Michael Pollan discusses everything from psychedelics and consciousness to artificial intelligence and the effects of anaesthesia on plants.
Can science ever solve the hard problem of consciousness?
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With 22 competing theories and no consensus in sight, the science of consciousness is lost. In this exclusive IAI interview, Berkeley psychedelics researcher and bestselling author of a new book on consciousness Michael Pollan insists that even though consciousness lies beyond traditional forms of scientific investigation, we should resist becoming dualists who see it as something radically different from ordinary stuff in the world. Instead, he makes the case for reimagining science itself: it must stop reaching for objective descriptions of physical reality, and instead embrace subjectivity as the indispensable core of all inquiry.
#consciousness #philosophy #artificialintelligence
Michael Pollan is the co-founder of the Center for the Science of Psychedelics at the University of California, Berkeley and Professor of the Practice of Non-Fiction at Harvard University. His latest book is, "A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness".
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00:00 The mystery of anaesthetised plants
01:22 Psychedelics and journeys through consciousness
04:56 Aldous Huxley's reducing valve of consciousness
07:53 Qualia, neuroscience, and art
12:39 The origins of consciousness
15:02 The limits of science and the impossibility of a God's eye view
23:14 Cartesian dualism
26:19 Plants and the varieties of sentience
39:05 A.I. systems exist in a Platonic "shadow world"
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