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RuneScape: Dragonwilds Soars onto XBOX on September 15, 2026
Adventure across a beautiful, high-fantasy world in RuneScape: Dragonwilds, coming to Series X|S September 15, 2026.
Tarik Skubal's Sunday start sparks buzz in west Michigan
Tickets are sold out for the Whitecaps' game Sunday at LMCU Ballpark.
In a visit to farm country, Trump extols ‘beautiful fountains’ back in Washington
As President Donald Trump took his seat Friday for a roundtable conversation on agriculture, speaking beneath a green sign with a giant slogan, “Fighting for American Farmers,” he quickly moved on to other matters on his mind.
Fans Outraged by Bears’ Controversial Stadium Decision
Chicago Bears brass had been waffling between Arlington Heights, Illinois, and Hammond, Indiana, for their new stadium.
Shohei Ohtani’s Cy Young Push Comes With Dodgers Dilemma
The Dodgers are in a tough spot, with Shohei Ohtani pitching himself into the Cy Young race, but the team still needs him to be healthy for October.
Chicago businesses 'hurt' and concerned over Bears plan to move ahead with Hammond stadium
Community group Near South Planning Board said the team's move out of Soldier Field will result in potential economic losses for Chicago, from less tourism and visitor spending to fewer jobs.
LARRY KUDLOW: Trump loves business, and business is booming
The Trumpian boom: jobs rising more than double the predications, prior months revised higher. wage income beating inflation
Haslam College Of Business To Receive Bulk Of The Largest Gift In U Of Tennessee History
Cleveland Browns owners give back to Knoxville in a big way, with $100M going directly to the B-school that bears their name.
ABC7 Sports Overtime with Dionne Miller: June 5, 2026
On the latest ABC7 Sports Overtime, Dionne Miller discussed the Chicago Bears making a big decision, announcing they are moving forward with plans to build a new stadium in Hammond, Indiana.
From The Sports Desk: Carolina storms back to beat Vegas, even Stanley Cup Final
The Hurricanes scored three unanswered goals in the third period and won 4-3 in overtime to even the series 1-1. Plus, Sweden’s Viktor Gyökeres is today’s World Cup spotlight.
Chicago Bears sign draft picks Dillon Thieneman and Logan Jones
The Chicago Bears have two more draft picks under contract, so they have one more to go.
West Virginia one win from MCWS after beating Cal Poly
The Mountaineers are one win from Omaha after defeating Cal Poly
Chrome Sets Browser Speed Records on M5 MacBook Pro
Google's Chrome browser hit new records on browser benchmarking tools Speedometer 3.1 and JetStream 3, Google said today. Chrome earned a score of 61 on Speedometer, a five percent improvement since last year. It earned a 469 on JetStream 3, a 10 percent improvement since the beginning of 2026. Tests were done on an M5 MacBook Pro running macOS 26.0.1. Google says it holds a dual record across all browsers, beating every other Mac browser, including Safari.
Will Colts and Bears both call Indiana home?
Will the Chicago Bears be joining the Indianapolis Colts in the state of Indiana?
Bears Board of Directors advance stadium development plans in Indiana, with exact site TBD
Chicago's team could be moving across state lines.
Liverpool is pushing to beat Arsenal to sign two attackers
Liverpool and Arsenal have both been linked with moves for several of the same attacking targets, and The Times reports that the duo are now competing for two highly rated forwards in the current tran...
Alexander Zverev to face Flavio Cobolli in French Open final, on verge of shedding Grand Slam demons
The ATP No. 3 beat Jakub Mensik in the semifinals. He needs one more win for his first Grand Slam title.
SC health department employee charged with threatening state lawmaker
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) charged a Richland County man with threatening the life of a public official.
Bears vote to advance stadium project in Hammond
The Chicago Bears today took their strongest step yet toward building a new stadium in Indiana, announcing that the team’s board of directors has voted to advance a stadium development project in Hammond.
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.
Paul McCartney says feud with John Lennon before the Beatles broke up felt 'like sticking little daggers in me'
Former Beatle Paul McCartney looks back on feud with bandmate John Lennon over management disputes before the band broke up.
The Bear’s Den, June 5, 2026
The Chicago Bears hit the practice field again, as Packers drop serious change on oft-injured receiver.
Caleb Williams' 'Madden NFL 27' cover inspired by Michael Jordan
The Bears quarterback said the pose, skyline and overall concept were designed as a tribute to Chicago's most famous athlete.
Spurs have one major issue against Knicks in NBA Finals
It’s no secret that the San Antonio Spurs have been dominant throughout the postseason, knocking off the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder on their way to the NBA Finals. With only the New York Knicks standing in their way, the…
Big question facing Jaguars quarterback position heading into minicamp
Previewing the Jaguars' upcoming minicamp practices, here is our one big question facing the quarterback position.
Scottie Scheffler has Memorial Tournament meltdown after ball winds up in water: 'I don't know what to do'
US economy added 172,000 jobs in May, beating expectations
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 172,000 jobs were added in May, beating economist expectations of 85,000 while unemployment held at 4.3%.
Health communications students develop campaigns for Cone Health prenatal program
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Senegal: 2026 World Cup Squad, Fixtures and Schedule
Sadio Mané leads Senegal into a fourth FIFA World Cup this summer, still chasing the heights of their 2002 fairytale.The Lions of Teranga reached the quarter-finals on their tournament debut, beating...
I worked with the USMNT. This is the biggest mental challenge of the World Cup
This story is part of Peak, The Athletic’s desk covering the mental side of sports. Sign up for Peak’s newsletter here. Travis Thomas is a mental performance coach who was the leadership and team dynamics coach for the United States Men’s National Team during the 2022 World Cup. One of the moments when it became evident to everyone that the World Cup is just a different beast was our game against Iran in 2022 in Qatar. We had one game left in our group, which happened to be against Iran. We needed to win that game to advance. Iran only needed a tie to advance, and we would have been...
'I thought I had the flu': Mom nearly died after dismissing deadly sepsis symptoms
Virginia Beach mother Audrey Wiggins shares her harrowing sepsis survival story to raise awareness after NASCAR star Kyle Busch's death from the condition.
Rockies beat reporter Patrick Saunders to leave Denver Post
The long-time reporter announced his departure on X.
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.
Columbus Business Beat: OSU eyes lease on historic building, Dutch Bros in Ohio
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – This week on Columbus Business Beat, Digital Anchor Rachel Ramsey talks to Doug Buchanan, Editor in Chief of Columbus Business First, about business news across ce…
The Family Business Behind the UWS New York Knicks Bear
Constantine and Nick Bazas, who own Q Florist on the Upper West Side. Photo by Gus Saltonstall. By Gus Saltonstall
Harrisburg tops O'Gorman in South Dakota state softball quarterfinals
No. 2 Harrisburg worked out of a bases-loaded, no-out situation in the top of the seventh to beat No. 7 O'Gorman in the Class AA state quarterfinals.
New York Giants among teams 'under the microscope' in 2026
The New York Giants have been ranked among the top-10 NFL teams "under the microscope" in 2026.
Bears are playoff underdogs according to 46.5% ESPN playoff projection
This is not the kind of projection Bears fans want to see.
U.S. House panel seeks DOJ probe of ex-Miami Beach Mayor after Jeffrey Epstein accusations
House Oversight Committee members emphasized that Congress is not determining guilt, but said the allegations warrant review by federal investigators.
EA Sports teases introduction of the tush push in Madden 27
Bears quarterback Caleb Williams will be making his first appearance on the cover of a Madden game with the 2027 and the game will also include the first appearance of a play made famous by another 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.
Bears downplayed Chicago talks as Arlington Heights push advanced
Records obtained by Crain's show six conversations between City Hall and team attorneys as Springfield lawmakers weighed legislation sought by the Bears.
ECU Health Beaufort Hospital now offers MISHA Knee System
ECU Health Beaufort Hospital now offers the MISHA Knee System for patients suffering from medial knee osteoarthritis.
Rutgers Researchers Expand Global Climate and Forest Science Collaboration in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula
When people think of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, images of turquoise waters, white-sand beaches, pristine jungles and ancient Mayan cities often come to mind. Yet beyond these iconic landscapes lies a region where tropical forests, agricultural lands and local communities are navigating the complex realities of environmental change. A Rutgers-led international research collaboration is helping to […]
Entertainment this week: Maker Show, Art Walk, Food and Wine Faire and more
Friday, June 5 2026 Music at Ski Beach – 4-7 p.m., Fridays at Ski Beach in Incline Village – IVGID passes required For more information, visit https://business.ivcba.org/event-calendar/Details/2026-music-at-ski-beach-1745156?sourceTypeId=Hub. First Fridays – 5:30-8 p.m., Historic Downtown. Type...
Packers’ Keisean Nixon facing backlash after blunt words for Bears
The 2026 NFL season is still months away, but the rivalry between the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears never stops. It simply does not take a pause. Just recently, Packers defensive back Keisean Nixon further fueled that with a statement on Chicago. Via Dave Schroeder of WBAY-TV: Keisean Nixon on the Bears: “Free [...]
James Beard-nominated chef leaves Seattle for Bainbridge Island, citing poor business environment
A James Beard-award-nominated chef, Brendan McGill, has closed his final two Seattle restaurants and is leaving the city over a poor business environment.
Trump’s Disappearing Hair-Loss Drug Fuels Fresh Health Mystery
Trump’s medical report suggests he is no longer taking the anti-balding medication.
L.A. Dance Project's 'City of Dance' puts free dance in public spaces
Choreographer Benjamin Millepied's L.A. Dance Project is taking its work to the streets of Los Angeles over a period of two weeks with free performances at LACMA's David Geffen Galleries, Hollywood Forever Cemetery and Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park.
The Bear’s Den, June 4, 2026
The Chicago Bears are in the heart of voluntary OTA’s, and we have news.
D-Backs 0, Dodgers 7: Beat down in Downtown
TL;DR: Zac Gallen labored, the bullpen struggled, and the offense was nowhere to be found
Wilmington Startup IQExit Targets a Blind Spot in Business Succession Planning
Wilmington startup IQExit is aiming to change the way banks prepare for business ownership transitions by surfacing exit signals years before a company is sold. At its core, IQExit is an advisor-in…
2026 K League 2 Round 15 Preview
The final round before the World Cup break brings several intriguing storylines across the K League 2. In-form Hwaseong FC put their eight-match unbeaten run on the line against promotion contenders S...
South Africa: 2026 World Cup Squad, Fixtures and Schedule
South Africa head into the 2026 FIFA World Cup with momentum after securing qualification and returning to the tournament for the first time since 2010.South Africa earned their place by finishing top...
ArtBeat: Spotlight on the local arts events and entertainment
Here’s a closer look at what you can expect from the area’s events: June 4– June 10: The weekly preview of arts and culture events in the Greater Knoxville area is included in the Arts & Cultural Alliance. Summer Movie Magic: The Tennessee Theatre’s family-favorite Summer Movie Magic Series returns with three dates and six […]
Trump said he doesn’t know if his $1.8 billion ‘anti-weaponization’ fund is dead, and called it a ‘beautiful thing’
Guardians score vs. Yankees. Jose Ramirez powers Cleveland to win
Jose Ramirez continues to thrive at Yankee Stadium and the Guardians guarantee a series win by hitting three home runs to back Gavin Williams.
Knicks open NBA Finals on road with win over Spurs
SAN ANTONIO — The New York Knicks’ winning streak lives on, and they struck first in the NBA Finals. Jalen Brunson scored 30 points, Karl-Anthony Towns finished with 18 points and 12 rebounds, and the Knicks erased a 14-point second-half deficit to beat the San Antonio Spurs 105-95 in Game 1 of the finals on […]
Public health experts sound alarm on Kenya Ebola facility
Presented by Planned Parenthood{beacon} Health Care Health Care PRESENTED BY The Big Story Infectious disease physicians sound alarm on Kenya plan Several prominent in…
Caleb Williams strikes jump-throw pose for Madden NFL 27 cover
Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams has been announced as EA Sports’ cover athlete for Madden NFL 27. On the standard cover, Williams is depicted in a position similar to his
MAHA candidate beats Trump's choice in Republican primary for Iowa governor
The narrow upset Tuesday revealed cracks in President Donald Trump's coalition in the deep-red state, encouraging Democrats who are hopeful they can flip control of the governor's office this year.
Google's Dreambeans, its weirdest-named AI tool to date, will turn your life into a cartoon
Dreambeans is a curated list of AI-illustrated "stories" culled from the personal data in your Google account.
Biggest diesel shock since 2022 deals another blow to farmers
In Illinois, the top US soybean-producing state, farm diesel averaged a record $5.41 a gallon at the start of May, nearly double the price a year earlier.
Takeaways from the California gubernatorial primary election
Money can't buy love. The gubernatorial glass ceiling remains intact. California voters show — again — that boring can be beautiful. Five takeaways from the gubernatorial primary.
Indie Selects for June 2026: Absolutely Stacked Indie Games
The ID@XBOX team handpicked a bold, genre-hopping lineup of six titles for May's Indie Selects where nothing plays it safe.
Macy's Lifts Sales Outlook; GameStop Collectibles Business
On this episode of Stock Movers with John Tucker: - Macy's (M) shares are on the move after it lifted its sales outlook for the year, a sign that the company's focus on growing its luxury business and improving its assortment is paying off. - GameStop (GME) shares are climbing after the video-game retailer reported a record quarterly profit driven by its collectibles business. Sales overall climbed 14% to $835.3 million. Net income of $389.6 million was the highest ever for a quarter in the company's history, GameStop said in a regulatory filing Tuesday. - Palo Alto (PANW) shares are dropping as the security software company reported results following a 61% year-to-date rally. The company reported third-quarter results that beat the average analyst expectation and raised its full-year forecast for key metrics, but failed to meet elevated buyside expectations.
'Survivor 50' players name the best moment of the season
'Survivor 50' players name the best moment of the season, and while one clear winning answer emerges, get ready for a few twists in the replies.
Caleb Williams is EA Sports Madden NFL 27 cover athlete
Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams is the EA Sports Madden NFL 27 cover athlete.
Coming to XBOX Game Pass: Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions, Beastro, Undisputed, and More
We’re just a few days away from the XBOX Games Showcase followed by the Gears of War: E-Day Direct – but while we’re waiting for the show, let’s get to what other games you can play first, or at least pre-install.
Inside Caleb Williams' EA SPORTS Madden NFL 27 cover shoot
Bears content presenter Jasmine Baker gives fans an exclusive look at quarterback Caleb Williams' cover shoot for EA SPORTS Madden NFL 27 in Los Angeles.
Riverhead Votes to Proceed with Science Center Condemnation
In a 3-1 vote Tuesday afternoon (Councilman Bob Kern abstained), the Riverhead Town Board voted to proceed with condemnation proceedings against a building owned by the Long Island Science Center adjacent to the planned Town Square on East Main Street. Town Supervisor Jerry Halpin cast the sole vote in opposition. Pictured Above: Cindy Clifford, Joan
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!
Caleb Williams Named EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL 27 Cover Athlete
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Eagles get bad news on 2026 first-round draft pick
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Op-Ed | I built a New York City beauty business from the ground up. Policymakers should be careful not to break it.
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'Grangeville' review: Samuel D. Hunter play grapples with fraught past
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A science powerhouse bets on genetic therapy to beat brain disorders
The Allen Institute in Seattle says scientists have now learned enough about how the brain works to start fixing it when it breaks.
A science powerhouse bets on genetic therapy to beat brain disorders
The Allen Institute in Seattle says scientists have now learned enough about how the brain works to start fixing it when it breaks.
A science powerhouse bets on genetic therapy to beat brain disorders
After spending two decades studying how the brain works, a huge team of scientists in Seattle is preparing to focus on treating brain diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, using gene therapy.
Close But No Cigar: Dbacks 5, Dodgers 6
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Dodgers find their offense, then hold on to beat Diamondbacks
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Baton Rouge business owner demands answers after video appears to show FedEx driver kicking, throwing packages worth up to $30K
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Colorado health officials confirm West Nile case in Jefferson County
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Beastie Boys DJ Mix Master Mike, Voices Of Service Join 50 Cent for 2026 United Bowl Presented by Credit One Bank
Sponsored by Dynasty Financial Partners, Mix Master Mike to perform throughout United Bowl with extended sets pregame and leading into 50 Cent halftime performance, and postgame trophy presentation