# Michael Pollan On The Mystery Of Consciousness

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-dishcast-with-andrew-sullivan-1371188/michael-pollan-on-the-mystery-of-consciousness
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-dishcast-with-andrew-sullivan-1371188/michael-pollan-on-the-mystery-of-consciousness.md
Podcast: [The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-dishcast-with-andrew-sullivan-1371188)
Published: 2026-02-27T17:44:47+00:00
Episode link: https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/michael-pollan-on-the-mystery-of
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/189202482/0ebfaa3581b3fd43ad64b34baaf9dde4.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-dishcast-with-andrew-sullivan-1371188/episodes/michael-pollan-on-the-mystery-of-consciousness
Duration seconds: 2313

## Resource

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com Michael is quite simply one of the best nonfiction writers out the planet: a real role model. He’s been a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine since 1987, and he’s the bestselling author of many books, including How to Change Your Mind — which I reviewed in 2018 — and its sequel, This Is Your Mind on Plants , which we discussed on the Dishcast in 2021. This week we covered his new book, A World Appears : A Journey Into Consciousness . For two clips of our convo — on the magic of spontaneous thoughts, and the consciousness of kids — head to our YouTube page . Other topics: toasters and other things that don’t have consciousness; Thomas Nagel’s bat; panpsychism; Francis Crick trying to solve consciousness; the global neuronal workspace theory; how brains are not like computers; AI and consciousness; Proust; James Joyce; Wordsworth and the Romantics; William James and stream of consciousness; Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport ; words on the tip of your tongue; phenomenology; letting your mind wander; Addison’s Walk at Oxford; how smartphones distract from thinking; Trump taking up our headspace; Oakeshott and “the deadliness of doing”; AI and UBI; Allison Gopnik’s lantern vs spotlight consciousness; how a child’s brain resembles an adult’s on psychedelics; ego death; the default mode network; meditation; the flow state of deep reading; the benefits of boredom; habit and ritual; my 10-day silent meditation retreat; the sentience of plants; Buddhism and Matthieu Ricard; the soul; the film Into Great Silence; and the disenchantment of the Enlightenment. Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy. Coming up: Jeffrey Toobin on the pardon power, Derek Thompson…

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