There are, it seems, three big questions still unanswered by science. One: why is there something rather than nothing (the case for God as creator); the second: how did life evolve from dead matter; and third, what is consciousness (and what is it for). It’s the third that Michael Pollan explores in A World Appears — to say he’s cracked it would be wrong. He has, however, got his readers thinking about it, possibly for the first time. Trouble is, as he observes, we have to use our consciousness to explore consciousness… this isn’t a subject we can investigate from outside.
The format could make for a dull book, except that Pollan is so honest, so interested and so clever that he turns the exercise into a journey through his own head — and other things besides. The structure does entail competing definitions of consciousness (“experience” is one plausible candidate) followed by our author interviewing one boffin after another, almost all men, about their particular theory.
It is striking how weird some of them are: alpha male academics locking horns over competing theories. The oddest was the bloke who has spent the last half century giving people bleepers which go off at random intervals and then getting them to note down their thoughts just before the bleeper goes off. The upshot, if you’re wondering, is that our thoughts are often terrifically inconsequential, shift like mosquitoes and are hard to pin down.
Part of the problem is that scientists have, for the most part, shied away from this big question on the basis that you can’t pin consciousness down and interrogate it: Francis Crick thought he could crack it just as he did with DNA… he was wrong.
Pollan goes with the view that the problem started with Galileo and Descartes, who thought that if a problem wasn’t resolvable in a rational fashion, ideally by mathematics, then it was best left to philosophers and theologians. This strikes me as unfair on Galileo, a good Christian, but you get the gist: consciousness may be measured by scientists but they risk confusing the indicators with the thing itself.
From philosophy to terrifying AI
Indeed it turns out that philosophy and literature have as much to offer as the scientists. The most interesting observations in the book are from the philosopher William James, Henry James’s genius brother, which suggests we haven’t made much progress in a century. Pollan has less to do with theologians, which is a missed opportunity — consider St Augustine’s Confessions where he records his memory of meanly pushing away his baby twin from their mother’s breast… that’s consciousness if you like.
The most terrifying chapter is on AI
The most terrifying chapter is on AI, and the suggestion here that we have indeed produced a conscious form of it (Pollan isn’t convinced). That in turn makes you think that we’ve erred in trusting this momentous development to the nerdy male scientists who feature in this book — by contrast, one woman sensibly observed, “Why don’t they just make a baby?”
Do plants have awareness?
The most interesting element of the book was on plant consciousness. Pollan uses psychedelics — magic mushrooms — to widen his consciousness. And while spaced out he was keenly aware that the plants in his garden were looking back at him, with goodwill. It turns out it wasn’t just the funny fungi at work. Darwin was keenly aware of what looks like intention — a proto-personality — in plants. And there’s a German scientist who gets plants to perform functions that, if replicated in mammals, would be indicators of intelligence. It also turns out that mimosa pudica, a plant that shuts its leaves when touched, doesn’t do so when it’s given anaesthetic. Explain that, huh?
Pollan’s quest for answers brings him finally to a Buddhist retreat, a cave where it occurs to him, looking at the stars, that his cerebral search for consciousness means that he experiences it less, not more. Not a bad ending to his journey.
A World Appears by Michael Pollan is out now (Allen Lane, £25)
