00:00:15
S1: It's not too much of an overstatement to say that for over 30 years, Michael Pollan's books have helped reshape conversations about industrial food systems, animal consciousness, and our obligations to other living things. His new book, A World Appears, is about plant sentience, an immersive exploration of how plants exhibit thinking and memory like behaviors, responding to physical threats, favoring their own species, and supplying nutrients to struggling neighboring plants. I'm Konrad Marshall and from the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Welcome to Good Weekend Talks, featuring weekly, in-depth conversations with fascinating people. In this episode, Michael Pollan discusses compelling new research by Plant neurobiologists, reinforcing the author's conviction that human beings are not unique in possessing consciousness. He'll be appearing at the Sydney Opera House on Wednesday, November 4th and at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne on Thursday, November 5th. He's also featured in the current issue of Good Weekend magazine on the Dicey Topics page with Benjamin Law. Today's podcast conversation is hosted by Good Weekend senior writer Greg Callaghan.
00:01:27
S2: Thanks, Conrad, and welcome, Michael.
00:01:30
S3: Thank you Greg, good to be here.
00:01:32
S2: Now, your new book, A World Appears, is about a subject that's about as big as it gets. No less than consciousness itself. Specifically, some remarkable new research about plant consciousness, which we'll get to in a moment. As you've, um, shown in, in, in this book and in earlier ones, different forms and levels of consciousness are common on our planet and not just limited to humans, of course. Would you agree that, um, perhaps the most miraculous thing about the universe is its capacity to create consciousness of itself?
00:02:10
S3: Absolutely. I mean, you know, I went through the thought experiment of imagining a world without consciousness. What does that world look like? Doesn't look like anything. I asked Christof Koch, who's a very preeminent researcher of consciousness. So what is the world in the absence of consciousness? And he said, particles in waves. That's it. Everything we know is the result of our, uh, tools of perception, our body size, the, the, um, the time scale at which we live.
00:02:44
S2: And I must say, I loved your new book. It's made me think about, um, plants in a, in a new way. We don't, we don't tend to think of plants though as having um, um, consciousness because they lack, you know, a brain and they lack a central nervous system. So tell us what, um, researchers, specifically those in the plant neurobiology movement have been showing.
00:03:08
S3: Well, they've made some amazing discoveries that suggest that you can do a lot of neuronal things, um, without having neurons and that there are other ways to store memories. For example, you can teach a plant something and it will remember it for up to 30 days. Uh, plants are exquisitely aware of their environment. They have 20 senses to our 5 or 6. Um, they can, uh, here, uh, if you play, if they, uh, if you play the sound of caterpillars chomping on leaves, they will react to it. They can sense pH, they can sense gravity. They have all these senses. Um, so they're very aware of their environment. Um, they somehow can see. Um, if you, if you put a bean plant next to a pole, uh, it will find its way to that pole and concentrate all its efforts on getting to that pole rather than just exploring, uh, willy nilly. But one of the most remarkable things that we've learned about plants is that the same anesthetics that put us out, put them out. Now, you might think they're already out, but in fact, they're just very slow. Uh, and you take a plant with a fast behavior, like a Venus flytrap, and you give it xenon gas or some other anesthetic, it will, um, no longer react when the bug crosses its threshold. So you have to ask yourself, what is it losing when it when it's out, when it's unconscious. Um, is it something like consciousness. It has these two states of being. Um I'm not prepared to say plants are conscious, but the word I prefer to use in their case is sentient. Sentient is a more basic form of consciousness. It implies awareness of your environment and an ability to distinguish between good and bad changes in that environment. And I think it's very possible that all living things are sentient, that this is a property of life and something you need to navigate, a world that's constantly changing and that you can't program all your responses to. You need a sort of flexibility and intelligence in response, and sentience gives you that.
00:05:28
S2: What led you from investigating animal welfare in The Omnivore's Dilemma to exploring plant sentience in a world of pigs? It is a significant jump.
00:05:39
S3: Yeah. I've had a bunch of significant jumps in my career. You know, I kind of follow my curiosity, but plants have been the common denominator of almost all my work. I've been fascinated by plants since I started gardening as a kid, and I don't think they get nearly enough credit for their intelligence and, uh, and also their ability to manipulate us. I wrote a whole book about that called Botany of Desire. Um, you know, plants are very clever in lots of ways. Um, in a way it was the animals writing about the animals. That was the departure for me. I haven't written nearly as much about animals. Um, but plants, I've been interested in so many aspects. I mean, obviously they're the basis of agriculture and I've written a lot about agriculture and the food system, but they're also in their genius. They have created this whole suite of chemicals that has the the power to change what goes on in our minds. Um, I'm talking about psychoactive plants. I'm talking about, um, you know, opium and plants that, um, calm our nervous system, uh, other plants that stimulate us. They have. They know how to push our buttons, and they're geniuses at biochemistry.
00:06:58
S2: The obvious question, Michael, to ask when I'm reading your book, um, your latest book and when I'm talking to you now, is that, um, if plants have this kind of sentience, if they can learn, they can communicate with other plants, particularly their own species, as you say in the book, and react to threats, does that mean that they can experience pain?
00:07:20
S3: Well, that's a great question. Yeah. I mean, as soon as I started learning about their sensitivity, um, and their senses, I started wondering, do they feel pain? And the plant neurobiologists I consulted were divided on that question. I talked to one of them, a Bulgarian guy whose name is escaping me right now, and he said, well, of course they feel pain. Um, you know, just get your head around it. But we have no choice. We have to eat them. But then I talked to someone else, Stefano Mancuso, an Italian plant neurobiologist, and he said, no, it would not be adaptive for them to feel pain. That pain is only useful when you can remove yourself, remove your hand from the hot stove or run away. And plants can't do that. They know they're being eaten. Um, and they can react to it, but it doesn't mean they're feeling pain. Um, so I found that a little more comforting because really, you know, if we can't eat the plants and we can't eat the animals, what is left? Salt. So that's just not enough. Um, and you know, he also pointed out to me that in many respects, plants don't mind being eaten. Their evolutionary strategy in many cases is to get us to eat their fruit. Right. And this is how they spread their genes around. So they, they feed us on purpose and feed other mammals and other animals. so that. And then you think of the grasses, you know, most of what we grow is in agriculture at various grasses and grasses are regenerated by being eaten by ruminants or humans. Um, it's part of their reproductive strategy. So no one should feel any misgivings about eating plants, even though they're very sensitive and sometimes aware you're doing it.
00:09:13
S2: That's extraordinary. Really. One of the fascinating things is actually when you talk about, um, pea plants and their ability to kind of effectively, uh, predict future conditions, um, by, um, you know, uh, increasing sort of nutrient trajectories, um, in soils and so forth. And, and, and, um, which is a form of, um, of prediction.
00:09:39
S3: Anticipation.
00:09:40
S2: Anticipation.
00:09:40
S3: Yeah. Which is quite remarkable. Yeah. If you give it a pea plant, a choice between, uh, a soil that has a fairly high nutrient content now. And another soil that might have a lower nutrient content, but it is trending upward. Uh, they'll go with that one. Um, so they're looking ahead in a sense. I don't mean to suggest that they have interiority, that they think that's not exactly it. Their awareness or sentience is very different than ours. Um, but it's a real thing. And, and their behavior cannot simply be explained by instinct. You know, pre-programming every response because you can confront them with, with situations they've never dealt with in nature and they find an intelligent way to respond.
00:10:30
S2: One of the fascinating things, I think as a gardener, and you know, you're a gardener as well, is the, um, the way that plants, uh, compete with one another and compete for soil space, but also, and shared resources with their own plant species, but they also some plants like eucalyptus. And there's a pretty annoying big tree next to me that drops all these, um, like these little spindles, um, twice a year and actually kills it smothers any kind of plant groundcover in my backyard. Um, so these, uh, plants like eucalyptus and so forth, they, they're.
00:11:14
S3: Very competitive, aren't they?
00:11:15
S2: They're very, very competitive. They're kind of like the, uh, authoritarians of, uh, of the plant world, aren't they?
00:11:24
S3: Some of them are. On the other hand, there are plants. If a plant knows it's related to another plant, it will happily share resources in a pot, say, if you plant them together. But if they're not related, um, they will compete for resources in that pot. So that suggests they recognize kin. Um, and, you know, or think about the fact that plants don't like to be shaded by other plants and will try to outgrow them to get above and get the sunlight. Yet when they're shading themselves, they don't have a problem. They recognize that that shade is a different quality than the shade of a foreign plant. Uh, how do they do that? We don't know. We just don't know. Um, but it's, um, it's extraordinary.
00:12:14
S2: It is extraordinary. And it's a fairly, um, um, new science to say the least. And you also.
00:12:21
S3: And it's still controversial and it's.
00:12:23
S2: Still controversial and still, but it makes sense when I, when I read your book, it made sense and it thought, ah, yes, that's exactly what would happen in this sort of natural um, circumstances. We've had a long tradition, of course, of separating body and mind, dating back to Descartes, who treated animals as kind of automatons, um, unfeeling objects. Um, it's only been until recent years and, and, and writers such as yourself and researchers who've made us aware that things are so much more complicated and exciting than, than that.
00:13:03
S3: Well, we've underestimated other species. And you're right to point to Descartes, who, who thought humans had a monopoly on consciousness, and the screams of the animals he dissected while alive were just kind of noise that he could ignore. But it's only been very in the last few decades that we have granted consciousness to other animals. I mean, first, the primates. And that didn't happen that long ago. And increasingly we've been extending consciousness, enlarging that circle of who were conscious beings, um, dramatically in the last couple decades. And now there are people who talk about cellular consciousness. There are people who talk about, um, you know, insect consciousness. Um, again, I'm much more comfortable with the word sentience. I think consciousness should be reserved for animals that have feelings. Um, and, uh, uh, experience, um, animals for which it is something it is like to be them to use, uh, Thomas Nagel's famous definition of consciousness. I don't know that, uh, a plant has any kind of self-awareness or, um, uh, you know, it doesn't have, it certainly doesn't have interiority. And I don't know that it has feelings and emotions. Um, so anyway, we, so there, there are gradations. It's not a simple story, but it's changed dramatically in the last few years. And, um, uh, and then what's curious though, and when I talk about in the book is at the same time, we're discovering that much more of nature is conscious or sentient, um, than we ever thought. Uh, we are now questioning, you know, is AI conscious and, uh, and what would that mean?
00:14:49
S2: The belief that, um, only humans have consciousness is in fact enshrined in most of the world's major religions. So it's a pretty hard, um, uh, task really to expect people to, um, think that consciousness exists across the animal kingdom and, and sentience across the non-animal kingdom, isn't it? Or.
00:15:14
S3: Well, yes and no. I mean, most people who own dogs or cats will, will tell you they're pretty convinced that their pets are conscious. I think the closer we get to animals, the more we recognize that, um, that they have feelings like we do that they have, uh, you know, feelings of shame in the case of dogs. And, um, uh, so I think it depends on your proximity to animals. Um, in retrospect, it seems crazier that we didn't accord them consciousness. I mean, you know, when you kick a dog, it screams, right? I mean, it clearly feels pain. It's having an experience. Um, so I think it was almost a willful. I mean, it's human exceptionalism, right? We've always tried to convince ourselves that we are unique and special. And, uh, and, you know, that we're the crown of creation and, um, so yeah, I mean, we, we have to give up some of our sovereignty, I guess. And, uh, and that opens up all these questions too about rights, you know, um, and moral consideration. If, if, uh, if a species is conscious, do we owe it moral consideration?
00:16:23
S2: Really, Michael, what we're talking about here is denial, isn't it? We're denying that, um, certain species suffer pain. Like you use the example of dogs. We always, um. Any dog lover will, um, attest to the fact that dogs have character and they have, they have, um, you know, some form of consciousness and yet, um, countless studies have shown that animals like pigs have, uh, just equally intelligent, but we don't think about the kind of suffering that we're putting pigs through, do we?
00:16:55
S3: No, not nearly enough. Um, you know, it's, it's kind of remarkable that we're willing to ignore the fact that this incredibly intelligent creature is one that we routinely eat. Um, and so, you know, I, I think you're right. I think denial is the right word. Um, and that, you know, to protect our privilege and our ability to eat what we want to eat, we convince ourselves or turn a blind eye. Um, and, you know, modern, the modern food system allows us to do that. None of us are that close to the animals that we're eating. They're grown far away, sometimes halfway around the world. Uh, and we're not exposed to their suffering. Um, and and we don't, and we try to keep it that way.
00:17:42
S2: And did all your books really, um, are about and please correct me if I'm wrong. You wrote them, not me. They're about, um, us learning to, uh, have a more empathetic and respectful relationship with nature. Would that be a fair summary?
00:17:58
S3: Yeah, I think that's right. I think that the common thread throughout my work and that what I've been fascinated by since I began writing is our engagement with the natural world. Um, and the nature that's all around us. Um, and it really, for me, it begins in the garden. All my writing begins with what I was learning in the garden of how to behave about the other species I was engaging with. And this developing, this sense of symbiosis, that there's a two way street between us and these other creatures and whether you're talking about plants or animals. Uh, and that domestication is a very complex relationship. And we assume that, you know. We're in charge when we domesticate an animal like a dog, for example, or a pig or corn or potatoes. Um, but it's a two way street. Um, you know, those we domesticated those dogs who decided to. Hang out around, you know, around us and around our garbage pile. They chose us as much as we chose them. And, um, and the plants too, you know, their evolutionary strategy, the way they get ahead in. Nature is by gratifying our desires. So they're kind of brilliant, uh, you know, brilliant students of human desire. Um. And that's why you can learn a lot about us by studying the plants, the domesticated plants, because they have evolved with our interests in mind.
00:19:38
S2: You write about the, um, about AI? The 2023 Butlin report on AI consciousness supports the idea that consciousness is essentially software that can run on any physical, um, platform. And you express a kind of deep skepticism about this silicon versus flesh equivalence or comparison, whatever you want to call it. Tell us a little about why you think they're so different.
00:20:06
S3: Yeah. So the prevailing ideology in Silicon Valley is what's called computational functionalism. And that it basically holds that consciousness is a kind of software. And you can run it on, uh, meat, uh, you know, the, uh, the human brain or you can run it on silicon or hopefully that they'll figure out how to do it. Um, and I think that's a crazy idea. It, it, it turns on this metaphor that the brain is a kind of computer. And, um, but that metaphor falls apart if you press on it, you know, very hard or even not that hard. I mean, yes, brains do calculations of various kinds, computations. Um, and yes, neurons are either switched on or off. They sound vaguely digital. Um, but if you think about it, besides the, the electrical pulse that turns neurons on or off, they're influenced by chemistry as well. I mean, look at psychoactive drugs, um, they exist in a pool of chemicals that influence their behavior and they're influenced by um oscillations. So they're very, they're very analog. They're not just digital. Um, but I think the larger point is that in computers, you have a very neat line that you can draw between hardware and software. That's kind of their power, that you can run the same software on any number of different hardwares. Um, but in brains, there's no distinction between hardware and software. Every thing you've ever learned, every memory you have physically rewires your brain. Um, so the idea you could separate out the consciousness and move it to another, you know, framework, um, is, is just crazy. Um, it would all come together. You need the brain to get the, um, the thoughts and the memories and everything. So I think we're talking about a faulty metaphor here. Um, the other, the other, uh, thing that I think doesn't hold up is this idea that, um, it's just computation. Um, a very big part of consciousness are feelings and feelings depend on having a body, on being, on having mortal flesh that can suffer and feel pain. Um, and, you know, computers might be able to simulate that and tell you they feel pain or they're anxious, as Claude allegedly has been expressing to its creators. Um, but that's not the same of really as really having them. Um, these computers are very well trained on the human conversation about consciousness. So it's, it shouldn't surprise us that they can fake it, fake us out pretty well. Um, but I don't think that um, computer without a body that is, you know, having this relationship with the physical world and is vulnerable in some important way can ever be conscious.
00:23:10
S2: I'm so glad you said that, Michael, because it hasn't added up for me either. When I, when I look at the AI and what I've read about AI, how on earth could, um, an artificial intelligence appreciate what anxiety is, what fear is. Um, what um physical pleasure is really. How would it, how would it know without, as you say, having having the experience. Yes.
00:23:36
S3: Right.
00:23:37
S2: And what you just said about basically the brain laying down new wiring in neurons in relation to experience. So we overcome a fear of something by doing it, um, and pushing ourselves. But I can't, can't possibly appreciate that surely.
00:23:53
S3: No, I mean, so much of what we know comes from our physical contact with the world. Um, and the world of AI is, is the internet period, right? It's, it's second order. Um, they don't have direct experience of the world. They have experience of our experience of the world. And that's what they're kind of reprocessing and feeding back to us. It's not, it's an incredible technology. I mean, but we have to think about it as a technology for, for representing all the human knowledge that we've fed into it. Um, and that knowledge does not extend to real physical experience. And, and real physical experience is really at the base of, of, of, of who we are. Um, so, uh, it's, it's limited finally, um, but as I say, it's not going to be hard to fool us. And that worries me a lot that people are going to be entering into these deep emotional relationships with a machine. And to me, that's a pretty good definition of dehumanizing, right? To enter into an emotional relationship with a machine. Um, but it will not offer what a real relationship offers. It will never be more than simulated. Um, and we see this in the sycophancy of, of AI. It's always telling you how brilliant you are. It's always complimenting you. There's no friction. And really we, we, we, we learn through friction with other people and with the world. And AI doesn't have that.
00:25:31
S2: Yes. Look, I couldn't agree more. And it's, it's actually quite scary because, um, particularly people, um, creating AI friends or relating to AI friends or even relationships, it's, it's a deeply disturbing mirage. That's, I think going to lead to all sorts of problems in, in society in the, in the short and longer term. Your books are always, always serious works of scholarship, I think. My God, how much work you've put into it. How long? How long does it take you to. How long did it take you to write a World appears.
00:26:09
S3: Well, that was a particularly long project, and because I had bitten off more than I could chew. So it was about five years. I mean, I did a few other things in between, but it was a long a long haul. I mean, it is one of the most difficult subjects out there, and there is no consensus as to even a great definition of consciousness, let alone a theory. There are 22 theories of consciousness in play right now. So it's, um, it's a, it's a challenging subject. And it took me, I also had to learn a lot of neuroscience. I didn't know, um, to get comfortable to interview the leading, you know, uh, theorists of consciousness and philosophers. Um, so it was an immense challenge. It was incredibly gratifying, though, I have to say. Um, I was really at the frontier of my intellectual ability. Um, and, uh, and was surprised along the way. This was, this was a book where I really set out on a journey without knowing my destination. And it was a genuine journey of curiosity and learning. It's an education really. And I was surprised by a lot. Um, just to give you one example, you know, I assumed it was going to be a book about science. Um, but as time went on, it became clear to me that there were real limitations to what science could tell us about consciousness and that we had to look at other ways of knowing. Um, science is not well equipped to study subjective experience. Um, you know, we've organised science, uh, in such a way that it's, its strength is with the objective, measurable third person world. Um, and that's been true since Galileo's time when he basically said, we're going to leave the qualitative, the soul to the church and we're going to focus on these other things, these quantitative issues. And we're still science is still that. And, um, so, and the other problem with studying consciousness is as a scientist is you can't get outside it to study it. Um, because science itself is, is a manifestation of human consciousness, right? I mean, the, the tools we have, the questions we ask, the, um, uh, the theories we have, it's, they're all, um, products of consciousness. So we can't get that God's eye, third person view that we normally have when we're studying scientific subjects. Uh, and I gradually came to the, to the, uh, the understanding that that, uh, philosophy and literature, the arts had a lot to teach us about consciousness, that novelists know a ton about consciousness and have been, of course, writing about it for hundreds of years and that we needed to, um, we needed to use the humanities as well as the sciences to understand this phenomenon, because it is, it really is a humanities topic in, in many ways.
00:29:13
S2: An important humanities topic. and one when you know, when it pertains to things like the explosion in AI and how that's going to affect society, and also about our appreciation of the world around us that we're we appear to be fast destroying. Michael, do you see it as your mission to help people be aware of issues such as plant sentience, issues such as the limitations of of artificial AI? That's a that's a pretty profound one because it's been it's really been oversold to us, hasn't it? And, and also, of course, animal consciousness, which you've talked about in the past as, as, as you have, um, with the, uh, you know, with, with flora in, in your previous work as well. So this, these are, these are big topics. And ultimately, I guess they are humanitarian topics. Do you see it as your responsibility to help educate people?
00:30:11
S3: Well, I think, you know, when you're writing, when you're doing journalism as I am. I mean, finally, you're trying to change people's minds in some ways and get them to wake up to something they may not be aware of or care about something. I mean, when I started out, I was, you know, writing a lot about the food system and I was showing people where their food came from because we're so disconnected now from the source of our food. And so out of touch with, with diet and nutrition. And, um, so yes, I mean, I was hoping that by, uh, exposing the food system to people that it might change their, their, um, their buying habits and their eating habits. Um, and so yeah, I do think there's a certain amount of advocacy in the kind of work I do, although it isn't until I've become an expert on a subject that I'm, that I really feel I can, I can recommend anything to people. I usually start out, you know, in a pretty naive place, as I did with consciousness, as I did originally with agriculture and food. Um, and with psychedelics to, you know, the subject of a book I wrote a couple of years ago. Um, so I'm learning, but once I, once the journey of learning is nearing an end, I kind of know what I think should happen. And it would be disingenuous for me to pretend at that point that I didn't have any ideas of the direction in which I hoped the world would move.
00:31:47
S2: Sir, you're reporting on psychedelics and and a contemplative practices. You explore the phenomenon of ego disillusion, basically where the, um, uh, boundary between the self and the, and the world, um, disappears or collapses. Is that correct? Do you think it's beneficial for people to experience that, to kind of have that, um, that rigid boundary between your own self, your selfhood, and the and the world just disappear for a time.
00:32:17
S3: Well, disappear or diminish. Um, you know, that's not something I recommend. I mean, I had that experience using a psychedelic and it's common, uh, among people who use psychedelics, but it happens other ways. You know, we have a whole history of mystical and religious experience where people lose their sense of self and, and feel like they're merging with something larger. That's a very positive experience. Um, the walls of ego come down and suddenly you feel more deeply connected to something. You know, it could be the universe, it could be the divinity, it could be other people. In my case, it was a piece of music that I felt I was merging with, uh, on this psychedelic experience. You know, the self is a funny thing in our culture. We celebrate the self. You know, we want our kids to have self confidence and self-assurance and and a good self-image. On the other hand, some of the most profound experiences we have are where the self falls away. Experiences of or, for example, diminish the self. Um, and the self feels a lot smaller. And it feels good to be caught up in something so overwhelmingly large. Um, so we're very paradoxical about it. Um, and you know, we, we, the self is, is, is very powerful. It gets a lot done. It gets books written and, and radio programs made. On the other hand, it separates us, it distances us from other people. Um, it's self, it's self interested and um, and we, we long for connection to. So um, I think we go back and forth about the self, um, but having an experience of complete ego dissolution is one of the most powerful experiences I've had. And it sounds like a scary thing. But in the event it felt incredibly, I felt like I was one with something much larger than myself. And. And of course, that's a feeling many religious people, uh, have, uh, when they're in, when they're in a cathedral or having a religious experience. So I think it's, we're wired for this. We're wired for mystical experiences of oneness. And, uh, I think that's quite remarkable in and of itself.
00:34:33
S2: It is remarkable. The one, the one time when I can really, um, think that I experienced that kind of profound sense of unity with nature was standing on a basically an iceberg in Antarctica some many years ago. And I was just, um, overawed by the scale, the beauty and the silence. And I had that sort of feeling of that, um, or something comparable to that sense of ego, um, dissolving. And it was the most remarkable and pleasant feeling, you know, to to feel part of something so much bigger and almost merging with it. Um, yeah.
00:35:18
S3: Yeah. You know, there's a, there's a colleague of mine at Berkeley named Dacher Keltner who wrote a beautiful book about awe and he studies or as a psychologist, and he does this really cool experiment where he has people draw a picture of themselves on a piece of graph paper, just a stick figure. And then he takes them river rafting or gives them some or experience. And then he asks them to draw themselves again. And they draw themselves at a fraction of the size after the experience of awe, because the self has been diminished in the face of this overwhelming beauty or, uh, scale or whatever, it is remarkable.
00:35:56
S2: Uh, look, all your books are remarkable, Michael. You've written about food systems. You've written about consciousness, you've written about plants are in not just this, this latest work, but earlier works as well. You carry an important message. We need to read your books more, I think. But then I'm biased. I unashamedly am a fan of Michael Pollan's work. Thank you very much for your time today.
00:36:24
S3: A pleasure, Greg, great talking to you.
00:36:29
S1: To enjoy more in-depth journalism from the latest edition of Good Weekend, visit us at the age.com.au or smh.com.au. This episode was produced by Konrad Marshall and edited by Tim Mummery. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick oversee our podcasts. And Melissa Stevens is the editor of Good Weekend. If you enjoyed this episode, follow our podcast and leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. And thanks for listening.
S1: It's not too much of an overstatement to say that for over 30 years, Michael Pollan's books have helped reshape conversations about industrial food systems, animal consciousness, and our obligations to other living things. His new book, A World Appears, is about plant sentience, an immersive exploration of how plants exhibit thinking and memory like behaviors, responding to physical threats, favoring their own species, and supplying nutrients to struggling neighboring plants. I'm Konrad Marshall and from the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Welcome to Good Weekend Talks, featuring weekly, in-depth conversations with fascinating people. In this episode, Michael Pollan discusses compelling new research by Plant neurobiologists, reinforcing the author's conviction that human beings are not unique in possessing consciousness. He'll be appearing at the Sydney Opera House on Wednesday, November 4th and at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne on Thursday, November 5th. He's also featured in the current issue of Good Weekend magazine on the Dicey Topics page with Benjamin Law. Today's podcast conversation is hosted by Good Weekend senior writer Greg Callaghan.
00:01:27
S2: Thanks, Conrad, and welcome, Michael.
00:01:30
S3: Thank you Greg, good to be here.
00:01:32
S2: Now, your new book, A World Appears, is about a subject that's about as big as it gets. No less than consciousness itself. Specifically, some remarkable new research about plant consciousness, which we'll get to in a moment. As you've, um, shown in, in, in this book and in earlier ones, different forms and levels of consciousness are common on our planet and not just limited to humans, of course. Would you agree that, um, perhaps the most miraculous thing about the universe is its capacity to create consciousness of itself?
00:02:10
S3: Absolutely. I mean, you know, I went through the thought experiment of imagining a world without consciousness. What does that world look like? Doesn't look like anything. I asked Christof Koch, who's a very preeminent researcher of consciousness. So what is the world in the absence of consciousness? And he said, particles in waves. That's it. Everything we know is the result of our, uh, tools of perception, our body size, the, the, um, the time scale at which we live.
00:02:44
S2: And I must say, I loved your new book. It's made me think about, um, plants in a, in a new way. We don't, we don't tend to think of plants though as having um, um, consciousness because they lack, you know, a brain and they lack a central nervous system. So tell us what, um, researchers, specifically those in the plant neurobiology movement have been showing.
00:03:08
S3: Well, they've made some amazing discoveries that suggest that you can do a lot of neuronal things, um, without having neurons and that there are other ways to store memories. For example, you can teach a plant something and it will remember it for up to 30 days. Uh, plants are exquisitely aware of their environment. They have 20 senses to our 5 or 6. Um, they can, uh, here, uh, if you play, if they, uh, if you play the sound of caterpillars chomping on leaves, they will react to it. They can sense pH, they can sense gravity. They have all these senses. Um, so they're very aware of their environment. Um, they somehow can see. Um, if you, if you put a bean plant next to a pole, uh, it will find its way to that pole and concentrate all its efforts on getting to that pole rather than just exploring, uh, willy nilly. But one of the most remarkable things that we've learned about plants is that the same anesthetics that put us out, put them out. Now, you might think they're already out, but in fact, they're just very slow. Uh, and you take a plant with a fast behavior, like a Venus flytrap, and you give it xenon gas or some other anesthetic, it will, um, no longer react when the bug crosses its threshold. So you have to ask yourself, what is it losing when it when it's out, when it's unconscious. Um, is it something like consciousness. It has these two states of being. Um I'm not prepared to say plants are conscious, but the word I prefer to use in their case is sentient. Sentient is a more basic form of consciousness. It implies awareness of your environment and an ability to distinguish between good and bad changes in that environment. And I think it's very possible that all living things are sentient, that this is a property of life and something you need to navigate, a world that's constantly changing and that you can't program all your responses to. You need a sort of flexibility and intelligence in response, and sentience gives you that.
00:05:28
S2: What led you from investigating animal welfare in The Omnivore's Dilemma to exploring plant sentience in a world of pigs? It is a significant jump.
00:05:39
S3: Yeah. I've had a bunch of significant jumps in my career. You know, I kind of follow my curiosity, but plants have been the common denominator of almost all my work. I've been fascinated by plants since I started gardening as a kid, and I don't think they get nearly enough credit for their intelligence and, uh, and also their ability to manipulate us. I wrote a whole book about that called Botany of Desire. Um, you know, plants are very clever in lots of ways. Um, in a way it was the animals writing about the animals. That was the departure for me. I haven't written nearly as much about animals. Um, but plants, I've been interested in so many aspects. I mean, obviously they're the basis of agriculture and I've written a lot about agriculture and the food system, but they're also in their genius. They have created this whole suite of chemicals that has the the power to change what goes on in our minds. Um, I'm talking about psychoactive plants. I'm talking about, um, you know, opium and plants that, um, calm our nervous system, uh, other plants that stimulate us. They have. They know how to push our buttons, and they're geniuses at biochemistry.
00:06:58
S2: The obvious question, Michael, to ask when I'm reading your book, um, your latest book and when I'm talking to you now, is that, um, if plants have this kind of sentience, if they can learn, they can communicate with other plants, particularly their own species, as you say in the book, and react to threats, does that mean that they can experience pain?
00:07:20
S3: Well, that's a great question. Yeah. I mean, as soon as I started learning about their sensitivity, um, and their senses, I started wondering, do they feel pain? And the plant neurobiologists I consulted were divided on that question. I talked to one of them, a Bulgarian guy whose name is escaping me right now, and he said, well, of course they feel pain. Um, you know, just get your head around it. But we have no choice. We have to eat them. But then I talked to someone else, Stefano Mancuso, an Italian plant neurobiologist, and he said, no, it would not be adaptive for them to feel pain. That pain is only useful when you can remove yourself, remove your hand from the hot stove or run away. And plants can't do that. They know they're being eaten. Um, and they can react to it, but it doesn't mean they're feeling pain. Um, so I found that a little more comforting because really, you know, if we can't eat the plants and we can't eat the animals, what is left? Salt. So that's just not enough. Um, and you know, he also pointed out to me that in many respects, plants don't mind being eaten. Their evolutionary strategy in many cases is to get us to eat their fruit. Right. And this is how they spread their genes around. So they, they feed us on purpose and feed other mammals and other animals. so that. And then you think of the grasses, you know, most of what we grow is in agriculture at various grasses and grasses are regenerated by being eaten by ruminants or humans. Um, it's part of their reproductive strategy. So no one should feel any misgivings about eating plants, even though they're very sensitive and sometimes aware you're doing it.
00:09:13
S2: That's extraordinary. Really. One of the fascinating things is actually when you talk about, um, pea plants and their ability to kind of effectively, uh, predict future conditions, um, by, um, you know, uh, increasing sort of nutrient trajectories, um, in soils and so forth. And, and, and, um, which is a form of, um, of prediction.
00:09:39
S3: Anticipation.
00:09:40
S2: Anticipation.
00:09:40
S3: Yeah. Which is quite remarkable. Yeah. If you give it a pea plant, a choice between, uh, a soil that has a fairly high nutrient content now. And another soil that might have a lower nutrient content, but it is trending upward. Uh, they'll go with that one. Um, so they're looking ahead in a sense. I don't mean to suggest that they have interiority, that they think that's not exactly it. Their awareness or sentience is very different than ours. Um, but it's a real thing. And, and their behavior cannot simply be explained by instinct. You know, pre-programming every response because you can confront them with, with situations they've never dealt with in nature and they find an intelligent way to respond.
00:10:30
S2: One of the fascinating things, I think as a gardener, and you know, you're a gardener as well, is the, um, the way that plants, uh, compete with one another and compete for soil space, but also, and shared resources with their own plant species, but they also some plants like eucalyptus. And there's a pretty annoying big tree next to me that drops all these, um, like these little spindles, um, twice a year and actually kills it smothers any kind of plant groundcover in my backyard. Um, so these, uh, plants like eucalyptus and so forth, they, they're.
00:11:14
S3: Very competitive, aren't they?
00:11:15
S2: They're very, very competitive. They're kind of like the, uh, authoritarians of, uh, of the plant world, aren't they?
00:11:24
S3: Some of them are. On the other hand, there are plants. If a plant knows it's related to another plant, it will happily share resources in a pot, say, if you plant them together. But if they're not related, um, they will compete for resources in that pot. So that suggests they recognize kin. Um, and, you know, or think about the fact that plants don't like to be shaded by other plants and will try to outgrow them to get above and get the sunlight. Yet when they're shading themselves, they don't have a problem. They recognize that that shade is a different quality than the shade of a foreign plant. Uh, how do they do that? We don't know. We just don't know. Um, but it's, um, it's extraordinary.
00:12:14
S2: It is extraordinary. And it's a fairly, um, um, new science to say the least. And you also.
00:12:21
S3: And it's still controversial and it's.
00:12:23
S2: Still controversial and still, but it makes sense when I, when I read your book, it made sense and it thought, ah, yes, that's exactly what would happen in this sort of natural um, circumstances. We've had a long tradition, of course, of separating body and mind, dating back to Descartes, who treated animals as kind of automatons, um, unfeeling objects. Um, it's only been until recent years and, and, and writers such as yourself and researchers who've made us aware that things are so much more complicated and exciting than, than that.
00:13:03
S3: Well, we've underestimated other species. And you're right to point to Descartes, who, who thought humans had a monopoly on consciousness, and the screams of the animals he dissected while alive were just kind of noise that he could ignore. But it's only been very in the last few decades that we have granted consciousness to other animals. I mean, first, the primates. And that didn't happen that long ago. And increasingly we've been extending consciousness, enlarging that circle of who were conscious beings, um, dramatically in the last couple decades. And now there are people who talk about cellular consciousness. There are people who talk about, um, you know, insect consciousness. Um, again, I'm much more comfortable with the word sentience. I think consciousness should be reserved for animals that have feelings. Um, and, uh, uh, experience, um, animals for which it is something it is like to be them to use, uh, Thomas Nagel's famous definition of consciousness. I don't know that, uh, a plant has any kind of self-awareness or, um, uh, you know, it doesn't have, it certainly doesn't have interiority. And I don't know that it has feelings and emotions. Um, so anyway, we, so there, there are gradations. It's not a simple story, but it's changed dramatically in the last few years. And, um, uh, and then what's curious though, and when I talk about in the book is at the same time, we're discovering that much more of nature is conscious or sentient, um, than we ever thought. Uh, we are now questioning, you know, is AI conscious and, uh, and what would that mean?
00:14:49
S2: The belief that, um, only humans have consciousness is in fact enshrined in most of the world's major religions. So it's a pretty hard, um, uh, task really to expect people to, um, think that consciousness exists across the animal kingdom and, and sentience across the non-animal kingdom, isn't it? Or.
00:15:14
S3: Well, yes and no. I mean, most people who own dogs or cats will, will tell you they're pretty convinced that their pets are conscious. I think the closer we get to animals, the more we recognize that, um, that they have feelings like we do that they have, uh, you know, feelings of shame in the case of dogs. And, um, uh, so I think it depends on your proximity to animals. Um, in retrospect, it seems crazier that we didn't accord them consciousness. I mean, you know, when you kick a dog, it screams, right? I mean, it clearly feels pain. It's having an experience. Um, so I think it was almost a willful. I mean, it's human exceptionalism, right? We've always tried to convince ourselves that we are unique and special. And, uh, and, you know, that we're the crown of creation and, um, so yeah, I mean, we, we have to give up some of our sovereignty, I guess. And, uh, and that opens up all these questions too about rights, you know, um, and moral consideration. If, if, uh, if a species is conscious, do we owe it moral consideration?
00:16:23
S2: Really, Michael, what we're talking about here is denial, isn't it? We're denying that, um, certain species suffer pain. Like you use the example of dogs. We always, um. Any dog lover will, um, attest to the fact that dogs have character and they have, they have, um, you know, some form of consciousness and yet, um, countless studies have shown that animals like pigs have, uh, just equally intelligent, but we don't think about the kind of suffering that we're putting pigs through, do we?
00:16:55
S3: No, not nearly enough. Um, you know, it's, it's kind of remarkable that we're willing to ignore the fact that this incredibly intelligent creature is one that we routinely eat. Um, and so, you know, I, I think you're right. I think denial is the right word. Um, and that, you know, to protect our privilege and our ability to eat what we want to eat, we convince ourselves or turn a blind eye. Um, and, you know, modern, the modern food system allows us to do that. None of us are that close to the animals that we're eating. They're grown far away, sometimes halfway around the world. Uh, and we're not exposed to their suffering. Um, and and we don't, and we try to keep it that way.
00:17:42
S2: And did all your books really, um, are about and please correct me if I'm wrong. You wrote them, not me. They're about, um, us learning to, uh, have a more empathetic and respectful relationship with nature. Would that be a fair summary?
00:17:58
S3: Yeah, I think that's right. I think that the common thread throughout my work and that what I've been fascinated by since I began writing is our engagement with the natural world. Um, and the nature that's all around us. Um, and it really, for me, it begins in the garden. All my writing begins with what I was learning in the garden of how to behave about the other species I was engaging with. And this developing, this sense of symbiosis, that there's a two way street between us and these other creatures and whether you're talking about plants or animals. Uh, and that domestication is a very complex relationship. And we assume that, you know. We're in charge when we domesticate an animal like a dog, for example, or a pig or corn or potatoes. Um, but it's a two way street. Um, you know, those we domesticated those dogs who decided to. Hang out around, you know, around us and around our garbage pile. They chose us as much as we chose them. And, um, and the plants too, you know, their evolutionary strategy, the way they get ahead in. Nature is by gratifying our desires. So they're kind of brilliant, uh, you know, brilliant students of human desire. Um. And that's why you can learn a lot about us by studying the plants, the domesticated plants, because they have evolved with our interests in mind.
00:19:38
S2: You write about the, um, about AI? The 2023 Butlin report on AI consciousness supports the idea that consciousness is essentially software that can run on any physical, um, platform. And you express a kind of deep skepticism about this silicon versus flesh equivalence or comparison, whatever you want to call it. Tell us a little about why you think they're so different.
00:20:06
S3: Yeah. So the prevailing ideology in Silicon Valley is what's called computational functionalism. And that it basically holds that consciousness is a kind of software. And you can run it on, uh, meat, uh, you know, the, uh, the human brain or you can run it on silicon or hopefully that they'll figure out how to do it. Um, and I think that's a crazy idea. It, it, it turns on this metaphor that the brain is a kind of computer. And, um, but that metaphor falls apart if you press on it, you know, very hard or even not that hard. I mean, yes, brains do calculations of various kinds, computations. Um, and yes, neurons are either switched on or off. They sound vaguely digital. Um, but if you think about it, besides the, the electrical pulse that turns neurons on or off, they're influenced by chemistry as well. I mean, look at psychoactive drugs, um, they exist in a pool of chemicals that influence their behavior and they're influenced by um oscillations. So they're very, they're very analog. They're not just digital. Um, but I think the larger point is that in computers, you have a very neat line that you can draw between hardware and software. That's kind of their power, that you can run the same software on any number of different hardwares. Um, but in brains, there's no distinction between hardware and software. Every thing you've ever learned, every memory you have physically rewires your brain. Um, so the idea you could separate out the consciousness and move it to another, you know, framework, um, is, is just crazy. Um, it would all come together. You need the brain to get the, um, the thoughts and the memories and everything. So I think we're talking about a faulty metaphor here. Um, the other, the other, uh, thing that I think doesn't hold up is this idea that, um, it's just computation. Um, a very big part of consciousness are feelings and feelings depend on having a body, on being, on having mortal flesh that can suffer and feel pain. Um, and, you know, computers might be able to simulate that and tell you they feel pain or they're anxious, as Claude allegedly has been expressing to its creators. Um, but that's not the same of really as really having them. Um, these computers are very well trained on the human conversation about consciousness. So it's, it shouldn't surprise us that they can fake it, fake us out pretty well. Um, but I don't think that um, computer without a body that is, you know, having this relationship with the physical world and is vulnerable in some important way can ever be conscious.
00:23:10
S2: I'm so glad you said that, Michael, because it hasn't added up for me either. When I, when I look at the AI and what I've read about AI, how on earth could, um, an artificial intelligence appreciate what anxiety is, what fear is. Um, what um physical pleasure is really. How would it, how would it know without, as you say, having having the experience. Yes.
00:23:36
S3: Right.
00:23:37
S2: And what you just said about basically the brain laying down new wiring in neurons in relation to experience. So we overcome a fear of something by doing it, um, and pushing ourselves. But I can't, can't possibly appreciate that surely.
00:23:53
S3: No, I mean, so much of what we know comes from our physical contact with the world. Um, and the world of AI is, is the internet period, right? It's, it's second order. Um, they don't have direct experience of the world. They have experience of our experience of the world. And that's what they're kind of reprocessing and feeding back to us. It's not, it's an incredible technology. I mean, but we have to think about it as a technology for, for representing all the human knowledge that we've fed into it. Um, and that knowledge does not extend to real physical experience. And, and real physical experience is really at the base of, of, of, of who we are. Um, so, uh, it's, it's limited finally, um, but as I say, it's not going to be hard to fool us. And that worries me a lot that people are going to be entering into these deep emotional relationships with a machine. And to me, that's a pretty good definition of dehumanizing, right? To enter into an emotional relationship with a machine. Um, but it will not offer what a real relationship offers. It will never be more than simulated. Um, and we see this in the sycophancy of, of AI. It's always telling you how brilliant you are. It's always complimenting you. There's no friction. And really we, we, we, we learn through friction with other people and with the world. And AI doesn't have that.
00:25:31
S2: Yes. Look, I couldn't agree more. And it's, it's actually quite scary because, um, particularly people, um, creating AI friends or relating to AI friends or even relationships, it's, it's a deeply disturbing mirage. That's, I think going to lead to all sorts of problems in, in society in the, in the short and longer term. Your books are always, always serious works of scholarship, I think. My God, how much work you've put into it. How long? How long does it take you to. How long did it take you to write a World appears.
00:26:09
S3: Well, that was a particularly long project, and because I had bitten off more than I could chew. So it was about five years. I mean, I did a few other things in between, but it was a long a long haul. I mean, it is one of the most difficult subjects out there, and there is no consensus as to even a great definition of consciousness, let alone a theory. There are 22 theories of consciousness in play right now. So it's, um, it's a, it's a challenging subject. And it took me, I also had to learn a lot of neuroscience. I didn't know, um, to get comfortable to interview the leading, you know, uh, theorists of consciousness and philosophers. Um, so it was an immense challenge. It was incredibly gratifying, though, I have to say. Um, I was really at the frontier of my intellectual ability. Um, and, uh, and was surprised along the way. This was, this was a book where I really set out on a journey without knowing my destination. And it was a genuine journey of curiosity and learning. It's an education really. And I was surprised by a lot. Um, just to give you one example, you know, I assumed it was going to be a book about science. Um, but as time went on, it became clear to me that there were real limitations to what science could tell us about consciousness and that we had to look at other ways of knowing. Um, science is not well equipped to study subjective experience. Um, you know, we've organised science, uh, in such a way that it's, its strength is with the objective, measurable third person world. Um, and that's been true since Galileo's time when he basically said, we're going to leave the qualitative, the soul to the church and we're going to focus on these other things, these quantitative issues. And we're still science is still that. And, um, so, and the other problem with studying consciousness is as a scientist is you can't get outside it to study it. Um, because science itself is, is a manifestation of human consciousness, right? I mean, the, the tools we have, the questions we ask, the, um, uh, the theories we have, it's, they're all, um, products of consciousness. So we can't get that God's eye, third person view that we normally have when we're studying scientific subjects. Uh, and I gradually came to the, to the, uh, the understanding that that, uh, philosophy and literature, the arts had a lot to teach us about consciousness, that novelists know a ton about consciousness and have been, of course, writing about it for hundreds of years and that we needed to, um, we needed to use the humanities as well as the sciences to understand this phenomenon, because it is, it really is a humanities topic in, in many ways.
00:29:13
S2: An important humanities topic. and one when you know, when it pertains to things like the explosion in AI and how that's going to affect society, and also about our appreciation of the world around us that we're we appear to be fast destroying. Michael, do you see it as your mission to help people be aware of issues such as plant sentience, issues such as the limitations of of artificial AI? That's a that's a pretty profound one because it's been it's really been oversold to us, hasn't it? And, and also, of course, animal consciousness, which you've talked about in the past as, as, as you have, um, with the, uh, you know, with, with flora in, in your previous work as well. So this, these are, these are big topics. And ultimately, I guess they are humanitarian topics. Do you see it as your responsibility to help educate people?
00:30:11
S3: Well, I think, you know, when you're writing, when you're doing journalism as I am. I mean, finally, you're trying to change people's minds in some ways and get them to wake up to something they may not be aware of or care about something. I mean, when I started out, I was, you know, writing a lot about the food system and I was showing people where their food came from because we're so disconnected now from the source of our food. And so out of touch with, with diet and nutrition. And, um, so yes, I mean, I was hoping that by, uh, exposing the food system to people that it might change their, their, um, their buying habits and their eating habits. Um, and so yeah, I do think there's a certain amount of advocacy in the kind of work I do, although it isn't until I've become an expert on a subject that I'm, that I really feel I can, I can recommend anything to people. I usually start out, you know, in a pretty naive place, as I did with consciousness, as I did originally with agriculture and food. Um, and with psychedelics to, you know, the subject of a book I wrote a couple of years ago. Um, so I'm learning, but once I, once the journey of learning is nearing an end, I kind of know what I think should happen. And it would be disingenuous for me to pretend at that point that I didn't have any ideas of the direction in which I hoped the world would move.
00:31:47
S2: Sir, you're reporting on psychedelics and and a contemplative practices. You explore the phenomenon of ego disillusion, basically where the, um, uh, boundary between the self and the, and the world, um, disappears or collapses. Is that correct? Do you think it's beneficial for people to experience that, to kind of have that, um, that rigid boundary between your own self, your selfhood, and the and the world just disappear for a time.
00:32:17
S3: Well, disappear or diminish. Um, you know, that's not something I recommend. I mean, I had that experience using a psychedelic and it's common, uh, among people who use psychedelics, but it happens other ways. You know, we have a whole history of mystical and religious experience where people lose their sense of self and, and feel like they're merging with something larger. That's a very positive experience. Um, the walls of ego come down and suddenly you feel more deeply connected to something. You know, it could be the universe, it could be the divinity, it could be other people. In my case, it was a piece of music that I felt I was merging with, uh, on this psychedelic experience. You know, the self is a funny thing in our culture. We celebrate the self. You know, we want our kids to have self confidence and self-assurance and and a good self-image. On the other hand, some of the most profound experiences we have are where the self falls away. Experiences of or, for example, diminish the self. Um, and the self feels a lot smaller. And it feels good to be caught up in something so overwhelmingly large. Um, so we're very paradoxical about it. Um, and you know, we, we, the self is, is, is very powerful. It gets a lot done. It gets books written and, and radio programs made. On the other hand, it separates us, it distances us from other people. Um, it's self, it's self interested and um, and we, we long for connection to. So um, I think we go back and forth about the self, um, but having an experience of complete ego dissolution is one of the most powerful experiences I've had. And it sounds like a scary thing. But in the event it felt incredibly, I felt like I was one with something much larger than myself. And. And of course, that's a feeling many religious people, uh, have, uh, when they're in, when they're in a cathedral or having a religious experience. So I think it's, we're wired for this. We're wired for mystical experiences of oneness. And, uh, I think that's quite remarkable in and of itself.
00:34:33
S2: It is remarkable. The one, the one time when I can really, um, think that I experienced that kind of profound sense of unity with nature was standing on a basically an iceberg in Antarctica some many years ago. And I was just, um, overawed by the scale, the beauty and the silence. And I had that sort of feeling of that, um, or something comparable to that sense of ego, um, dissolving. And it was the most remarkable and pleasant feeling, you know, to to feel part of something so much bigger and almost merging with it. Um, yeah.
00:35:18
S3: Yeah. You know, there's a, there's a colleague of mine at Berkeley named Dacher Keltner who wrote a beautiful book about awe and he studies or as a psychologist, and he does this really cool experiment where he has people draw a picture of themselves on a piece of graph paper, just a stick figure. And then he takes them river rafting or gives them some or experience. And then he asks them to draw themselves again. And they draw themselves at a fraction of the size after the experience of awe, because the self has been diminished in the face of this overwhelming beauty or, uh, scale or whatever, it is remarkable.
00:35:56
S2: Uh, look, all your books are remarkable, Michael. You've written about food systems. You've written about consciousness, you've written about plants are in not just this, this latest work, but earlier works as well. You carry an important message. We need to read your books more, I think. But then I'm biased. I unashamedly am a fan of Michael Pollan's work. Thank you very much for your time today.
00:36:24
S3: A pleasure, Greg, great talking to you.
00:36:29
S1: To enjoy more in-depth journalism from the latest edition of Good Weekend, visit us at the age.com.au or smh.com.au. This episode was produced by Konrad Marshall and edited by Tim Mummery. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick oversee our podcasts. And Melissa Stevens is the editor of Good Weekend. If you enjoyed this episode, follow our podcast and leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. And thanks for listening.
