I first read The Botany of Desire in college about twenty years ago and have since enjoyed Michael Pollan’s career. His writings meander through topics of plant science, food, caffeine, and, most recently, psychedelics. After having a particularly memorable experience on mushrooms, which he describes in How to Change Your Mind, Pollan discovered the wonder of a different state of consciousness. Naturally, his most recent work explores just that.
Luckily, this book covers more than just his experience on mushrooms, though Pollan tells just about every person he talks to about his trip and thinking that his backyard plants were sentient and watching over him. He spends quite a bit of time on consciousness in plants and machines, before moving to philosophy and literature, and finally to buddhism and new age worldviews. Some of the best ideas (and that deserve more attention) include that consciousness may be a hallucination, or as simple as a distributed group of cells, or that consciousness is the sum of our feelings or memories.
What’s easy to take away is that everyone Pollan interviews has a different definition of sentience and consciousness. Some say consciousness is like sentience; others say it’s completely different. Some say it’s like being awake, or having a sense of awareness. But then again, we have a sense of awareness when we’re dreaming and unconscious. So what parts of the brain are required for consciousness? How much of the brain can be taken away and a person still have consciousness? (A lot, it seems.) I also appreciate the focus on meditation and the practice of observing your own thoughts as a way to become more aware of what is happening in your brain at any given moment.
I wish this book was more scientific and focused more on current theories and publications in the scientific community. But Pollan isn’t really a scientist. He’s a journalist, and what he loves more than anything, is talking to people — particularly those who have extreme viewpoints. While the subject is fascinating, Pollan’s shallow survey is frustrating. Honestly, the first half of the book feels like he’s trying to be too relevant, with so much focus on AI.
Recommended for an entertaining and thought-provoking high-level review of our current definitions of consciousness.