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Dems press DOD, DOJ on criminals ending up with Army munitions
The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, located near Kansas City, Missouri, is a government-owned but privately operated factory
One of fall's coolest games has been delayed to October to avoid a September crush
Last Sunday, a trailer that aired during an online Xbox event showed Valor Mortis, an upcoming action game that re-imagines the age of Napoleonic wars as a conflict with the plague-ridden undead. It’s a first-person game that mixes Dark Souls-style combat with parkour—it’s from the developers of the acclaimed, fast-paced cyberpunk wall-running Ghostrunner games—and a setting like nothing else that’s out there. Valor Mortis’ trailer concluded with a release date: September 24. But by the time it aired, the teams behind the game knew that was no longer Valor Mortis’ release date. Days ago, they’d learned the hard way that September 24 would be untenable and that they’d have to change it. Today, they’ve announced a new one, October 13, after speaking to Game File about getting out of the bind they recently found themselves in. “When we picked September 24th, it looked like a very, very clear date,” Blake Rochkind, head of publisher Lyrical Games, told me during an impromptu interview on Monday in Los Angeles. “Very quickly it became not such a clear date.” Lyrical and development studio One More Level had a feeling the deate might need to change, Rochkind recalled. But they had to lock in September 24 “many, many weeks” ago. Really, though, who could know if that was the right call when they made it? “There were so many unknowns,” Rochkind said. “This was before Sony State of Play, before Xbox Showcase, before Nintendo Direct, before Summer Games Fest.” Then on Tuesday, June 2, during a PlayStation showcase held just five days before their planned release date reveal, things changed. “As soon as Control announced September 24th, we knew we were moving the date.” It wasn’t just the PlayStation showcase reveal of the release date for Remedy’s upcoming third-person thriller. There were others. And changing their own trailer this close to its airing, Rochkind would later tell me, wasn’t possible.
What federal cuts to science funding could mean for the Great Lakes
Facing another round of cuts, NOAA-funded researchers worry about undermining public safety, the maritime economy, and health on the Great Lakes.
Low-cost laptops with smartphone RAM in metal chassis: Intel reveals details of Project Firefly
The DRAM crisis is making entry-level laptops more and more expensive – or forcing manufacturers to use very old components. Intel Wildcat Lake and Project Firefly are set to change this and provide serious competition for the Apple MacBook Neo. Intel now reveals more details about Project Firefly.
Intel’s Project Firefly Takes The Best of Phones To Build Laptops In A Slim 12.9mm Metal Chassis With No Vents
Intel's Project Firefly aims to deliver premium-grade budget laptops with Wildcat Lake SoCs and a metal chassis, targeting affordability.
The Cove Continues Its Tradition of Unique Entertainment with The Slippery Chickens
By Peter Lyons Hall One of the reasons Greenwood Lake’s The Cove Restaurant has become a favorite destination for both residents and visitors is proprietor Bobby Perreira’s commitment to showcasing unique and memorable entertainment. Perreira has built a reputation for bringing distinctive performers to his lakeside venue—artists who offer something beyond the ordinary cover-band experience. […]
University of Utah to build major new health campus at The Point in Draper, officials announce
The rapidly growing area of Salt Lake County, which once housed the state prison, has been eyed for significant development.
Lakewood Ranch woman launches mobile dirty soda business
Amber Hanratty started Dirty Sara-Soda after seeing TikTok videos of specialty drink trend
Scientists Found a Continent-Sized Geological Structure Hiding Beneath Antarctica
A team led by a geophysicist in Italy now believes that about 90% of Earth’s fresh water ice may not be on solid ground after all.
Jedify raises $24M to help companies arm AI agents with context on their business
The funding round was led by Norwest, with participation S Capital VC, Cerca Partners, and Oceans Ventures. Snowflake Ventures also participated as a strategic investor.
Too many free tickets and money left ‘on the table’: Here’s what consultants found when they reviewed Utah’s athletics operations
Utah athletics hired a consultant to review parts of its department last summer. Here's what they found, according to a document recently obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune.
Lakers' LeBron James makes bold claim regarding NBA GOAT debate
James' take is sure to generate some controversy.
Roundup: Existing home sales / Faith Technologies / University Lakes update
A May surge: U.S. existing home sales rose in May to their highest level since December, reaching an annual pace of about 4.17 million. The increase was driven by slightly lower mortgage rates and stronger buyer activity. However, affordability remains a challenge as home prices stay elevated and supply is still limited. CNBC has the […]
Saving Great Salt Lake key issue in Utah’s House District 21 primary race
Democrats Aaron Wiley and Stephen Otterstrom are vying to replace Rep. Sandra Hollins in the Utah House of Representatives.
The Seneca Drums: The mystery science has yet to solve
There is a mystery underneath the Finger Lakes largest and deepest lake. It's one that has been resonating with generations as far back as the Native Americans
Six are elected to the NBA wing of the L.A. Times Sports Hall of Fame
Six people have been elected into the Lakers/Clippers wing of our Los Angeles Times Sports Report Hall of Fame.
Atlanta spots where Apple TV's 'Cape Fear' was shot
Apple TV shot its TV series version of "Cape Fear" in metro Atlanta including Lake Allatoona, Little Five Points, Inman Park and Assembly Studios in Doraville.
Join the Monks this Summer! 2026 Sports Camps Information
STANDISH, Maine – Looking to sharpen your skills, explore a college campus, and enjoy summer on the shores of Sebago Lake? Saint Joseph's College of Maine is excited to announce a full slate of 2026 Summer Sports Camps designed for athletes of all levels and interests. From youth development clinics to elite prospect experiences, there's something for everyone.
DeVos Students Deliver Business Insight Across Great Lakes Bay Region and Beyond
Another strong fieldwork partner was United Bay Community Credit Union, which Shea said stood out because of its clear mission, active community presence, and deep commitment to the members it serves. “As students interviewed members, visited branches and engaged with UBCCU’s leadership team, they saw firsthand why people choose the credit union for their financial […]
'Affordability politics' are dominating NY's gubernatorial race. How are Blakeman and Hochul approaching it?
Both candidates are providing different fixes to the issue.
LeBron James’ golf game achievement draws attention
LeBron James has been playing more and more golf in the past few months. With the Los Angeles Lakers losing in the second round of the 2026 NBA playoffs , it has given the superstar forward extra time to work…
Aaliyah Auginash places in top three overall at Native American Youth Science and Engineering Fair in Pine Point, MN
Red Lake Tribal Council: Congratulations to Aaliyah Auginash, enjoy DisneyWorld!! Aaliyah placed in the top three overall in the Native American Youth Science and Engineering Fair (NAISEF) in Pine Point, MN and earned herself a free trip this summer with her "Dancing Roots" experiment. Native American Youth Science and Engineering Fair Bemidji Midd...
Michigan launches new online form to improve reporting, tracking of harmful algal blooms to help keep residents healthy
To help Michigan residents alert the state about suspected HABs, EGLE has updated its online reporting form to include harmful algal bloom reports.
Lakers, Celtics, Clippers, Nets To Battle For 40-Percent Flamethrower
CLEVELAND — The ripple effects of a shifting market have created an unexpected opportunity for teams seeking elite perimeter depth. The Lakers, Celtics, Clippers, Nets to battle for 40-percent 3-and-D swingman. Front offices are evaluating their cap sheets to land the dynamic Keon Ellis. Cleveland Cavaliers' recent choice to fully prioritize retaining forward Dean Wade …
Marlins' Lake Bachar: Perfect as opener Saturday
Marlins' Lake Bachar: Perfect as opener Saturday
Lakers are reportedly interested in Mitchell Robinson of Knicks
The Lakers are reportedly one team that is interested in signing Knicks center Mitchell Robinson this summer.
4-star WR Demare Dezeurn decommits from Oklahoma
Four-star Westlake (Calif.) wide receiver Demare Dezeurn has decommitted from Oklahoma, he tells Rivals. Dezeurn had been pledged to the Sooners since September, when he chose them over offers from USC, Nebraska, Michigan, Texas Tech and a host of other programs. However, other schools have remained in contact with him since that initial commitment, pushing […]
Student donates $50,000 Google tech package to Seattle high school
Kameirah Johnson, a Lakeside School student and winner of the Doodle for Google contest, will give the $50,000 technology package she won to Rainier Beach High School instead.
Former Lakers coach Paul Westhead gets lifetime achievement award
Paul Westhead, who coached the Lakers to the 1980 NBA championship, has received the Chuck Daly lifetime achievement award.
Washington lands another 4-star WR in Dontay Tyson
For the second time this week, and the third time in this class, Washington has landed a four-star receiver. This time it was Peoria (Ariz.) receiver Dontay Tyson, who took an official to Montlake last week. Tyson announced his commitment to the Huskies moments ago. And the coaches, who had been pushing for him for […]
EAST TEXAS POLITICS: Congressman Moran & Tyler Mayor Don Warren
U.S. Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas) talks about whether he’ll support Ken Paxton after endorsing Sen. John Cornyn in the Senate runoff, which Paxton won, in this week’s edition of East Texas Politics on East Texas Now. Blake Holland also talks with outgoing Tyler Mayor Don Warren.
Weed removal business helps local find the right path
FAIRMONT – While the Curly Leaf Pondweed issue in Fairmont has affected many, removing it has helped one resident stay clean and keep the lakes clean. Dominic Hill of ClearShore Solutions said he was a troublemaker in his younger years and struggled with drug and alcohol addiction. That all changed four years ago when he […]
Busy summer boat season drives up business for Fairmont rental companies
Hall Lake Cabins and Pontoon Rentals says the period from June to September is the busiest time of year for rental companies during the boating season.
Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services issues health alert for Rockford Lake
Nebraska has issued a health alert for Harmful Algal Blooms, also known as toxic blue-green algae, at Rockford Lake in Gage County on Friday.
Livid dog trainer customers say they paid thousands to SE Michigan business
Customers across Southeast Michigan say they were left out thousands of dollars after paying for dog training services they claim were never provided by Great Lakes Dog Training.
From Hometown Puzzles To Global Entertainment Empire
In 2017, father-and-son team Jeffrey and Blake Stone were proudly showing off their very first business venture in Brandon, a single escape room facility hand-b
Vanderbilt Health Pets of the Day: Freddy and Cooper
Today’s first Dog of the Day is Freddy, submitted by Beth Piazza of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. “Freddy was adopted on Valentine’s Day of 2024 from the Nashville Humane Association. He is the cuddliest 90-pound lap dog.“ Today’s second Dog of the Day is Cooper, submitted by Brandie Taylor of Medicine. “Cooper is a 14 year old chocolate lab. He loves eating and going to get pup cups!” Freddy and Cooper were featured in the June 9, 2026, edition of MyVUMC News. To see the archived collection of Vanderbilt Health Pets of the Day, go to: https://news.vumc.org/section/voice/pets-vumc/. Pet photos wanted! The Vanderbilt Health Pets of the Day are posted to the Voice section of Vanderbilt Health News and included in regular editions of the MyVUMC News newsletter, which is published twice a week by Vanderbilt Health News and Communications. Now through July 6, we especially want to see photos of your pets enjoying spring and summer. That might be having fun at the lake or beach, hanging out in the backyard, lying on the couch, or in the case of a pet fish, just living the life aquatic (we’re not too strict about what constitutes enjoying spring and summer). If you have a pet picture you would like to send in for consideration, go to the submission form here and follow the guidelines.
L.A. Times insider: Austin Reaves wants max deal from Lakers
According to a Los Angeles Times insider, the Lakers may have no choice but to give Austin Reaves a max contract this summer if they want to keep him.
2027 four-star CB Blake Jenkins commits to Michigan Football
BOOOOM! 2027 four-star CB Blake Jenkins has committed to Michigan Football! The Wolverines land another stud in the secondary. STORY:
Trieu: Blake Jenkins, four-star cornerback, commits to Michigan football
Michigan made a strong closing push to beat out Vanderbilt, Texas, Houston and others for Katy (Texas) Tompkins cornerback Blake Jenkins.
Denison beats Endicott to win Division III baseball national title
Top-ranked Denison defeated No. 6 Endicott 4-3 in 10 innings on June 4 to win the NCAA Division III College World Series in Eastlake, Ohio.
Lakers announce multiyear partnership with Daiso
The Los Angeles Lakers announced Thursday a new multiyear partnership with Japanese retail giant Daiso, marking a groundbreaking agreement centered around the iconic Laker Girls dance team.
Swimmers urged to stay out of Lake Nokomis over health risks
The Minneapolis Park Board issued an advisory due to elevated levels of blue-green algae at the lake’s beaches.
Overnight Amtrak train: Travel mistakes I made on a 15-hour ride
On a 2025 overnight Amtrak train ride from Denver to Salt Lake City, I regretted arriving at the dining car early and leaving snacks at home.
Free Summer Entertainment Series returns with varied lineups despite reduced budget
The Fairfax County Park Authority has unveiled event lineups for this year's Summer Entertainment Series, which will feature more than 100 outdoor concerts, movie screenings and other free diversions. Kicking off with Springfield Nights at Burke Lake Park and Arts in the Parks at Frying Pan Farm Park on June 24, the 2026 offerings won't
National Science Foundation grant puts Chicago at the center of an expanding water economy
A $45 million National Science Foundation grant will help nonprofit Current expand a Great Lakes program to turn wastewater into useful economic resources.
Business owners say they’re being forced out of Northlake Mall with just weeks notice
Business owners say they have less than 30 days to move out.
Woman accused of trying to steal $52K through fraudulent refunds at Northwest Freeway business
April Timberlake was arrested after allegedly attempting to process fraudulent refunds totaling approximately $52,000 at her workplace on the Northwest Freeway, according to Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office.
The Miami Marlins have been the Nationals Kryptonite this season
The Nats have lost four straight against the Marlins, who really seem to have Blake Butera’s number this year
Gordon Monson: Salt Lake City now ranks as one of the country’s best sports cities, ahead of Philly, Boston and Denver
Salt Lake City sits at No. 12 in Sports Business Journal’s ranking of more than 2,000 markets.
The cult of objectivity has broken consciousness science
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. Alasdair Craig: How did your experiences with psychedelics get you interested in consciousness?Michael Pollan: One of the things that happens on psychedelics is that they foreground consciousness. What formerly seemed perfectly transparent and ever present—and yet, non-existent, as water is to fish—suddenly you see it. The metaphor I use in the book is that psychedelics sponge the windscreen. Suddenly you realize: wow, there’s a windscreen, there is this phenomenon that’s mediating my relationship to reality. This is not an unusual realization on psychedelics. I think a lot of people are called to think about consciousness after psychedelic experiences. So that was the proximate inspiration for A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness (2026).And then there was a more specific way in which psychedelics influence the book. That was a particular experience I had on psilocybin. I had the sensation that the plants in my garden were conscious and returning my gaze, with their own point of view and agency, and I got curious as to how to evaluate an insight like that. I mean, what’s the truth quotient of insights you have on psychedelics? And I was reading William James—who, of course, wrote beautifully about mystical experience—and he said, we can’t judge the metaphysics here, but we should pay attention to two criteria: (1) How useful is it to think this is true? He was a pragmatist, of course. And (2) can we subject it to other ways of knowing to validate it? Because maybe we should treat these insights as hypotheses. And that’s kind of how I approach psychedelics, as a great generator of hypotheses, but they need to be tested against other ways of knowing. And so that led me down this long path exploring the science of plant intelligence and plant sentience.AC: I love your phrase, “smudging the windowpane of conscious experience.” So do you now start to think, actually, even when I’m not on psychedelics, I’m just seeing a screen all the time, which is not reality, but rather is my conscious experience, behind which reality is hidden?MP: Well, you know, not when I’m brushing my teeth and making breakfast! But yes, in meditation, certainly. I mean, one of the things you realize is that my experience happens to be this way now, but it could be another way. And many things can affect it. My morning coffee changes the screen in various ways, sharpens certain things.___The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness.___There’s this wonderful metaphor in Aldous Huxley’s book, The Doors of Perception, where he thinks we channel consciousness, and that what the brain does is edit it, and there’s a reducing valve. And psychedelics open the reducing valve wider. I don’t know that I’m ready to buy into the idea that consciousness exists outside brains, but I do love that metaphor because there are times when you are more conscious than others. I know I’ve switched from window pane to valve, but you know, a camera aperture can open wider or narrower. And I do have a sense of that. I have a sense of when I’m being less conscious, and when I’m being more conscious, by which I mean, you know, more present, taking in more sensory information. So when you start thinking about consciousness as a matter of degree, that changes things also.I think when we scroll on social media, obviously, we’re conscious. But minimally so, because we don’t have to generate our own thoughts. We’re basically taking these little hits from other people and thinking their thoughts.The process of writing this book made me kind of relativize everyday consciousness as just one type, which is exactly what William James said. Normal consciousness is one type, separated by the flimsiest of screens from the other types.AC: If we stick with the metaphor of the smudge on the window that you get when you take psychedelics, it seems like we’re saying that consciousness has become like an object that you’re looking at, right? You’re looking at the smudge and that just is consciousness. But sometimes we’ll talk about consciousness as a state that you’re in, rather than an object you can perceive. You’re either conscious or you’re not conscious. So it’s difficult to really know what sort of thing we’re talking about when we talk about consciousness, right?MP: Yeah. When you say that consciousness is an object, what’s the subject? Consciousness also? The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness. So we’re in a closed loop and when we get a perspective on consciousness, we’re not achieving any distance from it. That’s one of the problems with studying consciousness. Science is predicated on an objective, God’s eye view of things, and you never get that. There’s no such thing. SUGGESTED VIEWING The brain filters consciousness With Àlex Gómez-Marín But, yeah, there is this sense, I think, that consciousness is something you can approach. Certainly, when you’re writing and trying to recreate a conscious experience, it’s a fiction, but you’re standing back from it, and looking at it. But there’s no real subject-object distinction.AC: That’s so interesting, because when philosophers start talking about consciousness, they often talk about what they call “qualia”, which is their word for the felt experience of, say, the color red. And I think that way of speaking often makes us think of the qualia as an object, which you can see out there: the redness of red. But, as you say, we also want to collapse the subject-object distinction when we talk about consciousness. So there’s something strange going on here…MP: Oh, yeah, there are many strange things going on! *AC: Let’s talk about the varieties of consciousness. Apart from perceptions, there are, pains, emotions, thoughts, and so on. What is it that holds all this diversity together so that they all count as instances of consciousness? What is it that they all have in common?MP: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I mean, there is sensory information, right? Which we perceive coming from the world outside ourselves. And then there’s internal information, which is what’s called interoception. And this is very important too. This is where feelings come from—what are sometimes called homeostatic feelings—that are intended to get the brain to keep us in these narrow ranges of temperature and glucose and so on. That’s a very important part of consciousness. And according to some researchers, who I think are probably right, this is where consciousness begins, with these very primal feelings, like hunger and thirst and warmth and itch, and things like that. And then there’s this third thing, which is our thinking about thinking.And what holds all this together is, I think, the sense of self. Consciousness generates a self: it is probably an organizing principle. All this stuff is happening to the self. It’s a construct, I think, but it is very useful. It can connect all these different streams of consciousness to a single being or a place, metaphorically speaking.* AC: The first half of your book is about the science of consciousness. Is consciousness just another thing, like black holes or the origin of life, which we don’t yet understand, but which we should have every hope that science will one day get to the bottom of, or is there something special about consciousness that makes this unlikely?MP: It depends how you define science. As we define science now, it’s going be very difficult. Science since Galileo has had a set of rules or assumptions, which is that the proper remit of science is to deal with the objective, quantifiable, third-person world. And the physical sciences have done amazing work under that set of limitations. Galileo—for tactical reasons, not for philosophical reasons—said science should not deal with the soul, which at the time was what consciousness was considered to be. So what is subjective, what is qualitative, what is first person, we’re going to leave to the church, he said. And this was a good agreement, and it probably kept many scientists from getting burned at the stake. But it leaves science in an awkward spot, now that it wants to venture into that territory of qualities, of first-person experience. And I don’t think it has the proper tools. I think it will have to add to its toolkit in some way, and find a way to bring in phenomenology, or lived experience and introspection, which science is usually dismissive of.The challenge—we alluded to it earlier—is that the only tool you have to study consciousness with is consciousness. And what I mean by that is, the whole scientific enterprise is a manifestation of consciousness. As much as scientists like to flatter themselves with this idea that they attain a godlike perspective on what they study, when it comes to consciousness, there’s no such thing. And it’s fine for all the things you can step outside of and study from that perspective. But two areas it won’t work are consciousness and cosmology.___It could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.___With cosmology, too, you have to study the universe from inside the universe. It’s not that cosmologists haven’t made progress. We know a lot about the age of the universe and expansion and things like that. But we can’t penetrate what happened before the Big Bang. We just don’t have the tools because we can’t stand outside.The fact that there are 22 full-scale theories of consciousness tells you all you need to know: we’re kind of lost. And I was surprised to find that we are more lost than I thought we were when I started this. I thought that there’d be leading theories, or that we had experiments that we could conduct that would nail some of this down. And the fact is, we don’t.So, I don’t know if science can solve it. But, of course, we can change the rules of science. A really influential book for me was a book called The Blind Spot, by two physicists, Marcello Gleiser and Adam Frank, and a philosopher, Evan Thompson. It’s a reminder that science is a social practice. It’s organized in a certain way and it can be organized in a different way. But it has this huge blind spot at the center of it, which is its failure to recognize that it is a form of consciousness itself, and it doesn’t have a good way of taking account of lived experience.AC: On the one hand, I think you want to resist traditional dualism, which would say that consciousness is something magical, something supernatural, right? But on the other hand, you’re accepting that there is this division in reality between the stuff that you can investigate objectively and measure, and so on—the stuff that science has been good at finding out about—and consciousness, which, for some reason, you can’t objectively measure. Some would take this to suggest that the dualism is actually right. Is there a way of reconciling these two strands of your thinking?MP: To call it magical is full of value judgement. I mean, you could just say immaterial. The interesting thing is, I think, that intuitively we’re all dualists. And I don’t know whether that’s because we’re children of Descartes and other cultures are less dualist than we are. Or it may be because that’s how consciousness feels. It feels different than the body. It feels separate from the body. But I don’t think we should trust that intuition.AC: So let’s think about ways that science might be changed to get at consciousness. I suppose the starting point would be the way that you begin the second half of your book. You have this nice line from William James, where he says, “We now begin our study of the mind from within.” Could you give us some sense of the ways of studying the mind from within? What does this involve?MP: I don’t know what that science looks like. But one of the points I’m making is that it depends on the humanities. I found that I learned as much, if not more, about consciousness, from reading novels and poetry. There is a sense of the fullness and complexity of consciousness that you don’t get in any scientific account. I interviewed this stream-of-consciousness writer and I approached her as an expert on consciousness, and she is. So I think that dialogue is really important.I’m reading Ben Lerner’s new novel, Transcription. Just read the first page of this novel: it’s a man falling asleep on a train, going to conduct an interview, and there is the experience of being in the train, facing backwards, there’s the view outside, but there’s a reflection of himself through which he’s seeing outside. There’s the memory of dropping his kids off at school. All this is going on in one moment of consciousness. Scientists aren’t going anywhere near that. But I think it’s useful for them to think about. That’s where we’re trying to go: like, how does such a layered experience happen? You know, it also makes you wonder, could a computer ever do this? And it gives you some doubt.*AC: Before we get to computers, perhaps we could talk briefly about plants. How did you come to feel that they are sentient?MP: Well, it was a psychedelic experience, and it’s not unusual on psychedelics. In fact, there’ve been studies about how people become animists during psychedelic experience. Their belief in animism arises after a single psychedelic experience.You know, most scientists would say this is all a myth. But we have only 400 years of the age of enlightenment and science. Before that, we were animists, and if you go around the world, most indigenous cultures are still animists, and children are animists, by and large, until they go to school. So it could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.As I said, I wanted to test this idea, and see whether there was conventional scientific evidence for it. And there’s fascinating work going on in a field that calls itself—in a rather cheeky way—plant neurobiology. These are people who fully realize there are no neurons in plants, but they’re trolling conventional botanists! And they’re doing experiments that are demonstrating that plants can learn and remember, which is kind of amazing: how do you store a memory without neurons? They’re finding plants that can solve problems, that can hear and see. In fact, they have 20 senses to our five or six. For example, a bean plant looking for something to twine, and given a pole within eight inches or so of it, knows where that pole is and will aim its spiraling reach at that pole. What is that about? Is it bouncing signals off of it?One of the spookiest things is the fact that the same anesthetics that put us out put plants out. You might think that plants are already out, but they’re not. They’re just slow. If you take a plant with a fast behavior, like a Venus flytrap, and give it an anesthetic, it will stop reacting. So you have to ask yourself, what is lost when the plant is anaesthetized? Some state of alertness, of awareness, of its environment, of reactivity. I’m not prepared to call that consciousness, but maybe it’s sentience—which is a simpler form of consciousness, and involves the ability to sense what’s going on in your environment and assess what’s good and bad for you and act appropriately. That may be a universal quality of life.AC: Let’s turn from plants to AI. You point out that LLMs are trained on the internet rather than direct interactions with reality. You put this really nicely when you say the internet is not the world so much as a shadow cast by the world. So LLMs are living in this kind of shadow world, or in Plato’s cave, as you put it. What’s the significance of this for AI consciousness and moral consideration? And, to recall the beginning of our conversation, if we’re stuck behind a veil or screen of consciousness, are we also stuck in a kind of shadow world?MP: I don’t think they’re the same shadow worlds because our world includes nature and other people. And even if it’s mediated in some ways... There is a reality out there, and we are in relation to it, through consciousness. There’s friction with it. What’s missing from the LLMs is that friction with the real world. There’s more to the world than human representation, which is what they’re dealing with. And that means that so far, AI is a cultural technology for combining thoughts we’ve already had. SUGGESTED VIEWING Cracking the code for thought With Roger Penrose, Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski, Max Tegmark, Güneş Taylor Genuine creativity is more than collage. A lot of what AI does now is tantamount to collage, putting this with that and you know, that’s part of art, certainly. But there are also genuinely new ideas that come into the world that don’t come in through manipulating the representations we already have. So it remains to be seen whether AIs can be truly creative in that more radical sense.But my arguments against AI becoming conscious have to do with the fact that the idea of AI consciousness is based on this faulty metaphor that the brain is a computer. There are dimensions in which the brain is like a computer—it certainly does its share of computation. But computers have this sharp distinction between hardware and software, and brains don’t. In a brain, hardware and software are identical. Every memory is a physical change to the brain. Brains are not interchangeable in the way computers are. So this idea that you could take the consciousness out and somehow run it on another substrate, a silicon substrate, seems foolhardy.Anyway, it’s a more extended argument, and I may be wrong. And when we move to computers that aren’t based on silicon—neuromorphic computers and things like that—all bets may be off.AC: Regarding your point about LLMs being stuck in the world of our representations—the internet or whatever—and not being able to interact with reality, are these representations, the world of the internet, themselves part of reality? We’ve created the internet, but it’s still a real thing that exists. And so while the LLMs may be trapped within that part of reality, they’re nevertheless within reality and interacting with it and so on. So it’s not obvious that there’s a barrier there to them becoming conscious and being creative.MP: Yeah, I mean, if our consciousness is built out of human culture, which is what we’re talking about with all those representations. But I tend to think consciousness comes a bit more out of nature and friction with the natural world, but...AC: So there’s a fundamental divide between the natural world and human artefacts?MP: And we lose track of that, and especially people in this computer world. You know, the people who are creating these AI systems, my guess is they’ve been into video games since the age of three, and they didn’t go outside a lot. And their own contact with nature is somewhat limited. I could be wrong, it’d be a very interesting thing to ask, all the wizards of AI, whether they like to go fishing and hiking and do things like that. Or were they on computers from a very early age? I interviewed Blake Lemoine, the Google engineer who came to believe that LaMDA, the Google LLM out at the time, was conscious and deserved personhood. It was very clear that he didn’t see a distinction between this bubble in which he lived and the real world. And I think we’ve all been distanced from the natural world, and this is taking us even further away. But it’s still there, you know, and we still have bodies, and we’re still mortal, and we don’t live in a simulation.AC: I think that’s a great place to finish. Michael Pollan, thank you very much!
Crews battle 2-alarm fire at Redmond business
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Latest report considered ‘unfortunate’ news for Lakers, Luka Doncic
Bad update for the Lakers.
Jase Bowen gets called up; Lake Elsinore extends its lead
Padres minor league update - June 1
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AANHPI Local Business Spotlight
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East Texas Politics streaming series debuts Friday with Tyler mayoral candidates
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Lakers layoffs part of sweeping changes to business operations
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Lakers layoffs part of sweeping changes to business operations
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