Sam Harris
Sam Harris speaks with Michael Pollan about consciousness, the mind, and the self. They discuss Pollan’s new book, the relationship between consciousness and intelligence, whether consciousness is a product of evolution, the role of psychedelics in consciousness research, AI and the question of machine consciousness, the illusion of the self, and other topics.
Michael Pollan is the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley and the author of eight books, including How to Change Your Mind, his 2018 account of the renaissance of scientific research into psychedelics. In July 2022, Netflix released a docuseries based on How to Change Your Mind, exploring the history and uses of substances including LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and mescaline. His latest, A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness, explores consciousness—what it is, who has it, and why.
Website: https://michaelpollan.com/
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If the world as we experience it be is a representation—a map—then the physical brain is just another object on that map.
Asking how consciousness emerges from the experienced brain is like asking how your inner life emerges from a selfie, or how a living person could be resurrected from a photograph. That is indeed a very hard problem. It would mean we are trying to explain consciousness backwards. Like asking: "how does fire emerge from smoke?"
If this is the case, a more interesting question seems to be: how does the brain (the real one, not the selfie) convince itself that there is genuine hard problem, not being aware that it mistakenly reversed the causal arrow?
From experience we know the brain has many amazing tricks on its sleeve, create causal imagery that are mere appearances, often optical illusions. Creating a non-existing hard problem could be a piece of cake.
We evolved to have consciousness, because it’s beneficial as our prefrontal cortex is which allows evolved.
He misdefined sentience because he conflated sentience with nociception. Sentience implies at least some rudimentary consciousness.
We can identify a person's individual consciousness and also the collective consciousness. When faced with a moral or ethical dilemma, we project it with what the mind thinks—a genuinely selfish structure built by the brain to survive in this far from friendly universe.
Individual consciousness almost never coincides with what the mind thinks, and even more rarely does the mind's thoughts coincide with collective consciousness.
We must agree that individual consciousness is essentially the domain of human beings, while collective consciousness applies to animals, which also includes humans.
Someone might also claim that a stone or a car thinks, and they would be right, since even the atom, molecule, vacuum energy, ether, or cosmic consciousness thinks, as do morphic fields or Akashic records.
They don't think like humans, or animals, and by extension aliens, because we are not the first to experience this universe. For this reason, our brain builds 7 sensory illusions that allow us to live, survive, or deceive in this universe, which is not very friendly to unwary humans but rather easier for any animal.
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Podemos identificar la conciencia individual de una persona y también la conciencia colectiva ante un dilema moral o ético lo proyectamos con lo que piensa la mente, una estructura genuinamente egoísta construida por el cerebro para sobrevivir en éste universo para nada amigable.
Casi nunca la conciencia individual coinciden con lo que piensa la mente y más aún muy raramente la mente coincide en lo que piensa con la conciencia colectiva.
Tenemos que concordar que conciencia individual es essencialmente cuándo nos referimos específicamente a seres humanos y la colectiva para los animales donde los humanos también estamos incluidos.
Alguien también puede afirmar que una piedra, un auto también piensan y tiene razón, púes hasta el átomo ⚛️, molécula, energía de vacío, éter o conciencia cósmica piensan como así también los campos morficos o registros akashicos.
No piensan como los humanos, o los animales y por extensión los alienígenas, púes no somos los primeros a experimentar este universo, por tal razón nuestro cerebro construye 7 ilusiones sensitivas que nos permiten vivir, sobrevivir o engañar en éste universo poco amigable para desavisados humanos mas bien más fácil para cualquier animal.
mr. Harris 🧠💕
please give us the full version!!
I am one of the rare cases of people who feel absolutely no effect of any psychedelics. I tried them all, up to 200x of a normal dose and feel no change whatsoever. My theory is that the molecules do not cross the blood brain barrier in my brain.
Recently I took 5g of golden teacher which had almost zero effect. Now extenuating circumstances surrounding my physical condition at that time, I believe, were factors that biological interfered. While under a period of high mental stress and physical fatigue, I'd been awake for greater than 24hrs. Is it possible that under periods of extreme physical fatigue some neural receptors get blocked from activity for self preservation needs in the same way that fasting changes biological functions for self preservation?
This is the only time thus far that I've not had a typical expected response to either a micro or macro dose.
This is it, atheist bros there are three macro dimensions, not just the one you posit; matter or the elements from which you surmise all came into existence from nothing and evolved all, including entities, randomly to non-existent prototypes. Not so. The three macro dimensions are: Consciousness; fundamental and named God. Mind; subtly elemental; Matter or the Physical densely elemental; the latter two emerging at the level of quantum events. As the anthropic looms and there will be a tech imitation of reality, it is necessary to understand what it is. All is Consciousness, why consciousness is different and expresses in different ways is due to vibration at different frequencies. Consciousness as fundamental does not vibrate; only the elemental vibrates. Consciousness expresses according to the sophistication of the instrument or entity it expresses through. Similar as a twenty watt bulb not emitting the same amount of light as a one hundred watt bulb. There was the Big Bang or in religion The Word, it was not a one-time event that set all in motion and that was it. It is still involved in the motion, in religion as the Holy Ghost; the Third Person of the Trinity. Father the Creator; Son; the Intelligence in the Creation; Holy Ghost the Vibration that caused and maintains the creation. In religion there is Consciousness; named God. Then the Mind a separate dimension and subtly elemental, finally the elements, matter or the physical at the densest vibration. The Ancients in a Higher Age saw it as it was and got it. Religion as described in St. John’s Revelation; the Apocalypse; which means Lived Life not End Times as the Faith Alone crowd misinterprets it, gets it. The Apocalypse being Lived Life; the Four Beasts being: Motion; Time; Space; and the Atom. Take these away and we would be in Heaven which we are making inroads into with the discovery of finer forces: two electricities so far, there are likely three more, electro magnetism, thanks to Maxwell. To be discovered or understood yet, more on the known two electricities, discovery of the other three (five is a pattern) electro magnetism, (thanks to Maxwell); to be understood better; magnetism itself, mind, and consciousness for future discovery and understanding.
We are leaving the last dark age of materialism in the rear view mirror, inroads are being made into heaven will bring us into contact with finer forces and as they are put to use, they will change life. We cannot imagine what an age where magnetism is understood and used will be like, it would be beyond our present capacity to understand. As well, as the Church has said and Da Vinci understood we are the microcosms of the macrocosm; the Universe is our prototype. Through participation in Consciousness we are at the Center of the Universe, our planet and our bodies are, thankfully, in the Goldilocks zone in relation to the sun. A primate did not have the bandwidth for who we are, and who we are yet to become. We are only midway in our evolution; the higher age perspective being fourteen versions of the human in one Universal cycle; its prototype being the Universe. As the Universe evolves so do we, as it is our prototype, In religious language it is expressed as being made in the image of God. The problem with Atheist Materialism is the ideologies; the dark occult, which the Church kept out of the mainstream, was not good, neither is communism; trans humanism, etc. The Church will banish them to the trash where they belong as it did with the Dark Occult keeping it out of the mainstream. As well the Church established the great universities, hospitals, science, and encouraged respect for women. It will ad it did with communism defeat trans humanism which is likely the next ideology in the pipeline.
12:38 Give credit where credit is due – Crick took the work of Rosalind Franklin for his and Watson’s discovery, and Wilkins.
Cricks gets too much credit.
Wow drugs should have made you less arrogant
Pollan, what on Earth are you doing talking to a pro-genocide Israel supporter?
Psychedelics can be great when used safely and responsibly.
If psychedelics are NOT part of your culture you just don't jump in —- it is NOT Disney Land. Pollan and Harris are evil.
Had been trying to vape DMT for a while but something was not right with the vaporizer, it barely worked and i had been getting almost no effects until yesterday where i did something with the vaporizer to change the vaping technique and BOOM!
went straight into hyperspace, was basically my first DMT Trip and it launched me straight into 10 different universes
I don’t think we truly die, and I think it’s about to be revealed to us.
If consciousness and intelligence are orthogonal, shouldn't it follow that it's extremely unlikely to create consciousness by building AI?
How consciousness arises remains a mystery. Surprise!!
Pollan's (a la Friston's) answer about consciousness allowing us to navigate social life still doesn't get around Chalmer's zombie argument and determinism. Pollan is conflating zombie determinism with "being hardwired and programmed with all you have to know"… He's essentially begging the question. All the social adaptation we observe with consciousness is compatible with determinist-zombie argument (that is, with the behavior we'd see in a zombie). I suppose this is essentially how Sam Harris responded.
bak neill decrease tyson falan bu tipler …
ağızlarından ne kelime çıkarsa çıksın…
ezan susmaz diyin … ağızlarına tokat yapıştırın bunların…
quantum metafizik teolojideki öte alemler frekanslar…
purged dogma konusuyorlar bunlar…
If intelligence can be simulated, does that mean experience can be simulated too? Or are we confusing a model of consciousness with consciousness itself?
Hi
The food author? Most people are lucky to be good at one thing…this asshole just happens to be great at everything?
I am very surprised Sam doesn’t talk about the many problems with the large scale construction AI data centers.
Anyone else remember when Michael Pollan said psychedelics weren’t prevalent in the black community? Kilindi still wants to have words with you
I would suggest that there was a change in sentience prior to the emergence of consciousness.
A change worthy of it's own definition & label, the change induced with the emergence of the neuron.
Sentience now had the tool to move out of chemistry up into pure logic.
Of course, consciousness then also can emerge, being clearly logic based.
I had a friend who was apparently completely unaffected by psilocybin. She tried many times. I watched her take a high dose of some of the strongest mushrooms I have ever had (I've had A LOT), and they did nothing to her. she later consumed the rest of the bag, to no effect.
I love my psychedelics, truly one of the most remarkable phenomena on earth
Would be interesting to see an interview with Angelo Dilullo.
LOL as much as u can grind my gears and as much as i am still drawn to you, "yeah, i don't buy any of that" resonated to my core…
Peyote will enable seeing a clearer reality. Evolution based consciousness prompts the question why does the human brain detect more wavelengths of green than any other color? Answer is found in Africa circa 5 mil years ago.
It's important to teach people to understand, and to be more aware of their minds – without the reliance and dependence on any form of drugs. As drugs, over time, will distort the mind – so this is actually a very disappointing and irresponsible approach from Michael Pollan, who is supposed to be a person of good standing and intelligence
Taking drugs as an attempt to understand consciousness is unfortunately a cop-out, lazy person's approach – it's like someone who has never been poor, but thinks if they immerse themselves enough with poor people, they'll understand what starvation, true suffering and struggle is like
Mr. Pollan, your work is great, you are already famous. Why talk to a person who advocates for deep meditation while supporting deep suffering? You did not need that, it's a shame and very disapointing
Contact Peter Ralston for this conversation —- he’s the only one who knows
SAM HARRIS YOU DID NEVER MAKE ANY SENSE REGARDING COVID.
===== Dual Brain Psychology
Many organisms have two hemispheres and can be conscious. On the other hand, self-consciousness, like a mirror, is the recognition of ourselves, by reflection, from the mind in our brain's other hemisphere. Much like examining the inner workings of a radio, that cannot be understood until experiencing its result, that is, greater than the sum of its parts.
'How' and 'Why' questions about the hard question of consciousness are simply misconceived. That is, they are questions created, projected, and asked by the mind about THAT which prior to mind. Presence in/as The One/Consciousness, the gnossis is devoid of any such questions… like a mind game, or some koan. What appears emerges in/as Consciousness, not the other way around.
Btw, Neemkaroli Baba was quite the trickster. And Ram Das always came across as a little too gullible to his antics (though he's a sweetheart himself).
Is personality a part of consciousness? It seems like individual personalities could be a partial manifestation of consciousness.
Drug addicts say nothing slowly.
Funniest way I have heard anyone pronounce psilocybin in my life that shits funny