Michael Pollan tells Scientific American why the science of consciousness may ultimately be too subject to our own conscious minds to crack
This story is adapted from that discussion. To hear more about Pollan’s thoughts on consciousness and his new book, listen to the interview in. We leverage third party services to both verify and deliver email.
By providing your email address, you also consent to having the email address shared with third parties for those purposes.Of all of the top contenders for the hardest problem in science, perhaps the most important to our lived experience is this: Humans have a highly complex brain and, for some of us at least, even more complex emotions. We can think and feel; we are aware of ourselves. We can create new ideas. But where this awareness comes from is a mystery. And why we feel anything at all about anything is clouded with subjectivity. “The only tool we have with which to explore consciousness is consciousness itself,” says Michael Pollan, a celebrated science journalist and author of the new book. This conundrum—and how to potentially solve it—guides Pollan’s examination of consciousness, highlighting both the science and the philosophical dilemma it poses.. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. How we know we are conscious is likely impossible to fully explain using conventional neuroscience research methods such as brain scans, Pollan says. “One of the speculations in the book is that it may take a scientific revolution to really help us,” he says.. We can trace signs of awareness and emotion in the brain. We can feel certain that we, as thinking individuals, are conscious and can infer that other humans are conscious, too. But, Pollan argues, that’s about it. One of the major questions Pollan tackles in the book is whether we could ever recognize consciousness in another species or entity. Detecting such a phenomenon in an organism or entity that looks and behaves nothing like a human will be “really hard,” he says. An artificial intelligence, for example, might express consciousness in very different ways than humans do, he adds. “I don’t think it'll be anything like ours,” he says. “Because ours is very much the product of our bodies and our of our human vulnerability.” One researcher he cites in the book is Mark Solms, whose lab is attempting to develop a conscious AI by making it feel uncertainty and conflicting needs. “We may have to become kind of plurals of consciousness and stipulate that there are going to be many different kinds,” Pollan says.has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too., you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you’ll support us in that mission.
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