipulate us. They're um geniuses at
24:37biochemistry as you suggest, you know,
24:40and that's a function of the fact that
24:41they can't get up and run away, right?
24:44They're rooted. They're cesile as it's
24:46called. And so instead of consciousness
24:49like we have and mo and uh the ability
24:52to move around, they they develop
24:55chemicals, this incredible suite of
24:58chemicals. And they hit on some
25:00chemicals that happen to change our
25:03consciousness. And this has been one of
25:05the most successful um strategies. Uh
25:08coffee and tea are are great examples.
25:11They didn't originally make these
25:13chemicals for us. They're probably
25:15defense chemicals, but what's
25:18interesting about the defense chemicals
25:19that they produce is that they're not
25:21they don't kill anything. I mean,
25:23caffeine might kill insects, some
25:25insects. But somewhere along the line,
25:28they learned that it was better to just
25:30kind of with your mind than kill
25:33you outright. Because if they killed you
25:35outright, you would very quickly develop
25:37resistance, right? You'd select for
25:39resistant members of the species.
25:41>> [snorts]
25:42>> The way I learned this, it was courtesy
25:44of my cat, Frank. Frank had a real
25:47catnip problem. And uh every night,
25:51Frank, uh I would go down to my garden
25:53to, you know, harvest some lettuce or
25:55something like that. And I had a catnip
25:57plant. And this is in a fenced garden.
25:59And Frank would follow me and look at
26:01me. And he needed to be reminded where
26:03the catnip was. It's like, you know, why
26:07don't you know where it is? because he
26:09would get so wrecked on catnip that he
26:12would he would forget. And like that's a
26:14brilliant strategy on the part on the
26:17part of the um the plant to get your
26:20predator to forget where you are.
26:22>> Amazing.
26:23>> And the other thing they do, of course,
26:24many plant chemicals, psychoactive
26:27chemicals diminish your appetite.
26:29Another brilliant strategy. So I have
26:31enormous respect for what they do and
26:33what they do to us and I really see them
26:35as active players in this drama. I wrote
26:37a book called Botney of Desire which
26:39really looked at how plants have
26:41mastered our desires as their as their
26:44evolutionary strategy. Desires for
26:47beauty in the case of flowers um desires
26:50for to change consciousness. Uh desires
26:53for food. So I have ultimate respect for
26:56their ingenuity. When you say they've um
27:00that plants have figured out, do you
27:02mean that that sticking with the you
27:04know the rule of evolution, you just
27:06want to make as much of you yourself as
27:08you possibly can?
27:09>> Yeah.
27:09>> In species that nurture young, nurture
27:11young, protect young, proliferate, die,
27:15repeat, right? I mean that's it's like a
27:16harsh way of thinking about it, but
27:17that's those are essentially the simple
27:18rules of evolution. try not to die. Try
27:21to at least live long enough to
27:22proliferate and make sure that the young
27:24make it to
27:24>> and in retrospect it looks like you
27:26figured something out. But in fact,
27:28you're just trying things and certain
27:29things work and the plants that you know
27:32had the most caffeine say um
27:34proliferated in a way the ones that had
27:36the least caffeine did not. Mhm. I mean,
27:39I think about dogs a lot cuz I love
27:41them. And I'm told that dogs descended
27:45from wolves that figured out that if
27:48they were kind enough and they were
27:51patient enough, they might get scraps of
27:52food and [clears throat] eventually that
27:53led to the domestication and the
27:55expansion of all these different breeds
27:56of dogs. I mean, I think that's
27:57essentially the story. So, and they're
28:00not getting together and having a
28:02little, you know, backroom conversation
28:03like we've almost got them. But, but
28:05they so and that's certainly been
28:07advantageous for the domestic dog. Um,
28:10they're very well treated, better than
28:11some humans, in fact.
28:12>> Yeah. And there are only 50,000 wolves
28:14left in this country. And how many dogs
28:16are there? It was a good strategy,
28:18>> right? Yeah. And and I feel like more
28:19people have dogs now than when I was
28:21growing up.
28:22>> Well, co led to a lot of people getting
28:25dogs.
28:25>> Yeah. So it's it's most people don't get
28:27dogs to to do work. They get dogs to be
28:30family members. And so they're really
28:32they're really figuring stuff out. They
28:34[clears throat] got us.
28:34>> They got us. Um but this figuring stuff
28:37out thing is is as it relates to
28:39consciousness is um maybe it brings us
28:41back to the definitions. So does that
28:43mean that you don't have to have
28:44self-awareness that you're doing it?
28:46Plants probably don't realize they're
28:48doing this. They're just following a
28:49rule that's scripted into their genome.
28:51>> Um try and get resources, feel good, not
28:54pain in the moment. and proliferate take
28:56care of young and so forth. Yeah. So do
28:58you think that this consciousness like
29:00of plants or of dogs or of humans can
29:04emerge through the simple flipping of
29:06switches that are hardwired into us or
29:08do they have any say in this? Like do
29:10they realize um that they're doing
29:14better for the next generation? Because
29:16plants don't get to see what happens to
29:18their seeds. And in most cases, dogs
29:21don't really know what happens to their
29:23puppies once they're, you know, um,
29:25adopted out.
29:26>> Yeah.
29:27>> Humans are unique in this way.
29:28>> Oh, I think we are. I mean, I think we
29:30have a uh an awareness, a
29:32self-awareness, um, and a sense of, uh,
29:36you know, we can time travel. You know,
29:38your dog probably can time travel a few
29:40minutes or maybe a half hour if it's
29:42really hungry, you know. Um, but we have
29:45the ability to to imagine the future.
29:48Uh, even a future we're not in. Um,
29:51that's one of the things that's special
29:53about our consciousness. I mean, you
29:54know, well that our brains are doing a
29:57lot more than we're aware of, right? I
29:59mean, 24/7 they're monitoring our body,
30:01you know, reading these interosceptive
30:03signals and making adjustments and
30:06taking in things from the environment
30:07without our awareness. Um, so the
30:10question is why does anything have to
30:12rise to the level of awareness? Why why
30:15wasn't it all automated? I think that's
30:17one of the mysteries. The best
30:19explanation I heard of why that should
30:22be, and this is sort of an evolutionary
30:24just so story, but it's a pretty
30:26persuasive one, is because we are uh
30:30fundamentally social beings that live in
30:33a very and and and being in a human
30:35society is incredibly complex
30:37environment in which you can't program
30:40every move you have to make. There is a
30:43great evolutionary utility in being able
30:45to read the mind of another person and
30:47anticipate what they're going to do or
30:49say to predict. And um this is something
30:53that um you need theory of mind for or
30:57or imagination at the very least. And
31:00that strikes me as a pretty good
31:02explanation of why you would have gone
31:05beyond automatic response to something
31:09much more uh deliberate and aware and I
31:12don't think plants have that. But I do
31:15think that evolution um I really agree.
31:18Michael Leaven is a biologist at TUS uh
31:21who who works with you know creates
31:24little creatures you know organoids and
31:26um what he calls and he's shown that
31:30there are behaviors that are not
31:33dictated by the genes that um that what
31:37evolution creates is cognitive beings
31:39that are very good at solving novel
31:41problems. I mean a lot of his project is
31:44actually deemphasizing genes and showing
31:46that that uh and deemphasizing neurons
31:50too. You know he he also shows that that
31:52[laughter]
31:53>> I accept all of biology. It just so
31:55happens I'm only trained to understand
31:57the the brain stuff.
31:58>> Well he's you know he's shown that um
32:00memory resides in not necessarily in in
32:03neurons there other other way. Yeah.
32:05>> Yeah. The immune system is a good
32:07example. He looks at bioelectric fields
32:09and that these can hold memories uh in
32:12in groups of cells and that these
32:14xenobots that he creates
32:16uh from and he he he does this with um
32:19taking uh skin cells from tadpoles and
32:21he puts it in a solution and they clump
32:23together and they form a new organism.
32:25It only lasts about a week or two. And
32:28that organism repurposes their psyia so
32:31they can have a means of locomotion and
32:34they can be conditioned and navigate
32:36mazes. There's nothing in their genes
32:39that's in encoding those instructions.
32:41Anyway, it's it's taken them to a very
32:44odd place in biology. You know, we used
32:46to hear a lot about the word instinct.
32:47It's funny, you don't hear about it
32:49nearly as much anymore.
32:50>> Yeah, you're right. And I think that
32:51there are things going on that are are
32:53um products of just an intelligent a
32:56being with enough tools and and
32:58cognitive ability to navigate an
33:01unfamiliar world. That's what it takes
33:04to survive in in evolution. When Caesar
33:06Milan, the dog whisperer, came on this
33:08podcast, he uh he said because he came
33:11from a very uh poor uh rural background,
33:14but he said, you know, people who grow
33:16up in that environment um have
33:18incredible instincts about what is safe,
33:20what's not safe. You know, he saw a lot
33:22of death from a young age.
33:24>> Uh people died every day. Um and you
33:26know, stakes were very high. Um and
33:28resources were low. And he said, you
33:30know, that you see a completely
33:31different side of humans. And it's not
33:33all bad. I mean that's the bad stuff
33:35that drives the emergence. Also some
33:37really beautiful stuff like you said you
33:39kids grow up learning where safe harbor
33:42is in in people and they they can really
33:45sense people and animals very well in a
33:48way that in um more affluent societies
33:51we we have all these buffers you know um
33:54and and it struck me as like okay that's
33:56super interesting because I feel like
33:58>> as a neuroscientist I think of okay
34:00there are parts of the brain that are
34:01purely autonomic taking care of heart
34:03rate there's stuff that switches like if
34:04we activate it people go into a age. No
34:06one likes to think about this, but yes,
34:08for them to this would happen. But then
34:10there's all the other stuff that's make,
34:11you know, where we can control our
34:12impulses and um think about past,
34:15present, and future and build
34:16technologies and it's a quotequote
34:18evolved stuff. It's just, you know,
34:19higher order what whatever the language
34:21never quite works, you know, um always
34:23makes it sound hierarchical cuz I would
34:25die in the environment that uh Cesar was
34:28describing, right? Um so higher order
34:30isn't fair. But in any case, I feel like
34:33this damn prefrontal cortex expansion
34:36that happened in humans. Here's here's
34:38where I get really I lose a lot of sleep
34:40over this. And you're [clears throat]
34:41the perfect person to ask this. I've
34:43asked a few guests,
34:44>> but um I have this big problem lately,
34:48which is I think that
34:50>> I know that humans got a lot more
34:51prefrontal cortex real estate, the area
34:54that lets us strategy set, understand
34:56context, integrate, imagine. Great. But
34:59I worry that it's that we have enough of
35:01it that we perhaps have tricked
35:03ourselves into over um investing in our
35:08own importance and our and actually the
35:12whole
35:13meaning and of being here and and here's
35:16where it gets to the microbiome. I'll
35:17try and make this very quick. Justin
35:19Sonnenberg, my colleague who you know at
35:22Stanford working on the microbiome
35:24scared
35:25>> I want to say the out of me but
35:26then pun no pun intended
35:28>> when he said you know these microbiota
35:30that live in all of us and create these
35:31critical chemicals for brain health and
35:34it can impact our behavior whether or
35:35not we feel sick or more energetic more
35:38outgoing I mean there's this incredible
35:40array of ways they influence us
35:42>> he said when we shake hands like we did
35:44today the second time in our lives or
35:47when we um you know if we kiss our
35:50romantic partner or if we um you know
35:52exchange a bill or a credit card swipe
35:55or something at with microbiome is
35:57proliferating and moving and I get
36:00really worked up lately in my own head
36:01about the possibility that all this
36:03stuff like trying to go to Mars um
36:05trying to uh navigate the political
36:09barbed wire that is the United States
36:11and the world right now wars all of it I
36:15worry that all of it is just the damn
36:18and microbiota trying us to trying to
36:20get us to interact with as many other
36:22people as possible and they aren't
36:25sitting there chuckling um cackling
36:28thinking about how we are losing out uh
36:31and suffering or feeling great while we
36:34do this but I just worry that perhaps
36:36Sonnenberg's theory is right which is
36:39we're literally just vehicles and that
36:44>> keeps me up at night I confess it does
36:46>> really
36:46>> but it also keeps me up at night because
36:49I can only have that thought, that
36:51concern because of this excessive
36:53prefrontal cortex real estate.
36:54Otherwise, I would just be busy trying
36:56to get my food and nourishment
36:58proliferate and so on. So, that's two.
37:00So, it sort of bookends the two sort of
37:03levels of quote unquote sophistication
37:04like higher order brain function in
37:07humans, building technologies,
37:08creativity, symphonies, spaceships,
37:13poetry, and on and on. We think it's so
37:15important and it is,
37:16>> but whatever we're diluting ourselves,
37:18it's all just about
37:21>> getting the these microbiota getting us
37:24to get them where they want to go.
37:25>> You know, they've been around a lot
37:26longer than we have, right? I mean, we
37:28evolved in a world dominated by bacteria
37:32and other microbes. And um so from their
37:36perspective, I think it's a perspectival
37:38question, but from their perspective,
37:40this animal comes along that offers
37:43certain advantages like can go all over
37:47the world um and maybe to outer space if
37:50they want to go there. I don't think
37:52they'll do very well there. But so
37:53there's a sense in which it's true, but
37:56it's also true that we're calling the
37:58shots in some ways from our perspective.
38:00But it but we should realize I mean
38:02that's the subtitle of botney desire was
38:04a plant's eye view of the world and
38:07there is a perspective and it's just as
38:09legitimate um in which we are dupes
38:14[laughter] of these bacteria and that
38:17yes they want us to shake hands. They
38:19want us to do all sorts of things
38:20because that this extends their their
38:22range and they want us to be sociable
38:24too. you know, if we were all, you know,
38:27kind of shy and introverted, it would
38:29not serve their purposes. And they are
38:31influencing our moods. So, it is kind of
38:33creepy in a way, but it's also kind of
38:36beautiful that, you know, we don't, you
38:38know, that that life is using us and and
38:41um uh that we are a collective being
38:44too. I mean we are we are a super
38:47organism you know and we have we have
38:50you know more genes more bacterial genes
38:53in our body than we have human genes and
38:56we need those genes that's the other
38:57thing I mean the other story about it is
39:00you could also argue that we are
39:03manipulating them in that we have
39:06outsourced the and Justin's done really
39:09good work on this u we have outsourced
39:12the making of all sorts of metabolites
39:14bacterial metabolites, chemicals we
39:16need. Um, glutamate, GABA, serotonin,
39:21um, I mean, they're making and and then
39:23all these short- chain fatty acids that
39:25are a fuel for our brain, but also are
39:28um, calming our moods, you know,
39:30reducing our anxiety.
39:33So, instead of learning how to make
39:35those chemicals ourselves, we kind of
39:37ingeniously figured out that we could
39:39host these bacteria and they would make
39:41them for us. So, we're manipulating them
39:43at the same time they're manipulating
39:44us. I think it's a two-way street.
39:46>> Okay, that's a fair touch.
39:47>> Hope that helps you sleep.
39:49>> Yeah. Well, yes. I maybe if we don't
39:51make it to Mars, it will be because it
39:53will be because
39:54>> they don't want to go.
39:55>> They get they get up there and they make
39:56people very sick and they die and they
39:59and it So, in that sense, um maybe it
40:02better or worse for everyone. Who knows?
40:03I I don't have any theories about how
40:05this should all go.
40:06>> See, space food is very bad for
40:08bacteria, right? It's it's incredibly
40:10sanitary. It's it talk about
40:12ultrarocessed food. This, you know, the
40:14kind of stuff they bring on on
40:15intergalactic travel is going to be
40:17really bad for the bacteria.
40:19>> Yeah. So, if we don't make it, it's
40:21bacteria know that they don't want to
40:24make it there. Not good for them.
40:25>> They know it's they know Mars is a
40:28shitty habitat.
40:28>> Exactly. I'm only half kidding about
40:31this one and I'm going to try and steer
40:32off it so that I don't, you know, spiral
40:34into the the concern about it because
40:36it's not really a concern. I think that
40:39it gets to another layer perhaps of this
40:42consciousness question which is about
40:44meaning. You know, part of the function
40:46of the prefrontal cortex is that we can
40:48assign meaning to things,
40:50>> right? Like we both like Wendelberry,
40:52>> you know him better than I do, but we
40:54both have feelings associated with
40:55memories. I I can go as deep into this
40:58as as I'll allow myself to. Like I like
41:02the feeling of the paper like is
41:03different for a Wendel Berry poem only
41:05because that was my experience. So I can
41:07place all this meaning on top of things
41:09and that's related to memory and so on.
41:11And
41:12>> we don't know that other species do
41:14that, right? Um I like to think dogs and
41:17cats and apes do that.
41:19>> Elephants perhaps.
41:21>> Yeah. Um we know self versus other.
41:24Yeah, I mean I I try and break it down
41:26to that because I saw this um one of
41:28these beautiful nature documentaries
41:30where they were essentially talking
41:31about these male lions fighting and you
41:33know their hypothalamus looks a lot like
41:35ours and we know the structure
41:36ventromedial hypothalamus a subset of
41:38neurons there if you know mice have
41:41them, we have them, they have them and
41:42these two male lions are basically
41:44trying to kill each other. But then
41:46there's another scene where one is
41:48getting attacked by hyenas and all of a
41:50sudden a different switch gets flipped
41:51where the lion who was just arguably
41:55should let the other one die understands
41:58this us them thing and goes and
42:00essentially fights them off and and it's
42:02very dramatic and the hyenas are the
42:04hyenas are trying to castrate the lions.
42:06It's like a It's as brutal as nature
42:08gets in that moment, but also as
42:10beautiful as it gets because it
42:12illustrates that two members of the same
42:14species that are trying to kill each
42:15other when one is under threat, all of a
42:17sudden the contingency changes. Yeah.
42:20>> So they have enough prefrontal cortex to
42:21take the same circuitry. It's still
42:23aggression and now directed in a new
42:25>> but they redefine the us, right? The the
42:28eye is now plural.
42:30>> Yeah. So it's dynamic. And the reason
42:31I'm asking this, I'd love your thoughts
42:33on this,
42:34>> but I'm seing a question about
42:36collective consciousness. And and so
42:39this us thing within and across species
42:42to me feels like a a critical gate for
42:46for getting closer to understanding what
42:48is consciousness, at least for me. Maybe
42:49I'm too simplistic about it. I mean, I
42:52guess I'd attack it from another
42:53direction, which is, you know, you've
42:55been talking about the cortex and yeah,
42:58the cortex is very cool and we have a
43:00lot of that real estate and that's sort
43:01of what sets us apart and for a long
43:03time it was believed that consciousness
43:06surely as this advanced human
43:09achievement because remember we didn't
43:11think anybody else was conscious for
43:13hundreds of years, right? Since Decart,
43:15we had a monopoly on consciousness. It's
43:17only I think in 1970 the first
43:20experiment mirror test uh on a on a
43:23chimp and we started thinking oh these
43:26primates are conscious also. I mean we
43:29that's a fairly recent that's 50 years
43:31ago 55 years ago.
43:33>> It was assumed that consciousness was a
43:35cortical phenomenon.
43:37There is another line of research though
43:39that I've been that I was persuaded by
43:42um starting with Antonio Damasio in the
43:45'9s and going through Mark SS more
43:48recently uh he's a South African
43:51psychiatrist and neuroscientist
43:53who's a kind of protege of Damasios uh
43:57suggesting that actually consciousness
43:58doesn't begin with thought in the cortex
44:00but with feeling in the brain stem or
44:03feelings registered in the brain stem
44:05and the reason we have consciousness
44:06according to this theory is um because
44:10there are these homeostatic set points
44:13and and that the well back up a little
44:15the brain exists to keep the body alive.
44:17We forget that we often think the body
44:19you because we love the brain. You know,
44:21we're cerebrocentric in so many ways and
44:24the body has to communicate with the the
44:26brain and it does it through feelings
44:29like hunger and warmth or cold and itch
44:32and and all these kind of what they call
44:34homeostatic feelings that register in
44:38the upper brain stem and the cortex only
44:41gets involved afterward. So you register
44:43this sensation of hunger and then the
44:46cortex helps you visualize a meal or
44:49where you might get food or how you
44:50might get or how to book a table in a
44:52restaurant whatever it is that changes
44:54things in in many ways. If indeed this
44:57is true and feelings
45:01have to be felt, right? I mean, a
45:04feeling implies consciousness. It
45:07doesn't solve the hard problem or
45:08anything. I think feelings have a
45:10different status than thoughts do. I
45:12think they're sematic. I think that
45:14they're reinforced by just having a
45:16body. And if that's true, then first of
45:20all, lots more animals are conscious,
45:22right? I mean, everybody's got a brain
45:24stem. Not everybody, but a whole lot of
45:26species have brain stems, whereas cortex
45:29is kind of more exclusive club
45:31>> and um uh I found that a very uh
45:35persuasive way to think about
45:37consciousness and that it starts with uh
45:40feelings in the body and a lot of what
45:42the brain is doing is interpreting those
45:44feelings because they're inco. They're
45:46just signals, right? William James wrote
45:48about this. He said, you know, first
45:50there's the the spike in heart rate and
45:53then there's and then the brain says
45:55fear
45:56>> and so there's this communication going
45:58and and the cortex might get involved in
46:00that process. But pain, for example, is
46:02a conscious phenomenon that doesn't
46:05require a cortex. Their evidence for
46:07this is people who have no cortex,
46:10right? U some children are born without
46:13one. They've decorticated animals and
46:16they find they still have even though
46:18they can't report emotion they have
46:20evidence of, you know, based on
46:22expressions and behaviors that they're
46:24that they're having conscious
46:26experience. So for me that changed the
46:28whole way of thinking about it. You
46:30know, this remains to be proven in
46:32various ways and it doesn't solve this
46:34issue of okay, well, how does a feeling
46:36come to be felt and who's feeling it?
46:38What's the is there a self that's
46:39feeling it? And I find Damasio not
46:43satisfying on that question. He he'll he
46:45he'll say well um and in his new book he
46:48says this that feelings are
46:50spontaneously conscious and that's
46:53that's an an it's not really a
46:55satisfactory answer.
46:56>> It's hard to wrap my head around that
46:58answer.
46:58>> Spontaneous is doing a lot of work
46:59there.
47:00>> Yeah. Yeah. No discredit to him. He's
47:03done amazing work. Yeah. No, no, I'm not
47:05saying you are, but just I think
47:06>> he's directed the whole field to the
47:08importance of feelings and and that's
47:10produced really important work and and
47:12emotion science and and things like
47:14that. Yeah. You know, he's a real
47:15pioneer.
47:16>> I'd like to take a quick break and
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48:34I feel like the one of the challenges of
48:37being human is that people experience
48:40the world differently enough. It seems
48:43uh right at the level of emotions. Let's
48:45just use that as an example. Some people
48:48I've actually seen this in comments on
48:50Instagram, so it has to be true, right?
48:52Um, no, but somebody once said [snorts]
48:53in in a comments and it really stuck
48:55with me, you know, that they think in
48:56feels. And I thought, this sounds like a
48:58bunch of woo stuff. But I thought maybe
49:01some people really do experience things
49:04more sematically. Okay, check that box.
49:06I totally accept that.
49:08>> And maybe the language labels of emotion
49:11for one person are more crude than for
49:13another. Lisa Feldman Barrett verified
49:15that in cultures where there are many
49:17many different
49:18>> words for types of sadness. I think that
49:20she told me that the that in Japan
49:22there's a specific word for the type of
49:24sadness that you experience when you got
49:26a bad haircut. [laughter]
49:28>> I love it.
49:28>> Amazing. Which also helps people avoid
49:32global statements like I'm feeling
49:34depressed when in fact they're feeling
49:35low. And when they say they're depressed
49:38in certain cultures it really means they
49:40are depressed. So nuance is is very
49:42important but that's coming top down
49:44through language
49:44>> and that's how culture interacts with
49:46biology right I mean you know there
49:48different ways to interpret the same
49:49sensations. I think we learn this with
49:52uh you know when you have kids when
49:54they're when they melt down
49:57they don't know if they're hungry or
49:58tired and the parent has to teach them
50:01you know you you need to eat.
50:04Yeah. And we see this with kids. They're
50:06getting the signals, but they don't have
50:08the mental equipment, the cortical
50:10equipment to interpret what's going on.
50:13>> And so then the question is, are the
50:14signals from the body crude or refined?
50:17I'm I'm not denying their importance.
50:19They're critically important. But we
50:21can't really look to the nerve networks
50:23and say, okay, the brain is
50:24sophisticated and the and the neural
50:26intervation to and from the body is um
50:30not sophisticated. I mean, it's as
50:32precise and as the other. So the problem
50:36seems to be that we don't have language
50:38for it. So like if I'm feeling
50:41wholeheartedly
50:43full of joy, that's an easy one. If I'm
50:46feeling happy, I mean I can I can change
50:48my language, my expression, etc. But
50:51where I would I think neuroscience
50:53really needs some help and I think
50:55you're helping the the conversation
50:56which will inform experiments is how is
50:59it that the body is communicating with
51:01the brain in ways that get us away from
51:04language labels because language labels
51:06are we created those.
51:08>> Yeah.
51:08>> Right. This is very important. I think
51:11like we made that up. Grunts um you know
51:14uh exhales around putrid smells and
51:16inhales around pleasant smells. That's
51:18that's the those are the core components
51:20of of language. I mean words are just
51:22shaped exhales after all, right? Which
51:24is amazing. Uh by the way, I didn't come
51:26up with that statement. Uh Eddie Chang,
51:28chair of neurosurgery at UCSF,
51:30>> who studies speech and language is my
51:32childhood friend. He said, you know, he
51:34said it like like Eddie, you know, he's
51:35very calm, you know, he's a
51:37neurosurgeon. He said, you know, all
51:39speech is just shaped exhales. And I was
51:42like, oh my goodness, amazing. When you
51:44just think it's so wild, but then we
51:46come up with many shaped
51:48>> what we what we've done with it.
51:49>> I know. It's incredible. It's
51:50incredible. And yet we don't know the
51:53language of the body.
51:56>> Movement. Yes. But so this is where I
51:58feel like the consciousness problem is
52:00perhaps a little stuck.
52:01>> Yeah, I think you're right.
52:03>> Like and pain is one example. Pleasure
52:05is another. But at the extremes it's
52:06easy. But in day-to-day
52:09experience outside of those extremes,
52:11it's it's very hard to like what's going
52:14on right now. I don't know. I mean, my
52:16body isn't in pain, but it's I'm not in
52:19rapture either.
52:20>> But your you know, your vag nerve, which
52:22connects the visceral organs to your to
52:24your brain, is um sending this stream of
52:27information. I think 80% of the traffic
52:30is going from body to brain, not the
52:32other way around.
52:33>> Point the neuroscientist. I teach neuro
52:34anatomy. You're you're right. It's 80.
52:36So incredible. Yeah, the descending
52:38projection is about 15 20. Nobody knows
52:40for sure. So you're bang on. So and most
52:42people when they talk about the
52:43neuroscience, they get some things
52:44right. You're bang on. So I just want to
52:46be clear to you like you're exact on
52:48every neuroscience point you've made.
52:49You're exactly right.
52:50>> Thank you. That means a lot coming from
52:52you. Um so what do those signals look
52:55like? I mean how raw are they? I mean um
52:59and uh you know
53:03stress hormones released you know
53:05through inflammation you know change
53:07mood get get to the brain right um I
53:10forget which ones they are and then
53:13suddenly make us feel threatened the
53:16path I think it's really complicated I
53:18you know I think there's some very
53:19precise information reaching the brain
53:22but I also think
53:24>> it needs a brain to interpret it
53:26>> c can we talk about the time scale of
53:28all this because so it's pretty
53:30straightforward to think about us them
53:33um
53:35body versus mind and I'm wondering
53:38whether the body is communicating with
53:40the brain at a time scale that we that
53:44doesn't match to language for instance
53:46maybe how I feel right now and how you
53:48feel right now actually reflects the
53:50integration of everything that happened
53:53over the last 10 hours for you and So
53:57how how your brain is operating right
53:59now reflects that. Like when we when I
54:01think of brain um body communication, I
54:05immediately want to default to like the
54:06now. What's my body feeling now? How
54:08does it impact my brain? But maybe the
54:10signals
54:11>> are of long time scales. Maybe they
54:14integrate across my spleen, my stomach,
54:16and my heart
54:18>> and then my, you know, my liver and my
54:20pancreas are sending another message.
54:22Like we don't know any of this.
54:23>> No, I know. And I it excites me as you
54:26you can probably tell because
54:28I feel like there in lie the answers to
54:31like being able to parse this experience
54:33of life consciousness thing.
54:35>> I'm really struck by the fact that you
54:37know we we we locate our seed of feeling
54:40and emotion in our heads most of us most
54:42of the time. But if you go back in
54:44history, they talked as much about the
54:47spleen and they the liver and the heart
54:50and that emotions they they understood
54:53something about emotions was coming from
54:54the body. My favorite example is uh an
54:58experiment was was done on moral
55:00judgment and disgust moral disgust. They
55:03had two groups of people. One they gave
55:06they each were given a pill, one got a
55:08placebo, one got ginger, powdered
55:10ginger. They then uh exposed people to
55:16um really morally repellent scenarios in
55:20writing about incest and and um uh just
55:24really disgusting um uh scenarios,
55:27eating one's dog, things like that.
55:30>> And um the people who had taken the
55:33ginger were less judgmental
55:37because their stomachs were calmed.
55:39Ginger calms the stomach. And so the
55:43emotion of moral disgust is somehow we
55:46are passing it through. We're doing a
55:48gut check on it. We're passing it
55:49through our digestive organs somehow.
55:53And that you can manipulate with
55:56something as simple as ginger, people's
55:59moral judgment. So that that says to me
56:02this whole system is a lot more
56:04integrated than I think we even realize.
56:06And that the more I learn about this,
56:09the the whole idea of separating mind
56:12and body, you know, brain and body is is
56:15taking us down the wrong way. That that
56:18these things are inextricably bound up
56:20in ways that are just too complex for us
56:22to get. I mean, that's an obvious, you
56:24know, that's a pretty obvious case
56:25because disgust is both a moral and a
56:29physical um sensation or feeling, but I
56:33bet it applies to other things as well.
56:35It's a disgusting but uh yeah, pun
56:37intended but um elegant example of how
56:40this can work.
56:41>> Well, it's kind of brilliant as you know
56:43someone thinking up an experiment. I was
56:45like, "Oh, what a good idea."
56:46>> Yeah, good experiment. I like
56:48experiments that bridge this kind of
56:50higher order like like moral disgust,
56:52you know, is a cortical thing we assume.
56:54Although
56:55>> it clearly involves um you know, other
56:58circuitries. It makes sense. Ginger
57:00calms calms the gut. too. Um, and I know
57:03if I have some minor pain like a like a
57:05back strain or something, I'm much less
57:07patient.
57:07>> Yeah.
57:08>> I, um, I look at the world differently.
57:10Um, and I think we all become more, um,
57:14self-centric
57:15>> when we're in pain, when we feel good.
57:17It's easier to allocate resources to
57:20what's out there. Maybe that takes us a
57:22little bit to psychedelics um, and
57:24collective consciousness. You know, one
57:26of the things that I'm um excited by uh
57:29is that I'm old enough now to have heard
57:32about the counterculture of the 60s,
57:35>> grown up in its wake, um experienced
57:37this health, wellness, public education
57:40thing that I do, touched into science
57:42and and living in California, you know,
57:45I've spent some a little bit of time at
57:47read read some books and getting to know
57:49folks across these generations and a lot
57:52of themes repeat themselves. And one of
57:55the themes that I think we need to
57:56overcome is the lack of adequate
57:58language or dismissing language that can
58:01act as a barrier rather than a conduit
58:04for for understanding. So for instance,
58:06the words collective consciousness
58:09years ago were about like one love.
58:11>> Yeah.
58:11>> Right. And that didn't work um in terms
58:14of convincing people to live in peace
58:16with all other humans and animals
58:18clearly. Sadly. So that doesn't mean
58:21collective consciousness isn't worth
58:23thinking about. But just like we say,
58:25you know, breath work is too broad a
58:27term and um any I don't like anything
58:30that's so that lumps so much that you
58:33lose critical um critical information.
58:37So if I say collective consciousness, I
58:39want to be clear. I'm not talking about
58:41one love. Although that's a great goal.
58:43Wicked peace on earth would be nice. I
58:45don't I don't know that I'm going to see
58:46it in my lifetime. I'm
58:48>> getting frustrated. Probably not, but
58:50I'll hold out hope.
58:51>> We're going the wrong way.
58:53>> It's it's it's tough. It's it's it's
58:55tough. I I have to say it's um uh too
58:58many repeating themes of the sort that I
59:01wouldn't like to see um are are visible.
59:04But
59:04>> so, how do you define collective
59:06consciousness?
59:06>> Well, I've heard the term,
59:08>> right? And when I think about it, I've
59:09not been to Burning Man, but I think
59:11about people who are trying to set aside
59:14miism.
59:16>> Yeah.
59:17in day-to-day interactions so that
59:19everybody wins. It's this notion of
59:21everybody wins,
59:22>> right?
59:22>> And then I kind of try and pressure test
59:25that a little bit and say, is there a
59:28version of collective consciousness
59:30everybody wins that's based on truth
59:32>> that's not based on lies? I think that's
59:34where it failed because people are
59:37people and there are bad humans, there
59:40are good humans, but it's a continuum
59:43and people are fundamentally
59:46self-interested until they're okay and
59:47then they can take care of others. I
59:49think that's true of essentially all
59:50humans.
59:51>> How can we get to a collective
59:53consciousness embracing the idea that
59:55I'm me, you're you, we could work
59:57together, but we have to also
59:58acknowledge the truth that you have
1:00:00self-interest and I have self-interest.
1:00:02And that's where I feel like if there's
1:00:03if there's hope, it's about acknowledge.
1:00:05Like we can't ourselves into
1:00:07thinking one love. We can't all take LSD
1:00:09and expect to get there. In fact, I
1:00:10think that would make things worse.
1:00:12Maybe, maybe better. Who knows? But it's
1:00:14not going to solve the problem. So, I'm
1:00:16throwing out a huge can of worms here,
1:00:18but how do you think about this
1:00:20collective consciousness thing? How
1:00:22perhaps should it be redefined? Is it
1:00:24about living in peace and harmony as a
1:00:28species with other species? Is that what
1:00:29it's really about? Um because I think
1:00:31anyone that takes psychedelics or who
1:00:33has a positive hope for humanity
1:00:36or both wants that.
1:00:38>> Yeah. So that's been the dream of
1:00:42psychedelics for a long time. Um that
1:00:45they would diminish the ego
1:00:49um and uh contribute to sort of
1:00:52pro-social feeling, a a sense of
1:00:54connection. um we're more alike than
1:00:56we're different. [snorts]
1:00:59You know, it doesn't always work. Um we
1:01:03have cases of ego dissolution and we
1:01:06have cases of ego inflation
1:01:07>> with with psychedelics.
1:01:08>> With psychedelics, some people
1:01:10>> Can you talk more about that? Yeah.
1:01:11>> Yeah. So,
1:01:13a very common uh phenomenon on on
1:01:16highdose psychedelics is the sense of
1:01:18losing a sense of self. Um I mentioned
1:01:20earlier that you can be conscious
1:01:22without a sense of self. And I've had
1:01:24that experience. I describe it in in two
1:01:27of my books um of highdose psilocybin.
1:01:32I suddenly saw myself
1:01:35um explode into this cloud of blue
1:01:37post-it notes that then fluttered to the
1:01:39ground and coalesed in this pool of blue
1:01:42paint. Beautiful. It was. And it was
1:01:45like that sounds scary. But in fact, it
1:01:48was like yes, I'm blue paint. That's
1:01:51what I am. And I was observing this
1:01:54though from this new perspective that
1:01:56wasn't me. It was completely objective,
1:01:58total equinimity.
1:02:00And when that happens and the ego is
1:02:05laid aside, there's no walls. The ego is
1:02:08a defensive structure. Um the self is a
1:02:10defense, right? It's it's as we were
1:02:12talking about us and them or me and me
1:02:14and them. You merge with something
1:02:17larger um because there's nothing to
1:02:20stand in the way. And some people merge
1:02:22with the divinity or the universe or or
1:02:25love or other people. In my case, it was
1:02:27a piece of music that the guide was
1:02:29playing this Bach uh cello unaccompanied
1:02:33cello suite. And I became this piece of
1:02:35music and it was the most beautiful
1:02:37experience of music I'd ever had. There
1:02:39was no subject object distinction. I was
1:02:42it. I wasn't listening to it. I was it.
1:02:45This is something that pushes you toward
1:02:47getting over ego consciousness which is
1:02:49at the root of a lot of the you know
1:02:51discord that we feel in the world.
1:02:54Obviously it's not a permanent state
1:02:55anyone can be in. But the the legacy of
1:02:59that experience is I am less I feel I
1:03:04have more perspective on my ego. I know
1:03:06when he's up to his old tricks, you
1:03:09know, when he's being too critical or
1:03:11aggressive or too self-interested, and I
1:03:13say, "Oh, that's my ego." And that's
1:03:15just one voice, and there are other
1:03:17voices I can listen to. And so, I think
1:03:19there's a value in having an experience
1:03:21of ego dissolution. Now, I hasten to say
1:03:24there are other ways to get there. Um,
1:03:26uh, meditators get there, too. Um, it's
1:03:29more work, but you can get there through
1:03:30meditation and transcend your sense of
1:03:32ego. uh experiences of awe which you can
1:03:36get from many different ways diminish
1:03:38your sense of ego in a way that I think
1:03:40is very pro-social. Um Derk Kelner who's
1:03:43a colleague of mine at at Berkeley does
1:03:45did this really he studies all he wrote
1:03:47a wonderful book on awe he did this cool
1:03:49experiment where he asked people to draw
1:03:52a picture of themselves just a stick
1:03:54figure on a piece of graph paper and
1:03:56then he gave them an experience of awe.
1:03:58He took them river rafting or something
1:04:00like that and then he had them do it
1:04:01again and they would they would draw a
1:04:03picture of themselves at like a third of
1:04:05the size um because their sense of self
1:04:08had been diminished in a very positive
1:04:10way. It felt very very good. We have
1:04:12such complicated paradoxical feelings
1:04:14about the ego and the self. We celebrate
1:04:17it in our society. We want our kids to
1:04:20have self um confidence and self
1:04:23asssurance and um and we worship self.
1:04:26But we also find that some of our
1:04:29happiest experiences are when we escape
1:04:32self, right? I mean it happens in sex.
1:04:35It happens experiences of awe, religious
1:04:38experience. It happens to people in
1:04:40church and synagogue all the time. So
1:04:42where are we on this? And that's why I
1:04:44don't think it's so simple to say that
1:04:46there's a collective consciousness. I
1:04:48think we toggle back and forth of
1:04:50getting trapped in self and and and of
1:04:52course self is really important having a
1:04:54sense of self. You wouldn't spend six
1:04:56years writing a book if you didn't know
1:04:59you were going to be the same person at
1:05:00the end of the six years and it would
1:05:02benefit you to have finished it. So we
1:05:04need that sense of self to get things
1:05:06done but it's also a trap and it
1:05:08distances us from people and makes us
1:05:10selfish and and uh so I I just don't
1:05:12think it's simple. There's another idea
1:05:14of collective consciousness of course
1:05:15that consciousness is a field exists
1:05:17outside us and we're we all take part in
1:05:20it. I came out of this experience of
1:05:24studying consciousness and looking at
1:05:26all the theories of consciousness. I
1:05:28don't want to give it away but we have
1:05:30no idea about consciousness
1:05:32really how it's how how brain matter
1:05:34generates consciousness if indeed that's
1:05:36how it happens. And there are people who
1:05:39doubt that's how it happens. It could be
1:05:41that the brain channels consciousness,
1:05:43right? I mean, that if you conceive of
1:05:46consciousness as like electromagnetic
1:05:48waves,
1:05:49>> um, brains are like radio receivers or
1:05:51TV receivers. You wouldn't you wouldn't
1:05:53look in the TV set for the woman who
1:05:56gave you the weather report. You know,
1:05:58she's not there. She's somewhere else.
1:06:00>> So, I don't know that that's true. But
1:06:04coming out of this experience of
1:06:06studying this, I don't dismiss an idea
1:06:09like that. I don't dismiss pansychism
1:06:11too. The idea that the particles in this
1:06:14table have some ity little bit of
1:06:16consciousness that somehow gets combined
1:06:18in conscious beings like us. You have to
1:06:21keep an open mind because our
1:06:23presumption that you know consciousness
1:06:26is an emergent property of brain
1:06:28complexity that idea is not it doesn't
1:06:31have much traction. So, so anyway, so
1:06:36maybe there is a field of consciousness
1:06:37that we we tune into. How do we prove
1:06:40it? You know, I mean, we were talking
1:06:42earlier about Kristoff Ko, who's a
1:06:43scientist we both greatly admire, and he
1:06:46was a a real physicalist, a materialist
1:06:49scientist who believed that it was all
1:06:51about the brains and uh and he was head
1:06:53of Allen Brain Institute for many years.
1:06:56He had a experience on Iawaska that he
1:06:59shared publicly. I'm not speaking out of
1:07:01school where he was absolutely convinced
1:07:05and remains convinced that um
1:07:07consciousness exists outside of brains.
1:07:10That's extraordinary for somebody of his
1:07:12experience to have come to that
1:07:14conclusion. And he and it's unshakable.
1:07:16>> I haven't had that experience. I'm not
1:07:18convinced of that the way he is, but um
1:07:21but I respect people who hold that idea
1:07:24now much more than I once did. I'm going
1:07:28to summarize something you said to make
1:07:30sure I I got it right, which is that you
1:07:32had a psychedelic experience. Many
1:07:34people who take psych psychedelics, not
1:07:36all, but many have an ego dissolution
1:07:39experience. It's um very tangible and
1:07:43rich inside of the psychedelic journey.
1:07:45There's an export to after the journey,
1:07:48but it doesn't fundamentally change your
1:07:50relationship to self at every moment in
1:07:52your waking life. No,
1:07:53>> I think that's important for people to
1:07:54hear because I think a lot of people
1:07:56think about people who take a lot of
1:07:57psychedelics and sort of fundamentally
1:07:59change. They can't go back to their
1:08:01prior self. So it allows it's a portal
1:08:02that you can go back into consciously.
1:08:05It's an awareness. Do I have that right?
1:08:07Okay.
1:08:07>> Yeah, that's exactly right. I um uh I
1:08:10just have a slightly different
1:08:11understanding of my ego. It's not like
1:08:12it's gone away.
1:08:13>> It's [clears throat] there when I need
1:08:14it.
1:08:14>> And then the other piece about
1:08:16consciousness inside versus outside, I
1:08:18think maybe it will be helpful for
1:08:20people. Certainly it is for me to think
1:08:21about um brains and inside outside stuff
1:08:24this way pit vipers can sense heat
1:08:26emissions we can't honeybees can see UV
1:08:29light we can't we experience all of life
1:08:32through a pretty narrow set of filters I
1:08:35think when people hear the
1:08:36electromagnetic energies in the world it
1:08:38sounds woo to some but it's anything but
1:08:40it's simply just for clarity uh sake
1:08:44certain wavelengths of light certain
1:08:46sound waves that we can detect
1:08:47mechanical touch chemical sensing combin
1:08:50bind to our experience. We're
1:08:51abstracting
1:08:53our visual image of each other sitting
1:08:55across this table. There's no
1:08:56>> and it's limited by our senses.
1:08:57>> That's right. I can only bring in what I
1:08:59can bring in. A different animal or even
1:09:01person would detect you differently. But
1:09:03the the whole idea is that I'm I'm
1:09:06putting all that together into an
1:09:07abstraction of Michael Pollen sitting
1:09:09here doing a podcast with me. So if in
1:09:12one model consciousness is an
1:09:14abstraction that's created within our
1:09:16brains. We combine electromagnetic
1:09:18energies whatever other faculties our
1:09:19neurons can um contribute to those
1:09:22meaning understanding combining with
1:09:25with whatever gut whatever and we create
1:09:28this consciousness experience. But
1:09:31you're saying there's another model
1:09:33where there's an energy out in outside
1:09:37of us that somehow we're detecting that
1:09:40is already a consciousness. And so it's
1:09:44we're not we're not abstracting it in
1:09:46our minds. It's literally entering
1:09:49through presumably our senses.
1:09:52>> Maybe there's an additional sense we're
1:09:53not even aware of and we're experiencing
1:09:57it, but it's literally out there. I
1:10:00don't experience you as a bunch of
1:10:01photons. I experience you as a human.
1:10:03Right?
1:10:04>> So I'm either putting it together inside
1:10:06or it's put together outside and gets um
1:10:09and gets recapitulated.
1:10:11>> These are called filter theories of
1:10:13consciousness and the implication of
1:10:15them. uh Henri Bericson the French
1:10:17philosopher was a exponent of this and
1:10:19Aldis Huxley um uh believed this and
1:10:24talked about it in doors of perception
1:10:25that he had h had some access to this
1:10:28field and and and for him it was
1:10:30psychedelics. It was a masculine
1:10:32experience that convinced him of this
1:10:34and the idea was that there's more
1:10:37consciousness out there than we can
1:10:39handle
1:10:40>> and that [clears throat] um there is a
1:10:42filter or what what Huxley called a
1:10:45reducing valve and it basically admits
1:10:48the what he called the measly trickle of
1:10:51consciousness we need to survive. God,
1:10:53that's brilliant because if we took in
1:10:55all the
1:10:55>> we would be overwhelmed
1:10:56>> all the wavelengths of light for
1:10:57instance, we wouldn't be able to see I'd
1:11:00be overwhelmed with whatever that would
1:11:02look like or feel like. I I can't use
1:11:05that.
1:11:05>> No, our senses are limiting. Uh they're
1:11:08not they're not as expansive as they
1:11:09might be. And and your example, the bees
1:11:11are right. There's all these spectrums
1:11:13of light we can't see. It's also worth
1:11:15remembering that it's it was only like
1:11:17what 120 or 150 years ago that we
1:11:20learned there was an electromagnetic
1:11:22field that you know that you could
1:11:24actually use to convey information and
1:11:26it's invisible. I mean that's pretty
1:11:27heady stuff right there. So their
1:11:30thinking is well there might be another
1:11:32field and didn't we just learn about
1:11:34this other um body system? There's lymph
1:11:37and blood and there's a third one. What
1:11:39is it called?
1:11:40>> There's like the sensitium thing. Yes,
1:11:42>> it's like a thin sheet that runs through
1:11:44the body that acupuncturists seem to
1:11:45have known about for a very long time.
1:11:47Um, acupuncture is getting tremendous
1:11:49validation from the rigorous science
1:11:51now.
1:11:52>> Yeah, the acupuncturists are all like,
1:11:54"Yeah, we were telling you about this."
1:11:55>> Yeah, certain sites can increase or
1:11:57decrease inflammation. Uh, Chufuma's lab
1:12:00at Harvard Med is doing beautiful work
1:12:01on this.
1:12:02>> It's fascinating. So, so we shouldn't
1:12:04limit ourselves. I mean it the idea
1:12:06we've discovered all there is to
1:12:07discover in terms of fields and
1:12:09consciousness it may look very
1:12:11different. So I was talking to Allison
1:12:13Gobnik who's another colleague in
1:12:15psychology at Berkeley and you know she
1:12:18was saying well you know [snorts]
1:12:20the hard problem we may decide that
1:12:22consciousness is not one thing and maybe
1:12:25that's our mistake and we did that with
1:12:27the vital exp that was going to the one
1:12:31thing that was going to explain life and
1:12:32flowist I forget what that was going to
1:12:35explain but energy or fire or something
1:12:37like that. So we tend when we have a
1:12:39mystery we tend to make it singular and
1:12:44sometimes the answer is breaking it up
1:12:47into parts
1:12:48>> and so maybe there's ego self and that's
1:12:53something and then maybe there's emotion
1:12:56and maybe self-reflection is something
1:12:59else entirely. I mean, I've thought
1:13:00about this with regard to AI. As we get
1:13:04these AIs, these chat bots that seem
1:13:07more and more uh to have a sense of
1:13:09self, say, you know, we call them agents
1:13:12because they act on their own interest.
1:13:15And so maybe it's possible to have an
1:13:18ego without being conscious because I
1:13:20don't think they're conscious. I don't
1:13:21know. We may be taking apart this idea
1:13:24at some point and maybe that'll help us
1:13:26to understand it.
1:13:28I'd like to take a quick break and
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1:15:06>> It's a super intriguing idea. I I
1:15:08sometimes wonder if AI will tell us what
1:15:11consciousness is in a way that we aren't
1:15:13able to solve. And some people might
1:15:16say, well, that's just very, you know,
1:15:17pro AI. But I mean, humans have been
1:15:20putting their heads together around
1:15:22these sets of problems for a long while.
1:15:24I do think we're at a new vista now.
1:15:25>> No, we're stuck. We're absolutely stuck.
1:15:27And the effort to make a conscious AI,
1:15:29which is underway. I mean there are
1:15:31there are individuals and some companies
1:15:33who are trying to make it conscious not
1:15:35just intelligent and those are not the
1:15:37same things. If they fail or succeed
1:15:40they're going to teach us important
1:15:41things about consciousness. For example,
1:15:43if it truly is about feelings and that's
1:15:46where consciousness originates feelings
1:15:49depend on having a body, a vulnerable
1:15:51body and possibly on our mortality.
1:15:55Are computers going to have feelings? I
1:15:58don't think so. And I think a computer
1:16:00simulation of a feeling is very
1:16:02different than a simulation of a thought
1:16:03which is as good as a real thought. You
1:16:05know, it can play chess or go or
1:16:07whatever.
1:16:08>> So if they succeed in making
1:16:12conscious AI, it'll it'll discount the
1:16:15feeling idea. I don't think they can. I,
1:16:18you know, as long as we're dealing with
1:16:19silicon computers, the idea that you
1:16:22could have a conscious uh computer is
1:16:25based on a faulty metaphor of the brain
1:16:28as a computer. And I mean, you know,
1:16:30enough neuroscience to to to see the
1:16:34yes, it does some computations, but take
1:16:37the distinction between hardware and
1:16:39software that doesn't really exist in
1:16:41brains. Well, that's a key thing about
1:16:42computers.
1:16:44>> And neurons are not just on or off.
1:16:46They're not simply transistors. They're
1:16:47affected by chemicals and oscillations.
1:16:51There's a wonderful quote from Norbert
1:16:53Weiner who said that the um the price of
1:16:55metaphor is eternal vigilance.
1:16:58And I think this metaphor of the brain
1:16:59is computer is is we're not being
1:17:02vigilant about that metaphor at all. I
1:17:04don't think I think it falls apart if
1:17:05you push on it. I also think computers
1:17:07are clearly not brains even in the most
1:17:10modern iterations of AI for the simple
1:17:13reason at least one simple reason which
1:17:16is our brains create memories in one or
1:17:19two structures but then they export them
1:17:21to a bunch of other areas and computers
1:17:24have a memory center distributed memory
1:17:27is you know doesn't exist in most
1:17:30computers now
1:17:31>> but also that memory makes a physical
1:17:33change in the brain right I mean you're
1:17:35And your brain's different than mine cuz
1:17:36it was pruned very differently because
1:17:38of life experiences.
1:17:40So if you had a computer where the
1:17:42hardware was being constantly changed,
1:17:43it would be useless.
1:17:45>> Yeah. There are these um issues in
1:17:47neuroscience that never really get
1:17:49resolved. One of the things that
1:17:51perplexing to me, maybe you have some
1:17:52insight on this, is there were two labs,
1:17:54Suma Tonagawa's lab at MIT, he's got a
1:17:56Nobel and Mark Mayfford's lab at
1:17:58Scripps.
1:17:58essentially ran the same experiment
1:18:01where they used an animal model where
1:18:03you could um the animals would learn
1:18:05something and then you could capture
1:18:07which neurons were activated during the
1:18:09learning and were critical for the
1:18:10expression of that behavior and you'd
1:18:12say neuron A B C D they fired in a
1:18:14certain order and it was those neurons
1:18:16you could and then you could go back and
1:18:17actually replay those neurons and you
1:18:19found that if you played them in the
1:18:20exact same sequence you got the same
1:18:22behavior.
1:18:23>> Here's the problem. you could play those
1:18:25neurons backwards or all at once and get
1:18:27the exact same behavior. So this throws
1:18:30a serious wrench into our understanding
1:18:31of the brain. The notion that you need
1:18:33things firing in a particular sequence
1:18:35was completely crapped on by those set
1:18:37of experiments. I mentioned the Nobel
1:18:39even though Susumu got it for
1:18:40immunology. He's a very smart guy.
1:18:42Mark's a very smart guy. So these papers
1:18:44have stood the test of time. But it
1:18:46would be like if I said, "Oh, you know,
1:18:47this is the the the keys that you play
1:18:49in a song and it sounds like the song or
1:18:51then I bang on all of them and you still
1:18:53get the song."
1:18:54>> So our whole notion of the temporal
1:18:57ordering of firing of neurons being
1:18:59important for for memories is like it's
1:19:02complete horseshit. It also turns out
1:19:04that every one of those neurons is
1:19:05participating in a bunch of other
1:19:07memories and so some of them are that's
1:19:09great because that's great allocation of
1:19:11of resources and redundancy but we can't
1:19:13we we just I don't want to say we don't
1:19:15understand the brain there so much
1:19:16beautiful work has been done over the
1:19:18last you know 50 hundred years
1:19:19incredible work but there is this
1:19:22problem like we don't really understand
1:19:24how the brain is encoding experiences
1:19:26even at that level and that's a problem
1:19:29>> yeah it's a huge problem well I don't
1:19:32know a lot about this but it sounds to
1:19:34me like a quantum effect that it's
1:19:36happening simultaneously.
1:19:37>> Tell me more about that.
1:19:40>> This is not my area of expertise. So
1:19:41anything you say will be new.
1:19:42>> Me neither. Okay. This is total amateur.
1:19:44I heard a talk by Mo Kaku the other day
1:19:47and uh he was talking about quantum
1:19:49computers and that they will um not work
1:19:54in a linear way one way after another
1:19:56after another. When they're solving a
1:19:57problem they'll do it all at once. Sim
1:20:00it's simultaneity. will be a hallmark of
1:20:03that. There's a whole school of thought
1:20:05that quantum physics may help explain
1:20:08consciousness. I I honestly don't
1:20:11understand it, but quantum mechanics
1:20:13have given us some very uh bizarre
1:20:16explanations of things such as
1:20:17entanglement. Um you know that two
1:20:20particles separated by light years can
1:20:23nevertheless affect one another. And so
1:20:26non-locality is and realism, they're
1:20:29gone. And in biology, we just go along
1:20:32as if they're still here because we
1:20:34can't deal with it. Quantum effects have
1:20:37been discounted in brains because they
1:20:40seem to we we think they only work at
1:20:43these tiny scales, but in fact they work
1:20:45at all scales. We also have questions
1:20:47about whether they work with a warm wet
1:20:50in a warm wet environment like a brain.
1:20:53You know, quantum computers have to be
1:20:55chilled to like nearly abs absolute
1:20:57zero. But I think that that is the next
1:21:03in the next 50 years, I think we'll be
1:21:05trying to figure out if what we know
1:21:08about quantum reality may have something
1:21:12to do with creating consciousness.
1:21:14>> That's as far as I can go. You know
1:21:16everything I know about it now.
1:21:17>> Amazing. I I mean I think um the brain
1:21:20is a receiver.
1:21:21>> I've heard that before. Today it really
1:21:22makes sense to me now that um based on
1:21:25how you described it. Can I ask about
1:21:27you? Uh, and can I get some advice from
1:21:29you? And can our listeners perhaps get
1:21:31some advice from you? Uh, you've written
1:21:3310 books and I'm sensing a thread
1:21:36through all of them about the natural
1:21:37world, about us, how we how those relate
1:21:40>> and coming to some better understanding
1:21:42of self and relating to the world in a
1:21:45more
1:21:46>> benevolent way. That's that's my export,
1:21:48but I'm I know there's much more to you.
1:21:50But it dawned on me as we were sitting
1:21:52down, I I think the world knows very
1:21:55little about you. Maybe that's
1:21:56intentional, but I just want to know
1:21:57when you were younger, were you were you
1:22:00sort of intrigued by or drawn to flora
1:22:03and fauna? Were you sort of like
1:22:05thinking about the humans in a certain
1:22:08way? It it it just strikes me that you
1:22:10have a very um it's going to sound uh
1:22:12like a scientist said it, but a very
1:22:14interdigitated way of thinking about us
1:22:16them. like you understand the difference
1:22:18between a human and a plant and a and an
1:22:21animal, which is great, but you also
1:22:25find these incredible points of
1:22:27connectivity
1:22:28that are really geared towards
1:22:30self-standing and therefore helping the
1:22:34relationship. So, can you trace that
1:22:36back to like something in particular or
1:22:40is that just your or is this just
1:22:42downloaded into you? No, I so I started
1:22:45gardening at a very young age uh
1:22:47accidentally. I had an experience when I
1:22:50was four or five. I grew up on Long
1:22:52Island, suburban Long Island, and I
1:22:55loved watermelon. And like everybody
1:22:58thinking about the pits, you know, the
1:23:00seeds when you swallow them or don't
1:23:02swallow them. And and my mother would
1:23:03always encourage me to spit them out.
1:23:06And I did that. And I I took some
1:23:08watermelon seeds and I just covered it
1:23:09with dirt. I was like really young and
1:23:11then forgot about it. And that must have
1:23:14been May or June. And I came back in
1:23:16September and lo and behold there was a
1:23:19watermelon. It was like the size of a
1:23:21football but to me it was huge. I was
1:23:24just so blown away by this and it was it
1:23:27was just a you know formative moment.
1:23:30And I was so excited. I picked I picked
1:23:34it and I was running and we had a
1:23:37concrete patio behind our house and had
1:23:40to show my mom this this uh thing that
1:23:43I'd grown. I hadn't really done anything
1:23:46and I tripped and fell and the
1:23:48watermelon just completely splattered um
1:23:51all over the patio. But I went on I
1:23:53planted a garden when I was like eight
1:23:55next to the house. I called it a farm.
1:23:58Whenever I could grow three or four
1:24:00strawberries, I'd put them in a Dixie
1:24:01cup and sell them to my mom. So, it was
1:24:04a going concern. So, gardening was a
1:24:06really big part of it. And and you know,
1:24:09that puts you in relation to nature, an
1:24:11active relationship to nature. Most of
1:24:13us have a very kind of observer um type
1:24:17relationship. We admire it from a
1:24:19distance on vacation, you know. Um, but
1:24:22gardening thrusts you right in the
1:24:24middle of it and you have to make
1:24:26decisions. Uh, and
1:24:29that your plants have interests. You
1:24:31know, you're not the only interested
1:24:33creature here. Your plants have
1:24:34interests and to the extent you can
1:24:37satisfy their interest, they're going to
1:24:38give you what you're what you what you
1:24:40want. So that, you know, eventually
1:24:43years later, I wrote my first book was
1:24:46about that. And um I realized what was
1:24:48going on in the garden is no different
1:24:51than what goes on on the farm. So it was
1:24:53very easy to go from uh I started
1:24:55writing these essays about what was
1:24:57going on in my garden and using that as
1:24:59a laboratory. Americans generally go to
1:25:01the wilderness to think about nature or
1:25:03the desert or the forest. And I actually
1:25:06think the garden at this point is a a
1:25:08more valuable laboratory because we've
1:25:11saved all the land we're going to save.
1:25:13You know, I think 8% of the American uh
1:25:16landscape has been we've locked it up,
1:25:18thrown away the key, which is great.
1:25:20Although actually Trump's trying to open
1:25:22the lock again,
1:25:22>> trying to sell some of it.
1:25:23>> Yeah. in Utah.
1:25:24>> I will say just as a quick note if that
1:25:27like this angers me so much. My friends
1:25:30who are hunters
1:25:32>> and like real outdoors people um were
1:25:36very excited about the protection of
1:25:38these lands and now have they're
1:25:40essentially pissed at all forms of
1:25:42government. Let's just put it that way.
1:25:45Um because they were promised something
1:25:47and it was taken away. And I the they're
1:25:49now truly outside the box of any
1:25:51political party. They will die before
1:25:53they let go of this land.
1:25:55>> Yeah.
1:25:55>> And but it is really scary. It is truly
1:25:58scary. Um some of our fishermen also and
1:26:01you know
1:26:02>> and so on and um we still need to to
1:26:05extol the virtues of wilderness. It's
1:26:07without question. And hunters have been
1:26:08some of the great conservationists in
1:26:10American history. I mean you know Teddy
1:26:12Roosevelt you know really started the
1:26:14modern conservation movement because he
1:26:15was a hunter. But we need to know how to
1:26:18behave in nature at this point right? I
1:26:21mean in the 94 98% of the or 92% of the
1:26:25landscape that um because America we've
1:26:28tended to either you know there's either
1:26:30virgin nature or raped nature right I
1:26:33mean we have this this very strong
1:26:35binary and um and once we've decided
1:26:39that this is this side goes to
1:26:42capitalism and the marketplace you know
1:26:45we abuse it and we have abused it so so
1:26:48learning how to how to behave in nature
1:26:50I think is really important and that's
1:26:52that's guided a lot of my work. You're
1:26:54right in your take. Consciousness, you
1:26:56know,
1:26:57is part of that. It's like where do
1:26:59where do our minds engage with matter
1:27:03and and nature and and biology and and
1:27:06and it's amazing we don't know yet.
1:27:08>> You also strike me as somebody who you
1:27:10think about these very high level
1:27:11problems. I don't know when that came
1:27:12about. Um but clearly you're observant
1:27:15and you and you think a lot. But many
1:27:17people who talk about psychedelics,
1:27:19write about psychedelics and think about
1:27:20collective consciousness and um and are
1:27:23friendly with plants and plants like
1:27:25them. They're not like feet on the
1:27:27ground like so did do you have like
1:27:31practical people in your lineage? Were
1:27:33you were you taught like cuz gardening
1:27:34also is has a practical aspect. You
1:27:36can't just wish the plants to grow. You
1:27:38can't just dance around them and play
1:27:39them sound bowls. I'm not I think listen
1:27:41I think sound bowl therapy we'll
1:27:42probably discover has some very
1:27:43important effects on the nervous system.
1:27:45So, I'm not being disparaging of it at
1:27:47all, but it's one thing to like these
1:27:49things and and feel you have a
1:27:51relationship to them. Um, but you've
1:27:54made great efforts to try and get many
1:27:56people, millions of people to to
1:27:59appreciate and lean into these
1:28:00relationships in ways that can serve
1:28:02them and and the world. So, where does
1:28:04that come from?
1:28:05>> Well, I don't know exactly. I've been
1:28:07kind of surprised that a couple of my
1:28:10books have actually changed a public
1:28:14conversation around food and then
1:28:16>> about dilemma was very present in you
1:28:18know when I was going through you know
1:28:21college and and around that time I think
1:28:23it was a graduate
1:28:23>> 2006
1:28:24>> okay so yeah short it was after college
1:28:27but that book was everywhere
1:28:29>> and the mantra from that book right you
1:28:33know food not too much mostly plants
1:28:35right
1:28:36>> so I never, you know, I didn't set out
1:28:38to um start something and and certainly
1:28:41there were other important books that
1:28:42came out around the same period. Eric
1:28:43Schlloer's Fast Food Nation and Marian
1:28:46Nestle wrote a book called Food Politics
1:28:48that was very influential.
1:28:49>> The difference I would say they're great
1:28:50and I great admiration for them, but I
1:28:53would say that those were about what not
1:28:55to do.
1:28:56>> Yeah.
1:28:56>> Like this is bad, you know, and um and
1:28:59like growing up I read the one was it
1:29:01was Tom Robbins wrote a book from the
1:29:03Baskin Robins family. What was that
1:29:04book? I forget the title. something
1:29:05about sugar,
1:29:06>> but it was about I mean you read it and
1:29:07you're just like the atrocities of the
1:29:09of the meat industry. So So they're hard
1:29:11books to form a relationship to because
1:29:13it's like a they're it's a bad rel it's
1:29:15a great they're great books but about
1:29:17bad relationships.
1:29:18>> Good point.
1:29:18>> Whereas your book it was about the the
1:29:21love of these things and so it was like
1:29:23this benevolence.
1:29:24>> Well, I've always felt if there's any
1:29:27way to put hope in a story, you need to
1:29:30put hope in a story because we need
1:29:32hope. we it's our it's our air, you
1:29:35know. And I remember I wrote a a a piece
1:29:38for the New York Times that became a
1:29:40chapter in Omnivore's Dilemma about um
1:29:42about the meat industry. And I followed
1:29:44this one cow through the whole process,
1:29:46you know, from insemination to
1:29:48slaughter. And it's a pretty dark story
1:29:50about how we produce beef in this
1:29:52country. And it's a long story. It's
1:29:53like 8,000 words. But I made a point to
1:29:56like, well, what are the alternatives?
1:29:58And I learned about grass-fed,
1:29:59grass-finished beef, which at the time
1:30:01was a tiny little market.
1:30:03>> And um I had a couple paragraphs on
1:30:06this. There's another way to do it.
1:30:07There's another So I was making the
1:30:09point that the the food chain from which
1:30:11most of us are eating beef is floating
1:30:14on a sea of oil and that um it's fossil
1:30:17fuel to grow the corn um that feeds the
1:30:21animal. And then you need the
1:30:22pharmaceuticals because the corn makes
1:30:24the animal sick. And it's just it's just
1:30:26such a pathological system and it's so
1:30:28dark. Um, but there's another food chain
1:30:32that takes sunlight captured by grass
1:30:36that feeds this animal. I juxtapose
1:30:39these two food chains, an oil-based food
1:30:41chain and a sunlight based food chain.
1:30:43And
1:30:45you know, my editors were like, "Hey,
1:30:47this piece is already 8,000 words.
1:30:49You've got four paragraphs about
1:30:50grass-fed beef, which no one knows
1:30:52anything about and doesn't know where to
1:30:53get. You know, we got to cut that." And
1:30:54I said, "No, we have to leave that. That
1:30:56just shows the hope that we can grow our
1:30:58food using sunlight, not oil." And I won
1:31:01the fight, luckily. And was so
1:31:04gratified. A couple weeks after this
1:31:07piece came out, this piece made quite a
1:31:08bit of noise at the time. I walked into
1:31:10a butcher shop on College Avenue in
1:31:13Oakland, and I just I was kind of
1:31:15curious. I I wonder if they have
1:31:16grass-fed beef. And so I asked the
1:31:18butcher, "Do you have grass-fed beef?"
1:31:19And he goes, "What is going on? you're
1:31:22the sixth person this week who asked me
1:31:24for grass-fed beef and he got it.
1:31:26>> Um, so that satisfies me a lot. I I like
1:31:30writing where we can point a direction
1:31:33that it might be useful for and that
1:31:34that individuals can have some agency
1:31:36and not be just victims of these big
1:31:38systems.
1:31:39>> And I'm an optimistic person finally.
1:31:42>> You said finally [laughter] not not your
1:31:44entire life.
1:31:45>> No, no, I I think I have been. I I think
1:31:48I'm optimistic. I also think that I'm
1:31:51the oldest of four kids.
1:31:54My father, who's no longer with us, was
1:31:56alcoholic. I had a lot of responsibility
1:31:58for being a sane person in the family
1:32:01dynamic. Uh helping my mother with, you
1:32:04know, the household and things cuz my
1:32:06dad was kind of checked out. And um uh
1:32:09so I think I do I do value practical
1:32:13things and and and that's why my
1:32:15instinct is always like start with
1:32:17materialism and if materialism fails
1:32:19then we'll look at other weirder ideas.
1:32:21sorry to hear about your father and why
1:32:24why you had to step into that role but
1:32:26the world's um fortunate that you did
1:32:29because when I look at the the the
1:32:31important what I would call the
1:32:32important movements of the last 50 60
1:32:34years of and I think psychedelics is one
1:32:36of them and but when I say that I want
1:32:38to be clear I'm talking about
1:32:39neuroplasticity to make people feel and
1:32:43be better versions of themselves may not
1:32:45come from psychedelics or even therapy
1:32:47or or the sematics or breath work or
1:32:50>> health and fitness all of it, you know,
1:32:52I feel like where each of those quote
1:32:56unquote movements reached its cliff
1:32:59was when the individual or individuals
1:33:02that were leading that movement were
1:33:04either too emotive
1:33:06and not practical enough. They weren't
1:33:08thinking about how they could export the
1:33:09knowledge in a way that people could
1:33:10really make use of it. um that
1:33:12acknowledged the variety of truths that
1:33:14were out there that people weren't all
1:33:15gonna just like
1:33:16>> move to San Francisco or Big Su, you
1:33:18know, that kind of thing, but that
1:33:20people couldn't be so practical and and
1:33:23removed from thinking about new
1:33:25possibilities, new ways of humans being
1:33:28that they like dismissed it. And I feel
1:33:30like we're we are at an important
1:33:33repetition point where if we're going to
1:33:34break through, I feel like those two
1:33:36things have to really um be married in
1:33:39the in the movements. and and I and I
1:33:41see it in you and I'm I'm I like in your
1:33:44relationship to these things. So the
1:33:46practical side and the it you know the
1:33:48the clearly deep relationship to to
1:33:51plants in the world.
1:33:52>> I mean I do finally want to push the
1:33:54world in one direction and not in
1:33:56another. I mean and I you know I I mean
1:33:59you know that's considered advocacy in
1:34:01journalism and I I I I own up to it. Um,
1:34:05once I I mean there's a point when I'm
1:34:06starting on a subject where I don't know
1:34:08a lot that I wouldn't pretend to know
1:34:10where the world should go or where the
1:34:13food industry should go, but a certain
1:34:14point you've you've mastered the subject
1:34:17and you it would be disingenuous not to
1:34:20think that I think we need to move this
1:34:23way. Not that you know we had such
1:34:24success. I mean I'm I just wrote a new
1:34:26introduction to Omnivore's Dilemma and I
1:34:30wish the book were more dated than it
1:34:31is. Um, it's, you know, the food system
1:34:35is still screwed up. I I think we have
1:34:37more awareness of it. People have a
1:34:39better idea where their food comes from.
1:34:41They're they're they're making the link
1:34:43between um what they're eating and their
1:34:45health in a way thanks to people like
1:34:47you, but a whole lot of other people,
1:34:49but we're still eating a terrible diet
1:34:52for the most part in this country. And
1:34:54um we still have a agriculture
1:34:58that is all about growing corn and soy
1:35:00which are the building blocks of
1:35:01ultrarocessed food which is making us
1:35:03sick and killing us. Um so we have a
1:35:06long way to go. In a way we've made more
1:35:07progress with psychedelics but in the
1:35:10case of psychedelics there was no
1:35:11opposition. I mean there was some
1:35:13cultural opposition you know that you
1:35:16know holdovers from the 60s. Yeah. The
1:35:18drug war and things like that.
1:35:19>> He didn't like drugs. Now, now the the
1:35:21the red side is all about Ibeain for
1:35:24veterans.
1:35:24>> It's the most amazing transformation.
1:35:26>> Rick Perry self-described. I like Rick.
1:35:28I get along with him. He's very
1:35:29bipartisan about this psychedelic thing.
1:35:32And he just self-described.
1:35:34You said it, Rick. He calls himself a
1:35:36knuckle dragging Republican who's into
1:35:38heart medicine. He used those those
1:35:40words publicly, so I'm happy to repeat
1:35:42it. He he really wants these medicines
1:35:45to be available to all veterans who are
1:35:48experiencing PTSD and substance abuse
1:35:51issues. And he's worked very very hard
1:35:53across the aisle to try and bring these
1:35:56things to legal safe.
1:35:58>> And this is the only way in in our
1:36:00current political moment anything gets
1:36:02done is is you need you need support on
1:36:04the right as well as the left. And and
1:36:06that's been a lesson of the food
1:36:07movement which was coded kind of left
1:36:10liberal. Now you have Maha and there are
1:36:13a lot of problems with Maha. Um but
1:36:15there are areas of agreement on
1:36:17pesticides and on ultrarocessed food
1:36:19getting it out of the schools. You know
1:36:21used to hear the food movement was
1:36:22elitist. You don't hear that anymore and
1:36:24that's because you have people on the
1:36:25right who are supporting want to push
1:36:28the world in the same direction.
1:36:29>> That's a really good we have some hope.
1:36:31There's some hope there.
1:36:32>> Yeah. No, that's a gosh we've got to
1:36:34really break down the divisions to move
1:36:36healthy eating forward. I was just going
1:36:38to um end psychedelics in the in the
1:36:41safest way. I I was struck when I would
1:36:44started to look at the like the new food
1:36:46pyramid stuff. I realized that um the
1:36:49American foods have never been healthy.
1:36:51Like if people talk about how they eat
1:36:52in Europe and my dad's from Argentina
1:36:54and how they eat the grass-fed beef was
1:36:56that was all they had, right? You know,
1:36:57um there's some unhealthy elements about
1:36:59the diet there too when they eat heavy
1:37:01meals late and you know, but now it's
1:37:03people have improved their diet.
1:37:05information travels. But you know, we
1:37:07think fried chicken, we think um hot
1:37:10dogs, hamburgers, mac and cheese, French
1:37:13fries, like cotton candy. These are the
1:37:15most American apple as American as apple
1:37:17pie, right? We don't we don't right. So
1:37:20the so the the classic American foods
1:37:23were all very unhealthy. So I wonder if
1:37:26there's a way to redefine what American
1:37:28food is. That and that to me would be
1:37:30cool because Americans also pride
1:37:33themselves on being pioneers of all
1:37:36sorts of things including physical
1:37:38endeavors that require a lot of vitality
1:37:40and strength, endurance and coordination
1:37:42like you know so those generally don't
1:37:44come from the foods I described.
1:37:46>> No, they don't. And you know America's
1:37:48not never had a s a real food tradition
1:37:50till the till fast food is our is really
1:37:54our our food.
1:37:55>> Bummer.
1:37:55>> I'm sorry to say.
1:37:56>> Bummer. But people came from all these
1:37:58other countries and they had a food
1:38:00tradition and it got kind of stomped out
1:38:03of them. I think part of the problem is
1:38:05since we didn't have this deep these
1:38:07deep roots and this food tradition we
1:38:09were much more vulnerable to marketing
1:38:12and then say the you know the French are
1:38:14the Italians are um and they had they
1:38:17had something to resist um what the
1:38:20marketplace wanted to do with food which
1:38:22is of course to process it you know the
1:38:24cheapest possible raw ingredients. So
1:38:26yeah, we need to build an American
1:38:27cuisine that um is healthy. Um but it's
1:38:32easier said than done or we borrow I
1:38:34mean look, we talk about the
1:38:35Mediterranean diet, right? It's you know
1:38:37one of the diets we we have good reason
1:38:39to believe is healthier than others and
1:38:42uh and is attractive to a lot of people.
1:38:44>> So it doesn't have to be ours. I suppose
1:38:46you know we could borrow it from
1:38:48somewhere else. Um but it's very hard to
1:38:51change people's eating habits. um and
1:38:54one of the hardest things and habit in
1:38:57general, right? So I, you know, I don't
1:38:59I don't see it as easy and in general
1:39:02the fact that you now there's a there's
1:39:04a growing recognition though that that
1:39:06most of the chronic diseases we're
1:39:08dealing with, the ones that are killing
1:39:09us are food related, diet related. And I
1:39:13think you can attack that from the
1:39:15cultural stance and get people to eat
1:39:16different food, but as long as the the
1:39:19policies are making the the bad food
1:39:22cheap, which they are. I mean, we
1:39:26subsidize
1:39:27corn, which gives us high fructose corn
1:39:30syrup, which gives us diabetes.
1:39:32>> So, we're we're we're s we're supporting
1:39:34both sides in the war on type 2
1:39:36diabetes, right? We're supporting the
1:39:37sugar and we're supporting the
1:39:39treatment. It's insane.
1:39:40>> It is insane. and it's costing us a
1:39:42fortune. So, we have to change the
1:39:44policy and make healthy food cheaper
1:39:46relative to unhealthy food.
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1:41:13at Whole Foods, Sprouts, and now
1:41:15EarthBar as well. Is the current
1:41:17administration with the emphasis uh on
1:41:20healthy eating that they that they're
1:41:23out there with is are they
1:41:24>> they're not doing anything?
1:41:25>> They're not doing it.
1:41:26>> No. I mean, RFK Jr. has been talking a
1:41:28good game on this. But um meanwhile, the
1:41:32the big beautiful bill
1:41:34um eliminated all sorts of farm to
1:41:37school and farm to um other institution
1:41:41uh supporting small agriculture,
1:41:42regenerative agriculture. They're
1:41:44cutting all that stuff while they talk
1:41:46about it. And uh the only change they've
1:41:49made on food after over 2 years has been
1:41:54getting food companies to voluntarily
1:41:56remove some dyes from cereal.
1:42:00I don't think that's that big a deal. I
1:42:01don't think dyes are a a crucial health
1:42:04problem and it's voluntary. So this
1:42:06administration is not going to regulate
1:42:08anything. Um and the changes we need in
1:42:10the food system, getting ultrarocessed
1:42:13food out of the school lunch program is
1:42:15going to require regulations. uh and
1:42:17they're deregulating pesticides like
1:42:19crazy.
1:42:19>> Yeah, that's concerning.
1:42:21>> Very concerning. So, no, I I don't think
1:42:23it's uh an honest effort. I but I do
1:42:26think what RFK Jr. has done that is
1:42:29valuable is he's surfaced this other
1:42:31constituency that we we were not aware
1:42:33of. And these are mothers, many of whom
1:42:36have kids with serious illnesses that
1:42:39they're trying to treat with a better
1:42:41diet. [snorts] And I met them without
1:42:44knowing it when I was writing Omnivore's
1:42:46Dilemma. I was hanging out on Joel
1:42:48Salatin's farm. He's a very progressive
1:42:50farmer in um in Virginia who has
1:42:53pioneered a kind of grass-based
1:42:55agriculture where he rotates different
1:42:58species over the same grasslands and and
1:43:01grows amazing food, um eggs and meat, uh
1:43:04especially. And he's in the middle of
1:43:07nowhere. He's like 45 minutes from the
1:43:09interstate. And these people would show
1:43:11up on Saturdays to pick up their
1:43:12pastured chickens and and and I was
1:43:14wondering who are these people and how
1:43:16do they know about him? And they were
1:43:18part of a whole network
1:43:21and they were they were these Maha Moms
1:43:24before they were called that. And uh
1:43:26they were members of something called
1:43:27the Western Price Society um which is uh
1:43:32long story but um promotes grass-based
1:43:36uh animal protein and um has been around
1:43:40since the 30s or so. Um and has a very
1:43:43big network that no one on the coast
1:43:46notices, but it's out there. And uh and
1:43:48I would talk to these mothers and they
1:43:50they you know they had their thing with
1:43:51seed oils and food is medicine and you
1:43:54know they were not aligned with science
1:43:56always but they were passionate about
1:43:59clean food and um uh and were willing to
1:44:02drive a 100 miles to get it then.
1:44:04>> Wow. So Kennedy surfaced these people
1:44:07and now they're engaged politically. And
1:44:11if the food movement can make common
1:44:13cause with them and we've seen some some
1:44:16early signs, there was a a bill in
1:44:19Congress that the administration was
1:44:21supporting that would have exempted
1:44:23uh pesticide makers from from lawsuits,
1:44:26all lawsuits.
1:44:28And um and it was in an appropriations
1:44:30bill. And um Shelley Pingri, who's a
1:44:33food movement leader and an organic
1:44:35farmer from Maine in Congress, she got
1:44:37together with Maha activists and they
1:44:40got it stripped out of the bill and they
1:44:41did it twice.
1:44:42>> Right.
1:44:43>> So that's what we need. That's the kind
1:44:45of politics just like psychedelics right
1:44:46and left together. You can get things
1:44:48done.
1:44:49>> Yeah. Amen to that. I
1:44:52am forever stamped in my brain is, you
1:44:55know, Rick Perry and I forget who it was
1:44:56on the Democratic side like literally
1:44:58holding the hands of like we're for
1:45:00heart medicine and this was at a
1:45:01veterans um benefit. Um and it's
1:45:05interesting similarly to well in in sort
1:45:07of parallel construction with as you
1:45:09said with the whereas the food uh slow
1:45:11food and and you know movement um
1:45:14healthy food movement used to be
1:45:16considered elitist and now it's not.
1:45:20in the psychedelics thing used to be
1:45:22like big sir hippies very left-leaning
1:45:25and what seems to have moved the most
1:45:27intense of all the psychedelics I gain
1:45:30looks like it's going to cross the line
1:45:31as into a true um supported therapeutic
1:45:35by the FDA it's not there yet was the
1:45:37veterans community which of course is
1:45:39right and left but tends to lean right
1:45:42if we're honest and that's pretty
1:45:43remarkable
1:45:44>> yeah it is it is and something I would
1:45:47not have foreseen No, no. And and it's
1:45:50really to the credit, I think, of of the
1:45:52veterans like um Marcus Latrrell and and
1:45:56um Marcus Capone and but also Rick, you
1:45:58know. I'll say like I you know um
1:46:01>> Rick Perry also I would add Rick Din
1:46:03>> and Rick Dolin. The Ricks.
1:46:05>> The Ricks Ricks.
1:46:06>> The Ricks. Two very different
1:46:07characters.
1:46:08>> I'll say
1:46:08>> actually here's a funny one about Rick
1:46:10Davlin. Uh that at this event he got up
1:46:13there and he he said it was room full of
1:46:16veterans. um a lot of SEALs, a lot of
1:46:18spee spec ops folks and um and the first
1:46:22thing he said was that he was a
1:46:23conscientious objector during the
1:46:25Vietnam War. [laughter] And the room
1:46:27just went silent and then I looked
1:46:29around and there were a lot of smiles.
1:46:30They appreciated his honesty. Honesty
1:46:32>> and you know I I
1:46:35adore him too. I adore him too.
1:46:37>> But he but he very deliberately reached
1:46:39out to the right years ago. I remember
1:46:42he took a a contribution from Rebecca
1:46:44Mercer who was a big Trump one supporter
1:46:47and and people gave him a lot of grief
1:46:50in in his organization and you know why
1:46:52are you in bed with someone from the
1:46:54right and he said no this is really
1:46:55important this is how we're going to get
1:46:56change so I he's a visionary
1:47:00>> and uh and he reached out to the
1:47:02veterans groups and um so he deserves
1:47:06some of the credit too
1:47:07>> definitely the Ricks excuse me I for not
1:47:09crediting you dolin has the worst diet
1:47:11ever. We're working on him. He has like
1:47:13croissants and orange juice for
1:47:14breakfast. And he has more energy than
1:47:16any human being alive. Awake and
1:47:19cheerful and and clear of mind
1:47:23>> for 20 hours.
1:47:24>> And a journalist dream. He never goes
1:47:26off the record and he'll tell you
1:47:28exactly what he thinks.
1:47:29>> I love it.
1:47:30>> Um, couple more questions about
1:47:31psychedelics and then I want to talk
1:47:32about the most important drug on the
1:47:34planet um, which is caffeine. But when
1:47:37do you think MDMA andor psilocybin will
1:47:41get FDA approval given what you
1:47:42understand? Cuz it's kind of wild that
1:47:44Ibagane, the one psychedelic that no
1:47:46one's would even want to use
1:47:48recreationally, is going to get there
1:47:49first. It's
1:47:50>> and hasn't been, by the way, subjected
1:47:52to university drug trials,
1:47:54>> right?
1:47:55>> That's kind of incredible.
1:47:56>> It's incredible.
1:47:57>> Yeah.
1:47:57>> So, what about MDMA and psilocybin?
1:47:59>> They're closer. Um, so the resilient is
1:48:03the name of the company. It used to be
1:48:04LIOS. It was part of MAPS. They've put
1:48:07forward MDMA uh in the treatment of uh
1:48:10trauma and they were turned down once,
1:48:13but they've resubmitted with some
1:48:15additional data. It looks like they're
1:48:17fast-tracked. The same um executive
1:48:20order that um is fasttracking Ibeane is
1:48:25fasttracking other psychedelics. It was
1:48:26apparently originally written for
1:48:28Ibagane and somebody in the White House
1:48:30said it's kind of crazy to just do this
1:48:31one. Um there are these others that are
1:48:34closer to having the data we need. And
1:48:38then psilocybin coming from Compass uh a
1:48:41company called Compass Pathways is also
1:48:44close. You know, I hear before the end
1:48:47of the year, but I I I it's hard to
1:48:50believe. You know, I've been hearing
1:48:52it's close for a long time. I think it
1:48:54really is close this time. Mhm.
1:48:55>> The reason it's happening, we should be
1:48:58clear, is because uh Joe Rogan texted
1:49:02the president and said, "This is really
1:49:03important." He had done a show on
1:49:05Ibagain
1:49:07uh and um President Trump having lost
1:49:11the the the manosphere vote or afraid of
1:49:14losing the manosphere vote um wanted to
1:49:17give Rogan something he cared about. And
1:49:21um you know, is this the way to do drug
1:49:23approvals in America? I have some
1:49:25questions about that. Um I think I think
1:49:27Trump's doing the right thing for the
1:49:29wrong reasons, but there we are. So I
1:49:31think it will happen soon. It's going to
1:49:33be uh an earthquake when it happens
1:49:36because
1:49:39they'll be approved as medicines and to
1:49:41be administered in a certain way with
1:49:43some regulations. But the message that
1:49:46the public will take that the society
1:49:48will take is that these things that we
1:49:50thought were dangerous drugs are
1:49:51medicines. people who haven't thought
1:49:53about psychedelics. We are in a small
1:49:55community of people thinking who've been
1:49:57thinking about psychedelics for the last
1:49:5810 years. Everyone's going to be saying,
1:50:01"Is this for me? Is this for my kid? Is
1:50:04this for my parents?"
1:50:05>> Yikes. Well, except for the parents
1:50:07part. I'm just kidding. I'm just
1:50:08kidding. [laughter]
1:50:10>> I wouldn't mind doing psychedelics with
1:50:11my parents, but uh but I I hear you loud
1:50:13and clear. I mean, there are people who
1:50:14have pre predisposition to psychosis or
1:50:17heart issues that
1:50:18>> Yeah.
1:50:18>> And look what's happened with cannabis.
1:50:19I mean, you know, we thought cannabis
1:50:21was a very safe drug, but now that it is
1:50:23being used so widely, we're we're
1:50:25learning about addiction psychosis
1:50:27>> and psychosis. And so, you know, it's
1:50:31going to be a I think there's a lot of
1:50:32public education to be done uh to help
1:50:35people navigate this. And, you know,
1:50:38they're not for everybody and there are
1:50:40people who definitely should stay away
1:50:41from psychedelics. And, uh, so it's
1:50:44going to be a very interesting couple
1:50:46years after it's approved. Um, and I
1:50:49hope it's done with some care. Um, but
1:50:52but we'll see. I mean, there is enormous
1:50:55hope here and and many people we can
1:50:58talk about the risk. They're real risks,
1:51:00but there are people whose lives will be
1:51:02saved by this. I mean I have interviewed
1:51:04so many people who've had transformative
1:51:07experiences
1:51:08um that have uh you know uh cured their
1:51:12addictions um their depression
1:51:15uh their
1:51:17OCD um obsessivecompulsive disorder. I
1:51:20mean there is a lot of potential here
1:51:22and the field of mental health needs new
1:51:25tools. The ones they have just don't
1:51:27work very well. If we do this right,
1:51:30we're gonna we're gonna um benefit an
1:51:33[clears throat] enormous number of
1:51:34people. But doing it right is not gonna
1:51:36be easy.
1:51:36>> No. No. You made all the critical
1:51:38points. And I also want to extend my
1:51:41gratitude to you and Tim Ferrris um
1:51:44who've worked really really hard.
1:51:45>> Tim's done amazing work.
1:51:46>> Amazing work to get this to where it is
1:51:48and hopefully across the line and done
1:51:50right. I I think I know you both care a
1:51:52lot about that and there are others, but
1:51:54you guys have really stuck your neck
1:51:55necks out there early when it was when
1:51:57it was risky and have really continued
1:52:00to to
1:52:01>> I remember how nervous I was when I
1:52:02published how to change your mind. I was
1:52:04talking about my own psychedelic
1:52:05experience. I didn't know what would
1:52:06happen. I thought the police would be
1:52:08knocking at the door.
1:52:09>> I mean, landed right. The timing was
1:52:12right.
1:52:12>> Yeah, the timing was right.
1:52:13>> You were like really early but not so
1:52:15early that
1:52:16>> the police would be at your door and
1:52:18Yeah.
1:52:19>> Wild. I listened to because as I recall
1:52:22it's only in audio book your book about
1:52:24um doing this absolutely stupid
1:52:27experiment. No, I'm kidding. of uh it
1:52:29was so awesome. I I love this book where
1:52:32you quit caffeine and um I drink a lot
1:52:34of caffeine from the first time I took a
1:52:36sip of mate. I was like this completes
1:52:40me,
1:52:41>> you know, in some way, you know, the the
1:52:43same way some people who drink alcohol
1:52:44feel. And I'm grateful it's caffeine and
1:52:47not alcohol.
1:52:48>> Much better drug.
1:52:49>> Yeah. I I think so. So, and 90% of the
1:52:52world's adults consume it every day and
1:52:54and on and on and um and I love it and
1:52:58unless I've been sick, I I don't really
1:53:00know life without caffeine. What
1:53:02>> You should try it, though.
1:53:03>> Yeah. So, I was going to say, what do
1:53:04you think an experiment like quitting
1:53:06caffeine for an extended period of time
1:53:08could do for somebody like me or for
1:53:10somebody listening that would perhaps
1:53:13allow the caffeine to be even a better
1:53:16experience after? Is that what it's
1:53:17about? or what did you discover about
1:53:19consciousness? What did you seriously
1:53:21what did you discover about um your
1:53:24relationship to substances or work or
1:53:26focus or anything? What what was
1:53:28revealed there? I read the book. I
1:53:29listened to the book and I highly
1:53:30recommend it as I do all your books
1:53:32>> and it is in a print book too. There's I
1:53:34I subsequently put it in a book called
1:53:36This is Your Mind on Plants and um uh
1:53:39which came out a couple years ago and
1:53:40it's one of three chapters in that book.
1:53:42So caffeine is a really interesting
1:53:45drug. First of all, most of us don't
1:53:46think of it as a drug. Um, but it is a
1:53:49drug to which most of us are addicted
1:53:51and something like 90% yeah use it on a
1:53:53daily basis whether it's in the form of
1:53:55coffee, tea or or herb mate or a couple
1:53:58other substances. I interviewed Roland
1:54:00Griffith u when I started writing about
1:54:03caffeine because before he got involved
1:54:05he's he's the was the
1:54:07psychopharmarmacologist at Johns Hopkins
1:54:09who did the initial work on psilocybin
1:54:12and really launched the psychedelic
1:54:13renaissance and um but before he worked
1:54:16on psychedelics he worked on caffeine so
1:54:18I I wanted to talk to him about it and
1:54:20during this interview he said you know
1:54:21the only way you can really understand a
1:54:23drug that you're taking habitually is to
1:54:26get off it you can't understand it until
1:54:30you it's out of your system completely.
1:54:32So, he proposed that I go on this
1:54:34caffeine fast.
1:54:36I started really young, like 8 or 10. It
1:54:39was a way to be with my dad. He would
1:54:41get up really early in the morning and
1:54:43he got home very late at night and as I
1:54:44said, he's sort of absent a lot of the
1:54:46time, but the time I could really
1:54:47connect with him was at breakfast. I'd
1:54:49get my drag myself out of bed and have
1:54:51coffee with him. And um so my addiction
1:54:54started very early. It was very hard to
1:54:57get off. If you go cold turkey, people
1:55:00describe flu-l like symptoms. I just
1:55:02felt off. I could not focus. I felt like
1:55:05I had ADHD.
1:55:07I didn't feel myself, which is odd. And
1:55:09I couldn't write at all. I mean, it was
1:55:11so wired into my writing process. It was
1:55:14just forget it. You know, that idea of
1:55:16sitting at a desk. And it was just
1:55:19really hard to do to shake it. After a
1:55:22couple days, the symptoms started to
1:55:25subside. And I finally got to this point
1:55:28where I had no caffeine in my system and
1:55:30I wasn't having tea either. And but even
1:55:32then I didn't feel like myself. And I
1:55:36thought, well, isn't that weird? You
1:55:37feel more yourself on a drug than not on
1:55:40the drug. I just felt like I was
1:55:42somebody else. It was hard. I did it for
1:55:46about three months and all the while I'm
1:55:48researching caffeine and learning about
1:55:50it and learning, you know, it's it's not
1:55:53bad for you. You can overuse it. It has
1:55:55a lot of very positive health effects up
1:55:58to seven or eight cups a day and at that
1:56:01point problems
1:56:03>> begin and some people get jittery on a
1:56:05lot less than that. Um but for most
1:56:07people it is addictive but aside from
1:56:11you know jitteriness if you get it then
1:56:13the negative effects are are are
1:56:16outweighed by positive effects. Helps
1:56:18people with Parkinson's reduces blood
1:56:21pressure. I forget I had a whole list of
1:56:23all the health benefits. There are a lot
1:56:25of and some of them are not tied to the
1:56:27caffeine. Of course, they're also very
1:56:28valuable polyphenols in coffee and tea,
1:56:31which are a great boon to the
1:56:32microbiome. But the day I got back on
1:56:36caffeine, my first cup, it was it was
1:56:40just the best drug experience. Better
1:56:42than any psychedelic experience I've
1:56:44had. It was so powerful. I was just
1:56:47flying. I had all this energy and I came
1:56:50home and I cleaned my closet which I I
1:56:54never do. Uh I I cleaned up the garden.
1:56:57I just was just I was a superman. It was
1:57:00just wonderful. And then I had another
1:57:02cup and it was like not as special. And
1:57:05uh but I thought to myself, is there a
1:57:07way to preserve that power? because
1:57:10getting back on caffeine is very
1:57:12different than the daily experience of
1:57:13getting to baseline, which is
1:57:15essentially what you're doing with a
1:57:16addiction like that. So I thought, okay,
1:57:19I'm only going to do caffeine one day a
1:57:21week. Saturdays, I'll have coffee,
1:57:24nothing none else. And it worked for a
1:57:27few weeks and my Saturday coffee was
1:57:29wonderful. But then I had a big deadline
1:57:32on a Thursday and I thought, you know,
1:57:34this would really get me over the hump
1:57:36if I have a cup and slippery slope back
1:57:39to, you know, every day. But I
1:57:42appreciate it. I have no no bad faith
1:57:45about drinking coffee. I think it's
1:57:48God's gift to mankind in so many ways.
1:57:51Tea, too. I also drink green tea.
1:57:53>> I think we're very lucky to have it.
1:57:55>> It does have very positive cognitive
1:57:57benefits in terms of focus. I mean
1:57:59people, you know, they've done tests on
1:58:00students who preparing for an exam. If
1:58:04they have a cup of coffee or tea,
1:58:08>> or maybe it's done with pills cuz they
1:58:10had a placebo control, probably with
1:58:12pills. The the ones who had caffeine
1:58:14perform better on the tests. It's uh a
1:58:17really great focus drug. It's cocaine
1:58:19without all the problems.
1:58:22>> Love it. Well, and you live in a great
1:58:24city for great coffee.
1:58:26>> We have such good coffee. the original
1:58:27pizza is just down the street and the
1:58:29cheese board and yeah.
1:58:31>> Well, I'm so grateful you wrote the book
1:58:33and that you did the experiment. I I
1:58:34will seriously consider doing the
1:58:36experiment.
1:58:36>> Give it a try. You learn a lot and it's
1:58:38it's just about thinking about your
1:58:40relationship to drugs in general. I
1:58:41mean, they are part of our lives. It's a
1:58:43normal part of human life.
1:58:46>> Our thinking about drugs has been really
1:58:48contaminated by the drug war. Drugs are
1:58:51not good or bad. I mean there it's all
1:58:53about context and caffeine is a really
1:58:55great case study and and it'll you learn
1:58:59something about yourself getting off it
1:59:01and and then getting back on it.
1:59:02>> Well, I'm excited. The way you describe
1:59:04it and that the fact that you share the
1:59:06belief that it is God's gift to mankind
1:59:08is uh is a reason enough.
1:59:11>> Michael, thank you so much for coming
1:59:12here today, sharing your knowledge and
1:59:15for writing all these books. I mean, you
1:59:18have humanized plants in a way that
1:59:20makes people healthier when they pay
1:59:22attention to and act on the information.
1:59:24Your care for humanity is is
1:59:28self-evident and for animals and and
1:59:30plants, too. The whole You strike me as
1:59:32somebody who really has like the whole
1:59:34picture. And yet,
1:59:35>> I'm trying.
1:59:36>> You're not just running around saying
1:59:37one love and everyone should drop acid.
1:59:39[laughter] Thank goodness. I mean,
1:59:41you're obviously a super serious scholar
1:59:42of everything. you uh put your uh your
1:59:46pen to and and when you speak I learn
1:59:50and people really learn. Um I know you
1:59:52have a book that you're working on now
1:59:54about the microbiome. Maybe we have you
1:59:56back to talk about that if you're
1:59:57willing.
1:59:58>> Happy to when it comes out. Yeah, it's
2:00:00an audio book. It's another short audio
2:00:02book and it'll be out sometime next
2:00:03year.
2:00:04>> Great. Well, I would love to have you
2:00:05back around that time. Sounds good.
2:00:07>> And I know I speak on behalf of like
2:00:09millions and millions of people. Thank
2:00:11you for doing what you do. And
2:00:12>> you're so generous.
2:00:13>> I'm so glad you dropped those watermelon
2:00:15seeds into the ground. [laughter] Here
2:00:17we are.
2:00:18>> Me, too. Thank you, Andrew. I appreciate
2:00:20it.
2:00:21>> Thank you for joining me for today's
2:00:22discussion with Michael Pollen. To learn
2:00:24more about his work and to find links to
2:00:26his many excellent books, including his
2:00:28most recent book on consciousness.
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