Michael Pollan
Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
authorjournalistacademic@michaelpollan ↗michaelpollan.com ↗Wikipedia ↗Instagram ↗
Michael Pollan is an author and journalist known for investigations into food, agriculture, and human consciousness. In addition to his faculty role at UC Berkeley, he co-founded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.
1shows
1appearances
19statements
2resolved
1supported
0contradicted
50%fully supported
2said about them ↓ Everything Michael Pollan said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Pollan: Historical compromise left modern science ill-equipped to study subjectivity
“And now we'll take everything measurable and quantifiable. And the church, you can have everything subjective and qualitative. That was Galileo's deal and Descartes to some extent. And it was a very pragmatic deal, but it's left us with a science that's ill-eq…”
Pollan: Plants can be anesthetized with the same chemicals that sedate humans
“The other thing that kind of blew my mind was you can anesthetize plants.”
Pollan: Complex Social Interactions Cannot Be Mechanically Automated Without Consciousness
“I also think consciousness is really helpful in a social situation. When you're dealing with a world that is fundamentally unpredictable. That is to say what other people are going to do at any given time, what other people are going to say at any given time. …”
Pollan: Consciousness Is Not Fully Computable Because Brains Are Analog
“I don't think everything consciousness does or is, is computable. I think the brain is more analog than digital in many ways.”
Pollan: Silicon Valley AI consciousness debates ignore pressing real-world problems
“And so much of the Silicon Valley conversation strikes me as a way to address fun thought experiments about the future and absolutely ignore what's going on in our world today.”
Pollan argues the Turing test fails as a test for consciousness
“The Turing test doesn't work for this consciousness question. It was designed for the intelligence question which is somewhat simpler.”
Pollan: Human claims to unique intelligence and culture are falling apart
“Our definition of the human, what's special about us, which has always been related to our intelligence and consciousness, is under enormous pressure today from these thinking machines and possibly feeling machines, and then from all these animals that we're l…”
Pollan: Humans will not grant conscious AI moral consideration
“The idea we're automatically going to treat them with all this moral consideration because they're conscious. That seems given the fact we continue to eat animals. We know we full well know our conscious. I don't know that we're quite as enlightened as that co…”
Pollan: Computer scientists agree LLMs will not lead to machine consciousness
“I've asked other people who are pretty knowledgeable computer scientists. Nobody seemed to think large language models are the way to go toward consciousness.”
Pollan: Lab-grown brain organoids have a shot at achieving consciousness
“We also have, we're building brain organelles in, in a solution. I think they've got a shot at becoming conscious. They're working from up from, you know, actual brain cells forming organisms together.”
Pollan: Scientific physicalism has failed to explain consciousness
“You know, people have been trying to do what has worked everywhere else in science, which is reduce phenomenon to mass, you know, to matter and energy. And it's been an incredibly productive strategy, but it doesn't seem to work
Yet with consciousness and that…”
Pollan: Consciousness discussions often mask a desire for an immortal soul
“I think that there is some wish fulfillment that we have something that is immaterial that therefore might survive the mortal body. I think behind a lot of people's talk about consciousness is the word soul, even though it's not articulated, but what is the so…”
Pollan: Reducing egotism through psychedelics, art, or awe unlocks spiritual experience
“The tension in my mind is between spirituality and egotism. And to the extent you can reduce egotism, whether through psychedelics, but also experiences of art, experiences of awe, all of which kind of shrink the eye in a way that can be feel really good that …”
Pollan: Animism is the default human perspective until schooling eliminates it
“I think it's the default human perspective to see life everywhere. Children certainly have it, right? They're all animists until we knock it out of them in school.”
Pollan: Sentience may be an inherent property of all living things
“So, you know, I'm not ready to say plants are conscious, but I think sentience
That, I think we can make that case, and I think maybe that's a property of all living things.”
Pollan: Brain Hardware and Software Are Indistinguishable Unlike in Computers
“In computers, you can run the same software on any number of different hardwares. But in brains, hardware and software are absolutely indistinguishable. Every experience, every memory is a physical set of connections in the brain.”
Pollan: 72% of American Teens Use AI for Companionship
“72% of American teens turn to AI for companionship already.”
Pollan: Chatbots Strip Away the Subtleties of Real Human Conversation
“When you have a conversation with a bot or a computer in general, you are reducing or simplifying your notion of what a conversation is. You're leaving out what's going on between us right now, which is acknowledgement, Skepticism, body language all the subtle…”
Pollan: Conscious AI experiments will illuminate human consciousness regardless of success
“And this effort to build a conscious AI is probably one of the most promising, ah, intellectual experiments to help us understand it. Whether it succeeds or fails, I think it's going to teach us something really important.”
The other half of the tape: Michael Pollan's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 1 episode across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
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One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Michael's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BIG TECHNOLOGYLEDGER | Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley | 1 | 19 | 50% 1/2 | full record on Big Technology → |