{"podcast":{"title":"Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard","slug":"armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard-229033","podcast_index_feed_id":229033,"rss_url":"https://rss.art19.com/armchair-expert","website_url":"https://wondery.com/shows/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/","image_url":"https://content.production.cdn.art19.com/images/d6/39/3e/7c/d6393e7c-2c94-4bf8-ace5-22c075450625/5462340d2d523ce16f25efbd2b425f6ecdbdaa718e8222c7da564ce73eaaeca491e30d8a10cf99e9d351bdb65daad1681b4e54f264672188be0469655bad9155.jpeg","author":"Armchair Umbrella","episode_count":1071,"summary":"Hi, I’m Dax Shepard, and I love talking to people. I am endlessly fascinated by the messiness of being human, and I find people who are vulnerable and honest about their struggles and shortcomings to be incredibly sexy. I invite you to join me as I explore other people’s stories. We will celebrate, above all, the challenges and setbacks that ultimately lead to growth and betterment. What qualifies me for such an endeavor? More than a decade of sobriety, a degree in Anthropology and four years of improv training. I will attempt to discover human “truths” without any laboratory work, clinical trials or data collection. I will be, in the great tradition of 16th-century scientists, an Armchair Expert.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-17T16:19:56.634074+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard-229033"},"episode":{"title":"Michael Pollan Returns (on consciousness)","slug":"michael-pollan-returns-on-consciousness","published_at":"2026-04-01T07:30:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard-229033/michael-pollan-returns-on-consciousness","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard-229033","url":"https://rss.art19.com/episodes/99f979d4-99f3-4efa-a56d-38104945fa30.mp3?rss_browser=BAhJIg90cmFuc2NyaWJyBjoGRVQ%3D--952c5701c84ad333c69d5faa668f8177091704f0","audio_url":"https://rss.art19.com/episodes/99f979d4-99f3-4efa-a56d-38104945fa30.mp3?rss_browser=BAhJIg90cmFuc2NyaWJyBjoGRVQ%3D--952c5701c84ad333c69d5faa668f8177091704f0","summary":"Michael Pollan (A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness) is a science and environmental journalist. Michael returns to the Armchair Expert to discuss why choosing surrender is liberating in both psychedelics and life, what the “hard problem” of consciousness is and how we get to it, and how sentience serves homeostasis in living beings. Michael and Dax talk about asking what the world would be like without consciousness, the remarkable fact that plants can see, hear, and fight, and experimental evidence via the ginger test that disgust originates in the gut. Michael explains the qualitative redness of red, that there’s so much more going on in consciousness besides computation, and what strange places to visit our minds are.  Take printer ink off your to-do list with HP Smart Tank | hp.com/SmartTank Check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds: https://www.allstate.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .","meta_description":"Michael Pollan (A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness) is a science and environmental journalist. Michael returns to the Armchair Expert to discus…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":7782,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard-229033/episodes/michael-pollan-returns-on-consciousness/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard-229033/michael-pollan-returns-on-consciousness.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}