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Drinking bone broth daily makes sense, but beware high sodium
Here’s what to know about what bone broth is, why it can be good for you and who needs to be careful about overdoing it.
Joey D’Urso on the politics stitched into soccer shirts
Ahead of the World Cup, the author of “More Than a Shirt” explains how power, money and history shape what teams wear — from club sponsorships to national kits.
Potawatomi Zoo hosts free admission day for children
Potawatomi Zoo offers free admission for children ages 14 and younger on June 10 during its annual Children's Day event.
Hosting the World Cup makes US 'really ripe' for diseases, experts worry
The U.S. retreat from the world's public health stage amid disease outbreak has some experts concerned about infectious diseases.
It's Your Business has Lisa Wu, Tyrone Wilkens and Dana B. Weaver
News about the latest hires, retirements and more in the Topeka area.
Brockton café, West Bridgewater farm win Metro South business honors
See which local businesses won Metro South’s 2026 Small Business and Entrepreneur of the Year honors.
Nevada proposes pausing licensing for new hospice and home-health providers while it probes possible fraud
Nevada is proposing a months-long moratorium on new licenses for hospice and home-health providers as well as a pause of new enrollments into the state’s Medicaid program while the authoritie...
Business owner fined: Collier, Naples and Marco Island projects impacted
Naples business owner has agreed to pay a $100,000 fine for using a retired architect's seal on building plans.
Unflappable in face of headwinds, Trump draws loyal Wisconsin crowd
President Donald Trump was unflappable in Wisconsin as he gathered more than 1,000 supporters into a massive pole barn 10 miles north of Eau Claire.
With Banana Ball coming to Milwaukee, here's how it all got started
The meteoric rise of the Savannah Bananas as one of the most successful sports and entertainment franchises in the world started in 2016 and continues to grow.
California High-Speed Rail board approves business plan that suggests moving downtown Merced station
A business plan that forecasts where Merced’s proposed bullet train station may ultimately end up has received unanimous approval from the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s board.
Women’s sports are booming for the Texas Longhorns — investment is the reason why
After the Longhorns won a second national title in softball, women's basketball coach Vic Schaefer explains why women's sports are booming at Texas.
Cardinals' Quinn Mathews: Authors best start of season
Cardinals' Quinn Mathews: Authors best start of season
Festa Italiana brings packed entertainment lineup to Lodi
Festa Italiana returns to Lodi for its 12th year on Sunday. Here's what to know before you go.
Milwaukee health officials monitoring 3 who returned from Ebola-affected area
There is currently no danger to Milwaukee residents, and the risk to the American public is low.
E-bike safety; lung cancer treatment and prevention; keeping CMA Festival attendees safe; plus other stories with Vanderbilt Health sources
WKRN News 2 interviewed Jeffrey Upperman, MD, FACS, Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatric Surgery and Surgeon-in-Chief of Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, about e-bike related injuries following the recent death of a Brentwood High student and a proposal to require safety training before students could ride a bike on a school campus in Williamson County. Fabien Maldonado, MD, MSc,Professor of Medicine and Thoracic Surgery, was on WTVF News Channel 5‘s live studio show, “Openline,” with host Ben Hall, to discuss lung cancer, treatment and prevention. WSMV’s “Today In Nashville” program hosted Vanderbilt LifeFlight paramedic/flight nurse practitioner Tony Smith to talk about safety for the CMA Festival. The New York Times reporter Carl Zimmer interviewed James Crowe, MD, Director of the Vanderbilt Center for Antibody Therapeutics, for a story about the race to find vaccines and treatments as Ebola spreads. The Vanderbilt Health News release about the pilot clinical trial conducted by Vanderbilt Health and Cumberland Pharmaceuticals Inc., that confirms the safety of ifetroban and supports the further development of the drug to prevent cancer metastasis, was picked up by Reuters, Stock Titan,and others. Women We Admire has named Lee Ann Liska, President and Chief Operating Officer, to its list of top women leaders of Nashville for 2026. Radiology Business, Aunt Minnie, Bioengineer, and Imaging Technology News covered the study from Consuelo Wilkins, MD, MSCI, the Mildred Thornton Stahlman Professor in Rural Health and professor of Medicine in the Division of Geriatric Medicine, that found Black and Hispanic people, while known to be far more apt to have dementia, are significantly less apt than other racial and ethnic groups to show Alzheimer’s pathology on brain scans. STAT News interviewed Deva Sharma, MD, Transfusion Medicine & Hematology-Oncology, for a story about more patients requesting unvaccinated blood and what it means for the medical system at large. Yahoo! Health reporter Korin Miller interviewed Gitanjali Srivastava, MD, Director of Obesity Medicine, for a story about how semaglutide and tirzepatide compare. William Schaffner, MD, Professor of Preventive Medicine, was quoted by several news outlets about public health issues, including: NBC News (new COVID vaccinations); Medscape (pneumonia and sepsis); and CNN (protection from contagious viruses). Shelbyville Times-Gazette is repurposing Jessica Pasley’s July 2025 Vanderbilt Health News story on tick-borne illnesses as a front-page story.
Five Dems in June 23 primary for Lawler seat make their closing case
The five Democrats in a June 23 primary for New York's 17th Congressional District pitched their prospects to unseat GOP Rep. Mike Lawler this fall
Collier gift funds new Columbia business reporting program
Nathan S. Collier’s $2.4M gift will fund a new Columbia Journalism School program to train journalists in business reporting through a weeklong seminar.
Analysis: Adam Hamawy and the Mainstreaming of Pro-Terror Extremism in US Politics
The following analysis was authored by journalist and CAM editorial advisor Lee Smith: After winning the Democratic primary to represent New Jersey’s 12th congressional district on Tuesday night, Egyptian-born Adam Hamawy offered a glimpse of the worldview that’s shaped his meteoric political rise heading into the November midterm elections. “Takbir,” the 56-year-old plastic surgeon enthusiastically […]
Radio host Bill Cody needs double transplant after heart, kidney failure
Country music broadcaster Bill Cody is seeking a double transplant after being hospitalized for heart and kidney failure.
Trump administration’s proposed rule would limit some immigrants’ ability to legally work in the U.S.
The proposal would make it harder for several categories of immigrants -- notably those in the U.S. on humanitarian parole as well as DACA recipients -- to obtain or renew legal work authorization.
$70B for ICE or 7M new homes? Eyeing midterms, Democrats turn the screws on the GOP
In a marathon voting session, Senate Democrats forced Republicans to bat down a litany of measures, including housing affordability plans.
Painted Tree vendors to host free pop-up after abrupt closure
Vendors are hosting a free pop-up event to recover lost income after Painted Tree Boutiques declared bankruptcy. Here's how to shop on Saturday.
Senate Republicans pass bill authorizing $70bn for immigration enforcement in vote-a-rama
Republican senator Lindsey Graham said he was ‘very proud of my Republican colleagues for… making sure that Border Patrol and ICE are fully funded’
WNBA games today: Schedule, times, how to watch for June 5
Here's the full WNBA schedule for June 5, including game times, TV channels, scores and how to stream.
Mike Leach changed football. That’s only Hall of Fame stat that matters
Finally something to celebrate in offseason of turmoil: Mike Leach is on the College Football Hall of Fame ballot.
Improving access to mental healthcare takes growing together
The future of mental healthcare depends not only on adding more services, but on building stronger community partnerships.
French-Iranian Persepolis author Marjane Satrapi dies of ‘sadness’
Satrapi's autobiographical novel was born from her experiences of Iran's Islamic revolution and war with Iraq.
Legal battle over Trump's $1.8B 'anti-weaponization' fund rages on
'The Anti-Weaponization Fund presents a threat to our constitutional democracy,' Sens. Cory Booker and Bill Cassidy wrote in a court brief.
New Mexico Wellness Wire: Grocery money, abuse reporting and more Health Care Authority news
The Health Care Authority made announcements this week set to affect summertime food access and care for people with disabilities.
A new breed of power banks is here, and they're built around safer battery chemistry
The semi-solid-state magnetic power banks first unveiled at CES 2026 are now available, promising improved safety, Qi2 charging, and more.
House passes Ukraine aid, Russia sanctions as GOP bucks Trump on foreign policy
Eighteen Republicans sided with Democrats to authorize billions in aid to Ukraine.
Urban Waste Management, Air Quality, and Public Health: Assessing the Health Burden of Rapid Urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa
China CDC Weekly, first published in 2019 by China CDC, is an authoritative, trusted resource for public and global health research.
LAPD and feds conduct drug-busting operation in fentanyl hotspot MacArthur Park
The Los Angeles Police Department and federal agents are working on a joint operation targeting "illegal narcotics activity" in MarArthur Park, a hotspot for fentanyl sales and use, on Thursday afternoon, authorities said.
NM Health Care Authority announces $76M in federal rural healthcare funds
When fully implemented, the program aims to reduce long wait times, chronic disease risk factors and readmission rates to rural hospitals.
Psst…Halle Berry would like to talk about your vaginal health
Halle Berry, an investor in NellaSpec, talks about a new speculum and why she'll keep speaking out about women's health.
Weakened public health powers raise outbreak risks
Some jurisdictions have weakened their public health authorities in response to criticism of lockdowns, school closures, mask mandates, vaccine requirements and other COVID-era restrictions.
RFK Jr.'s health department is seeking Americans' medical records. Here's what's going on
The Health and Human Services Department wants to access medical records, but it's not tied to reports of autism research, the department says.
Senate Republicans reject first effort to fully kill 'anti-weaponization' fund
Senate Democrats wanted to attach a measure to fully kill what critics are calling a \
Ford recall tells owners not to drive certain Bronco Sports, Mavericks
Dealers are being instructed to contact vehicle owners to warn them not to drive the vehicle.
Southern Miss unveils plans for new science research facility
The University of Southern Miss unveiled plans for a new science research center on June 4.
Epic et al. dismiss a defendant in patient-data lawsuit
SelfRx has been permanently dropped from a suit naming Health Gorilla and several of its customers after the defunct company's founder claimed retrieval of more than 100,000 medical records was unauthorized.
Luxury cars seized after alleged $30 million fraud ring involving children's health services busted, officials say
Federal authorities have busted what they say is a $30 million fraud conspiracy involving billing for children's behavioral health services that were never provided, officials announced.
Valverde: “I never imagined being Real Madrid’s captain”
Real Madrid midfielder Fede Valverde talked to Uruguayan TV AUF and shared some thoughts about the upcoming FIFA World Cup and also about the club. “Wearing the armband is something incredible; I never imagined being captain for Real Madrid, and I thoroughly enjoy every opportunity to wear the armband. It carries some pressure too. When […]
Speaker Johnson, stop playing politics with privacy rights
To pass a FISA reauthorization, Johnson needs to stop governing by crisis and finally allow votes on real privacy reforms.
How to Improve Your Gut Health (and Why It’s So Important)
Almost 40% of Americans say their daily lives are affected by their bowel habits so Dr. Trisha Pasricha, author and a director of gut-brain research, joins TODAY to break down why gut health is so important. She explains how your gut is responsible for regulating metabolism, immune health, and mood, highlights signs to know if your gut is healthy, and shares ways to improve gut health like eating more fiber.
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
NY state government helped shape American ideals. How we reported it
USA TODAY Network-New York spotlighted the historical links between political leaders in Albany and American rights forged over the past 250 years.
Is your personal device protecting your business accounts?
Skipping basic security steps—especially on public Wi-Fi—can expose your business accounts to unauthorized access. These five steps can help you avoid an account takeover attack.
Melinda French Gates invests $215 million in health. Inside her surprising choice
Melinda French Gates is giving $215 million to improve women’s health. Her first-ever grant to benefit menopause and women in midlife.
She thought she slept great. Her Oura ring said otherwise
Regular visits with your primary care doctor remain the standard health recommendation. But wearable tech devices can be an extra tool.
GOP lawmakers question Rx Kids as study shows healthier births in Flint
Dr. Mona Hanna, founder of the Rx Kids program in Michigan, fielded questions from lawmakers on where money is going, immigrants and abortions.
Three studies used by RFK Jr and allies to justify controversial vaccine policies changes facing new scrutiny
Scientists praise moves to investigate, retract or remove controversial studies. The authors stand by their work
MDOC says inmate with business degree can't read books on investing
The MDOC expressed concerns Michael Thomas wanted to run a business from prison, but Thomas says he has no money to invest and only wants to learn.
Grind City Amp aims to build on early success in Memphis
Grind City Amp in Memphis officially opened April 22, with a performance by the Alabama Shakes.
See inside Jackie's Dream at Covenant Health Park in Knoxville
Take a look inside restaurant Jackie's Dream new location at Covenant Health Park in downtown Knoxville.
Google Photos on Android finally gets this handy feature months after iPhone
Google Photos on Android is finally getting the saved "Stickers" album in the "Collections" tab six months after it rolled out on iOS.
Michigan students see their film projects on the big screen
A theater in Royal Oak rolled out the red carpet for these young aspiring filmmakers, finalists in a contest to create their own movie trailers.
Democrats and Republicans slam arrest of Ohio's 'The Rooster' blogger
Even politicians who dislike The Rooster are denouncing the arrest of blogger D.J. Byrnes, with some calling the move censorship.
Exploring the night sky with author Craig Childs
On July 31 we'll discuss Childs's book, "The Wild Dark," his adventure in the desert, and why darkness matters.
Why AI is not the magic fix for healthcare
AI can improve healthcare efficiency, but systemic barriers and misaligned incentives remain the real problem.
In a first, House votes to block Trump from ordering further strikes on Iran
The Senate advanced a similar war powers resolution last month on a procedural vote, reflecting growing impatience with a conflict Congress hasn’t authorized.
Wingstop deal signals surge in dining, entertainment in Somerset
Wingstop and others are expanding dining and entertainment options at Rutgers Plaza in Somerset, reflecting strong demand at the busy shopping center.
Oglethorpe business dean explains why food prices are rising faster in Atlanta
Oglethorpe’s Stephen Craft explains why food prices are rising faster in Atlanta, citing supply chains, labor and transportation costs.
Christine Miller takes a warning shot at Tampa Sports Authority appointees
There's more drama as negotiations with the Rays move forward.
Wellin5 Moves Toward Its Next Phase of Behavioral Health Acquisitions
Wellin5 is arguing for the harder version. The company is a hybrid behavioral health platform that has operated in the category for more than a decade and has served tens of thousands of patients through virtual therapy services.
Wisconsin approves contract extensions after 2026 spring sports seasons
The UW Athletic Board has signed off on the customary one-year contract extensions for the Wisconsin Badgers' spring sports coaches.
UM-Health Sparrow moving to outsource nearly 400 employees
A union rep for the affected workers, who make about $16 to $25 an hour, said concerns about pay and benefits are abundant.
Senators urge quick action to halt college sports decay
Senators and college officials on Wednesday urged swift action on a bipartisan measure that aims to overhaul college athletics system they say hemorrhages money and hinders student-athletes — even as two powerful conferences said they would seek changes. During a much-anticipated Senate Commerce Committee hearing, both the bill’s authors — Chair Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and […]
Diebold Nixdorf CEO 'proud of our roots' as business implements AI
Diebold Nixdorf is exploring options for a business incubator at its North Canton headquarters and has implemented AI across operations.
John Ternus scaled back Apple’s Vision products roadmap: report
Ming-Chi Kuo just shared an update on Apple’s future Vision products that scales back the lineup—a shift reportedly authorized by John Ternus.
In the chase for stadium dollars, Tampa Sports Authority wants to prioritize Bucs over Rays
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Tampa Bay Rays are hoping to strike stadium deals.
Protect College Sports Act Hearing Testifies to Misplaced Priorities
Authors of the latest college sports bill highlighted its unique bipartisanship at a time of historic Congressional dysfunction and unpopularity.
Teddi Mellencamp reveals emotional health update on cancer battle
Teddi Mellencamp was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma in 2022, and by 2025, the cancer had metastasized to her lungs and brain.
Johnson: Democrats ‘playing politics’ with FISA over Pulte appointment
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) lambasted Democrats for suggesting that President Trump’s appointment of Bill Pulte to be acting director of national intelligence could imperil reauthorization of the …
Pixel 11 leak reveals all the official wallpapers arriving with this year's phone series
Ahead of an expected August launch, the official wallpapers for Google's upcoming Pixel 11 series has leaked.
Can Hollywood help heal America's divides?
Steven Olikara believes movies and TV can help Americans move beyond caricature, contempt and political division.
Kirk Herbstreit not back on EA Sports College Football 27 video game
ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit, who lent his voice for the video game when it rebooted two years ago, will not be on EA Sports College Football 27, per report
Michigan’s rural health investment must be built to scale
Michigan’s rural health investment should not simply fund isolated success stories. It should accelerate the movement of proven models from one community to the next.
A 23-year-old got candid about how medication ruined her sex life. How common is that?
SSRIs can be life-changing for people struggling with mental health issues, but for others, these drugs caused PSSD. What is it? Experts explain.
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!
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