What do you think?
Rate this book
A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind, a panoptic exploration of consciousness—what it is, who has it, and why—and a meditation on the essence of our humanity
When it comes to the phenomenon that is consciousness, there is one point on which scientists, philosophers, and artists all agree: it feels like something to be us. Yet the fact that we have subjective experience of the world remains one of nature’s greatest mysteries. How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by feelings, thoughts, and a sense of self? What would a scientific investigation of our inner life look like, when we have as little distance and perspective on it as fish do of the sea? In A World Appears, Michael Pollan traces the unmapped continent that is consciousness, bringing radically different perspectives—scientific, philosophical, literary, spiritual and psychedelic—to see what each can teach us about this central fact of life.
When neuroscientists began studying consciousness in the early 1990s, they sought to explain how and why three pounds of spongy gray matter could generate a subjective point of view—assuming that the brain is the source of our perceived reality. Pollan takes us to the cutting edge of the field, where scientists are entertaining more radical (and less materialist) theories of consciousness. He introduces us to “plant neurobiologists” searching for the first flicker of consciousness in plants, scientists striving to engineer feelings into AI, and psychologists and novelists seeking to capture the felt experience of our slippery stream of consciousness.
In Pollan’s dazzling exploration of consciousness, he discovers a world far deeper and stranger than our everyday reality. Eye-opening and mind-expanding, A World Appears takes us into the laboratories of our own minds, ultimately showing us how we might make better use of the gift of awareness to more meaningfully connect with the world and our deepest selves.
When it comes to the phenomenon that is consciousness, there is one point on which scientists, philosophers, and artists all agree: it feels like something to be us. Yet the fact that we have subjective experience of the world remains one of nature’s greatest mysteries. How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by feelings, thoughts, and a sense of self? What would a scientific investigation of our inner life look like, when we have as little distance and perspective on it as fish do of the sea? In A World Appears, Michael Pollan traces the unmapped continent that is consciousness, bringing radically different perspectives—scientific, philosophical, literary, spiritual and psychedelic—to see what each can teach us about this central fact of life.
When neuroscientists began studying consciousness in the early 1990s, they sought to explain how and why three pounds of spongy gray matter could generate a subjective point of view—assuming that the brain is the source of our perceived reality. Pollan takes us to the cutting edge of the field, where scientists are entertaining more radical (and less materialist) theories of consciousness. He introduces us to “plant neurobiologists” searching for the first flicker of consciousness in plants, scientists striving to engineer feelings into AI, and psychologists and novelists seeking to capture the felt experience of our slippery stream of consciousness.
In Pollan’s dazzling exploration of consciousness, he discovers a world far deeper and stranger than our everyday reality. Eye-opening and mind-expanding, A World Appears takes us into the laboratories of our own minds, ultimately showing us how we might make better use of the gift of awareness to more meaningfully connect with the world and our deepest selves.
9 pages, Audible Audio
First published February 1, 2026
About the author
Michael Pollan
83 books15.6k followersMichael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 751 reviews
March 16, 2026
Near the end of this book, looking back on all the various avenues he explored, Pollan sums up his experience thusly:
Because consciousness is the only means we have of knowing anything we can’t step outside it and take up a god-like perspective from which to render a final judgement. So where does that leave us? Exactly where we already were, wandering in the exitless labyrinth of consciousness.
Which is another way of saying that much of the value of reading this book is finding out how little you know, how little you will ever likely be able to know about what exactly consciousness is. Pollan finds value in this negative knowledge, and I’m inclined to agree.
Pollan takes you on quite a wild trip to get to that conclusion. He starts by stating the impediments to examining consciousness, such as:
One reason why consciousness has proved such a hard nut for science and philosophy is because the only tool we can use to crack it is consciousness itself.
He examines the idea of consciousness in plants, spends a considerable amount of time speculating about the possibility of consciousness in machines, and examines perspectives as varied as scientists, engineers, philosophers, novelists, and Zen practitioners. He touches on a plethora of theories of consciousness:
Among the ostensibly crazy ideas…are Panpsychism, the ancient idea that everything, right down to the subatomic particles in the ink on a page is conscious to some infinitesimal degree,
Idealism, the equally ancient idea that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, like gravity or electromagnetism, and in fact precedes matter,
Illusionism, the idea that consciousness, perhaps the thing in life we are most certain is real, is just an illusion, and
Quantum Theory, some versions of which put forth the idea that consciousness is an active force in the construction of reality.
Yes, it really does get that weird and weirder still.
This book can be simultaneously maddeningly frustrating and absolutely fascinating. Pollan’s own obsession and relentless curiosity drives the book and the search for an answer that Western science has all but surrendered on obtaining. But Pollan’s curiosity is infectious, and if you have a certain type of mind, you are bound to enjoy this koanic journey. Just make sure to heed the author’s advice:
One bit of advice — don’t spend too much time thinking about consciousness or following developments in the field unless you’re willing to throw into question your most cherished assumptions about reality and entertain some truly strange possibilities.
Because consciousness is the only means we have of knowing anything we can’t step outside it and take up a god-like perspective from which to render a final judgement. So where does that leave us? Exactly where we already were, wandering in the exitless labyrinth of consciousness.
Which is another way of saying that much of the value of reading this book is finding out how little you know, how little you will ever likely be able to know about what exactly consciousness is. Pollan finds value in this negative knowledge, and I’m inclined to agree.
Pollan takes you on quite a wild trip to get to that conclusion. He starts by stating the impediments to examining consciousness, such as:
One reason why consciousness has proved such a hard nut for science and philosophy is because the only tool we can use to crack it is consciousness itself.
He examines the idea of consciousness in plants, spends a considerable amount of time speculating about the possibility of consciousness in machines, and examines perspectives as varied as scientists, engineers, philosophers, novelists, and Zen practitioners. He touches on a plethora of theories of consciousness:
Among the ostensibly crazy ideas…are Panpsychism, the ancient idea that everything, right down to the subatomic particles in the ink on a page is conscious to some infinitesimal degree,
Idealism, the equally ancient idea that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, like gravity or electromagnetism, and in fact precedes matter,
Illusionism, the idea that consciousness, perhaps the thing in life we are most certain is real, is just an illusion, and
Quantum Theory, some versions of which put forth the idea that consciousness is an active force in the construction of reality.
Yes, it really does get that weird and weirder still.
This book can be simultaneously maddeningly frustrating and absolutely fascinating. Pollan’s own obsession and relentless curiosity drives the book and the search for an answer that Western science has all but surrendered on obtaining. But Pollan’s curiosity is infectious, and if you have a certain type of mind, you are bound to enjoy this koanic journey. Just make sure to heed the author’s advice:
One bit of advice — don’t spend too much time thinking about consciousness or following developments in the field unless you’re willing to throw into question your most cherished assumptions about reality and entertain some truly strange possibilities.
Read
April 18, 2026First, a brief story. As a freshman in college who had to fulfill math and science categories (all together now: Yikes!), I signed up for Astronomy. Why? I loved looking at stars, learning constellations, and even more learning the stories (often Greek myths) behind the constellations. Anyone who knows anything about astronomy knows how this ends (the rating = R). I was roadkill. It was all science. And some freakin' math. Brutal, and about as un- capital R Romantic as you can get (the professor did not say "Greek" or "myth" once).
This book, in its way, reminded me of my Astronomy adventure. It's all about CONSCIOUSNESS, what it is, what it isn't, etc., which I am keenly interested in. Chapter headings give us words like "Sentience," "Feeling," "Thought," and "Self." All attractive to the curious young mind (I may be getting on, but my brain is yet young).
But, alas, the book was Pollan on one interview after another with one scientist after another, many in fields with names longer than the autobahn, many with speculations that lost me at the 23rd hairpin turn. Lots and lots of theory. I was especially bored by the scientists who are convinced they can give AI "feelings." (The return of HAL!) If I never see the letters "A" and "I" again, I'd be a happy man because almost all of its press is bad (though it does expand the permanent press of the already-very-rich's pockets while destroying the environment, eating up RAM so it costs more for laptops, and stealing intellectual property of artists).
Not that the book was all a wash. I quite enjoyed the chapter on plants. Turns out, plants are smarter than we think, even if they lack a brain. The experiments in this chapter will prove it. Too bad no one can say if plants feel pain when they are cut, diced, roasted, chewed, and swallowed (it's a broccoli eat broccoli world out there).
The chapter on the SELF was mind-bending too. Who IS this voice we live with? And can we assume that we all think alike when it comes to our thoughts? Bad assumption, turns out. So, yeah, there were parts where the wind was at the reader's back and times when the reader sat in the Sargasso Sea spelling "doldrums" on his Scrabble board.
An instructive quote from the final pages: "Nearing the end of this journey, I find myself not at all sure what to believe, if anything. I'm abashed to say I know less now than I did when, naively, I set out to unravel the mystery of consciousness. But then, most of what I thought I knew or took for granted, like the assumption that consciousness is a product of our brains and materialism will eventually explain everything, turned out to be unproven or wrong. When I confessed to Koch my fear--that after my five-year journey into the nature and workings of consciousness, I somehow knew less than I did when I started--he simply smiled.
"'But that's good,' he said. 'That's progress!'"
In a nutshell, reading this book gets you nowhere (and in style!), but if you have a taste for science and don't mind all manner of theories on consciousness, you might well enjoy finishing with more questions than answers, because answers are in short supply here, something you might not have expected from a book of this sort.
Both me and my thoughts and my self and my consciousness and my hurt feelings are now signing off (or are they?)...
This book, in its way, reminded me of my Astronomy adventure. It's all about CONSCIOUSNESS, what it is, what it isn't, etc., which I am keenly interested in. Chapter headings give us words like "Sentience," "Feeling," "Thought," and "Self." All attractive to the curious young mind (I may be getting on, but my brain is yet young).
But, alas, the book was Pollan on one interview after another with one scientist after another, many in fields with names longer than the autobahn, many with speculations that lost me at the 23rd hairpin turn. Lots and lots of theory. I was especially bored by the scientists who are convinced they can give AI "feelings." (The return of HAL!) If I never see the letters "A" and "I" again, I'd be a happy man because almost all of its press is bad (though it does expand the permanent press of the already-very-rich's pockets while destroying the environment, eating up RAM so it costs more for laptops, and stealing intellectual property of artists).
Not that the book was all a wash. I quite enjoyed the chapter on plants. Turns out, plants are smarter than we think, even if they lack a brain. The experiments in this chapter will prove it. Too bad no one can say if plants feel pain when they are cut, diced, roasted, chewed, and swallowed (it's a broccoli eat broccoli world out there).
The chapter on the SELF was mind-bending too. Who IS this voice we live with? And can we assume that we all think alike when it comes to our thoughts? Bad assumption, turns out. So, yeah, there were parts where the wind was at the reader's back and times when the reader sat in the Sargasso Sea spelling "doldrums" on his Scrabble board.
An instructive quote from the final pages: "Nearing the end of this journey, I find myself not at all sure what to believe, if anything. I'm abashed to say I know less now than I did when, naively, I set out to unravel the mystery of consciousness. But then, most of what I thought I knew or took for granted, like the assumption that consciousness is a product of our brains and materialism will eventually explain everything, turned out to be unproven or wrong. When I confessed to Koch my fear--that after my five-year journey into the nature and workings of consciousness, I somehow knew less than I did when I started--he simply smiled.
"'But that's good,' he said. 'That's progress!'"
In a nutshell, reading this book gets you nowhere (and in style!), but if you have a taste for science and don't mind all manner of theories on consciousness, you might well enjoy finishing with more questions than answers, because answers are in short supply here, something you might not have expected from a book of this sort.
Both me and my thoughts and my self and my consciousness and my hurt feelings are now signing off (or are they?)...
February 25, 2026
Total confusion
I admire Pollan’s refusal to fall for Physcialism but the entire book is a painful read for those who know anything about the topic. Not until the very end do we even get a page on Kastrup. I’m unsure what he was expecting. He never engaged with real philosophy but just toured the consciousness deniers.
I admire Pollan’s refusal to fall for Physcialism but the entire book is a painful read for those who know anything about the topic. Not until the very end do we even get a page on Kastrup. I’m unsure what he was expecting. He never engaged with real philosophy but just toured the consciousness deniers.
February 24, 2026
The state of the art
This exploration of consciousness in the year 2026 is the best there is. It covers everything worth writing about. The footnotes are a treasure trove.
This exploration of consciousness in the year 2026 is the best there is. It covers everything worth writing about. The footnotes are a treasure trove.
February 25, 2026
More like 3.5. This is a tough one for me to rate. The first half was a bit hard for me to get through. Lots of conjecturing and not much of a narrative or guardrails to cling on to (I don’t blame him tho. A journey into consciousness is a massive undertaking). Second half was fantastic though. Much more narrative and felt like he was starting to lay down some takeaways. If you’re a Pollan fan, definitely worth a read. If you’re interested in consciousness, also worth a read!
March 7, 2026
Quite a good book, primarily because Pollan is an intelligent and also not credulous writer, which is really the most important thing in books like this. I found I enjoyed How to Change Your Mind more, though. In this book Pollan spends a lot of time on the scientific attempts to understand consciousness, but not so much on the less physicalist ideas or even his own experiments with hypnosis and meditation. I generally appreciate Pollan for his willingness to not stick to exactly what he’s been told by scientists, and I felt that there was less of that in this book than his other ones.
I would have loved the last fifth (or maybe it was the last sixth) to have been expanded on much more: that’s the part that feels a bit rushed in which he quickly mentions some non-physicalist ideas, that a leading consciousness researcher from earlier in the book has changed his mind about the correctness of a 100% physicalist approach, his own experiments with meditation in the Zen Buddhist school, and some experiments with hypnosis. These to me needed a lot more space to be fleshed out. I think they would have been extremely interesting to hear Pollan’s thoughts and musings on. Perhaps they were edited out, or perhaps Pollan didn’t want to give so much weight to the “non-scientific” schools of thought. A shame, because ultimately whether physicalist or not, the mystery is just as all-pervading.
I would have loved the last fifth (or maybe it was the last sixth) to have been expanded on much more: that’s the part that feels a bit rushed in which he quickly mentions some non-physicalist ideas, that a leading consciousness researcher from earlier in the book has changed his mind about the correctness of a 100% physicalist approach, his own experiments with meditation in the Zen Buddhist school, and some experiments with hypnosis. These to me needed a lot more space to be fleshed out. I think they would have been extremely interesting to hear Pollan’s thoughts and musings on. Perhaps they were edited out, or perhaps Pollan didn’t want to give so much weight to the “non-scientific” schools of thought. A shame, because ultimately whether physicalist or not, the mystery is just as all-pervading.
March 14, 2026
Michael Pollan began his popular nonfiction book career with food, moved to hallucinogens, and is now exploring consciousness in A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness. Surely, for him, this has been a natural progression! His progression makes me laugh.
5 stars to Michael Pollan for his capacity to explain and summarize the current science of contemporary researchers and to weave them together into a story. 3.5 stars for narrowness of content about consciousness. Pollan mentions, briefly, the Mind Life Conferences and interviews Matthieu Ricard but does not include enough Buddhist content, and no offense, the Western science is still in its infancy and babyish.
It is interesting to note that the scientists have devolved to a mid-sixties hippy stance. They are often looking to psychedelics to inform them, rather than looking to meditation. In the mid 1960s, anyone who took LSD repeatedly, later went on in search of deeper understandings--religion, spiritual practice, physics, and the like.
5 stars to Michael Pollan for his capacity to explain and summarize the current science of contemporary researchers and to weave them together into a story. 3.5 stars for narrowness of content about consciousness. Pollan mentions, briefly, the Mind Life Conferences and interviews Matthieu Ricard but does not include enough Buddhist content, and no offense, the Western science is still in its infancy and babyish.
It is interesting to note that the scientists have devolved to a mid-sixties hippy stance. They are often looking to psychedelics to inform them, rather than looking to meditation. In the mid 1960s, anyone who took LSD repeatedly, later went on in search of deeper understandings--religion, spiritual practice, physics, and the like.
April 28, 2026
My first Michael Pollan book, and this was a bit … underwhelming. Except for the chapter on plants and the self, I didn’t find anything compelling. Maybe it’s the subject matter, or maybe it’s just that the chapters seemed to meander without any real argument.
March 20, 2026
Before everybody runs off in a huff: Michael Pollan is first and foremost a journalist: not a philosopher. And certainly not a neuroscientist.
He pretty much takes the Everyman approach to science and life: "I'll explain to you what I can and for the rest of it you're on your own."
I very much enjoy his intellectual meanderings, but FULL DISCLOSURE: I did not read his book on psychotropic drug experiences.
Looking back at my notes after reading this book, I must say there was plenty to mull over: that life may be a controlled (or uncontrolled) hallucination; that our minds are formed by friction with the world; that impressions are likely encryptions of the self; that technologies open windows of awareness; that intelligent behavior can be something as simple as a distributed group of cells; that robots can never feel familiarity; and that consciousness may be nature's response to entropy.
And there are plenty of warning signs, like Sherry Turkle's missive: "Technologies can make us forget what we know about life." Not to mention forget to take out the garbage.
One thing that stuck with me was the experiment he relates about the plants that compete for soil space when in the wild, but when you put them in a container they suddenly figure out that competition is less useful than cooperation, they compromise, and simply share the available space.
Wouldn't that approach make more sense in the Middle East, in Ukraine, and Houthi-controlled Yemen?
But any writer who hauls in William James -- one of my all-time favourite thinkers -- Marcel Proust, and David Hume is OK in my books.
He pretty much takes the Everyman approach to science and life: "I'll explain to you what I can and for the rest of it you're on your own."
I very much enjoy his intellectual meanderings, but FULL DISCLOSURE: I did not read his book on psychotropic drug experiences.
Looking back at my notes after reading this book, I must say there was plenty to mull over: that life may be a controlled (or uncontrolled) hallucination; that our minds are formed by friction with the world; that impressions are likely encryptions of the self; that technologies open windows of awareness; that intelligent behavior can be something as simple as a distributed group of cells; that robots can never feel familiarity; and that consciousness may be nature's response to entropy.
And there are plenty of warning signs, like Sherry Turkle's missive: "Technologies can make us forget what we know about life." Not to mention forget to take out the garbage.
One thing that stuck with me was the experiment he relates about the plants that compete for soil space when in the wild, but when you put them in a container they suddenly figure out that competition is less useful than cooperation, they compromise, and simply share the available space.
Wouldn't that approach make more sense in the Middle East, in Ukraine, and Houthi-controlled Yemen?
But any writer who hauls in William James -- one of my all-time favourite thinkers -- Marcel Proust, and David Hume is OK in my books.
February 24, 2026
I'm always impressed by Pollan's books because he brings such a personal perspective to them.
Consciousness is one of my favourite topics to read about and I have many controversial opinions about it that would very likely get me into hot water in the comments section.
That said, I would like to inform Pollan of the fact that there is, surprisingly, a small but vocal subset of people (mostly on the internet) struggling with moral scrupulosity who do ascribe real feelings to fictional characters and feel the need to save them or punish them, or the author by proxy accordingly, without being quite aware of the absurdity of the entire premise.
Consciousness is one of my favourite topics to read about and I have many controversial opinions about it that would very likely get me into hot water in the comments section.
That said, I would like to inform Pollan of the fact that there is, surprisingly, a small but vocal subset of people (mostly on the internet) struggling with moral scrupulosity who do ascribe real feelings to fictional characters and feel the need to save them or punish them, or the author by proxy accordingly, without being quite aware of the absurdity of the entire premise.
April 3, 2026
I’ve read widely on consciousness from both philosophical and neuroscience perspectives. My key take away from this book is that I don’t think that the various people he interviews would even agree on what consciousness is. Some liken it to sentience, being awake, being aware, or being aware of awareness.
One researcher even suggests that consciousness is just a part of the mind, which is difficult to get on board with given that consciousness is necessary to be aware of the mind and its process.
The talk of creating a conscious AI is terrifying but also amusing in the sense that they are trying to create something that they don’t even understand.
Consciousness may still be a great mystery, but direct knowledge of it isn’t anywhere near as complicated as this book makes out.
My rating is based on the content not the writing. I like Michael Pollan but this book doesn’t offer anything particularly enlightening on the subject.
One researcher even suggests that consciousness is just a part of the mind, which is difficult to get on board with given that consciousness is necessary to be aware of the mind and its process.
The talk of creating a conscious AI is terrifying but also amusing in the sense that they are trying to create something that they don’t even understand.
Consciousness may still be a great mystery, but direct knowledge of it isn’t anywhere near as complicated as this book makes out.
My rating is based on the content not the writing. I like Michael Pollan but this book doesn’t offer anything particularly enlightening on the subject.
March 9, 2026
I love books about neuroscience and I thought that’s what this book was going to be about generally. Maybe it’ll get there; I had to stop at page 37. But even with a science-trained and science-based mind, I can’t get through it. It’s written at a very high academic level that isn’t really inviting to those who don’t have a background in the area. It doesn’t help that the scientists the author interviews don’t use the same definition of a word (such as consciousness vs sentience). The author defines those words based on his own opinion, but then a scientist he interviews will say something about what they define as consciousness what the author thinks it’s more like he would define sentience. It got too confusing to follow. How will we ever know which one is which?
However, I will now always be thinking of whether or not my plants are sentient. Or are they conscious?
However, I will now always be thinking of whether or not my plants are sentient. Or are they conscious?
April 7, 2026
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆👖⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
Audiobook (9 hours) narrated by the author.
Publisher: Books on Tape.
The narration is fine.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆👖⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
The book is pants.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆👖⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
For a little fun eat, drink, or do an activity like a pushup or jumping jack every time the author says consciousness. It won't be long before you either won't care or will lose consciousness. Either way, you will no longer have to worry about the book being pants. Also, that's where the little twinkling stars around the pants come in... pretty....
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆👖⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
Audiobook (9 hours) narrated by the author.
Publisher: Books on Tape.
The narration is fine.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆👖⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
The book is pants.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆👖⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
For a little fun eat, drink, or do an activity like a pushup or jumping jack every time the author says consciousness. It won't be long before you either won't care or will lose consciousness. Either way, you will no longer have to worry about the book being pants. Also, that's where the little twinkling stars around the pants come in... pretty....
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆👖⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
May 9, 2026
A dense but thought-provoking exploration of consciousness that combines science, philosophy, and personal insight. At times it feels overly technical and difficult to follow, but it offers rewarding ideas about the mind, the self, and the nature of experience. Its greatest strength is how it moves from complexity to a simple, almost humbling conclusion: consciousness remains a mystery, yet it is also the most immediate thing we have.
February 27, 2026
This was by far my most anticipated book of the whole year. I’m an enormous fan of Michael Pollan—his writing, his curiosity, his unparalleled abilities to address incredibly complex topics in digestible and entertaining ways—and upon hearing his next book was about consciousness, a topic I find myself constantly thinking about, I was basically counting down the days.
I’d argue this is up there with his best work! He addresses this fleeting, unknowable concept from so many different angles, speaking to scientists, philosophers and artists in order to leave the reader with a good sense of the territory upon which they could make their own minds up. His personal perspective here is also just so wonderful, and it’s so nice having a guide to this realm who is both incredibly open-minded and willing to call people and ideas out when he feels like they aren’t satisfactory.
Absolute must read.
I’d argue this is up there with his best work! He addresses this fleeting, unknowable concept from so many different angles, speaking to scientists, philosophers and artists in order to leave the reader with a good sense of the territory upon which they could make their own minds up. His personal perspective here is also just so wonderful, and it’s so nice having a guide to this realm who is both incredibly open-minded and willing to call people and ideas out when he feels like they aren’t satisfactory.
Absolute must read.
May 25, 2026
Chugged this. Going to have to read (listen—Pollan is a great reader!) again in a few weeks, because it's even denser with ideas than "How to Change Your Mind", which this book in every way follows. But, as ever, Pollan has an incredible talent for lucid, tangible descriptions of extremely slippery concepts, as well as a direct line to many of the most interesting thinkers of our times. A must-read if you liked HTCYM, if you're interested in consciousness, meditation, and AI, or just curious about what's going on between your own ears.
March 14, 2026
For me, this book was a disappointment. I didn’t come away feeling that I learned much, and I’m not sure Pollan uncovered any especially meaningful new insights about consciousness. At times it drifted into extended backstories and commentary that felt a bit in the Malcolm Gladwell vein. A shame, since “How to Change Your Mind” was so strong.
March 27, 2026
I was so excited about this book having loved everything Pollan has written up to this point. I just found this one lacking - it didn’t surface new ideas or frameworks for approaching the question of consciousness and at the same time didn’t really survey the current state of study in this area in all that clear or comprehensive of a way either. But I still appreciated my time with this book.
March 5, 2026
Adding Michael Pollan to my dream blunt rotation.
June 17, 2026
This book frustrated me a bit while I was reading it. The intro and table of contents led me to believe that Pollan was going to examine consciousness in a methodical way, examining each of its components – sentience, feeling, thought and self – progressively. I was disabused of that assumption in the first chapter, where he uses sentience and consciousness interchangeably, even though they are two different things. This book is more an exploration than an explanation.
Pollan talks to some of the greatest minds that are working on the riddle of consciousness, and shares highlights of those conversations – along with his own impressions and experiences. Unsurprisingly, given the complexity of the topic, those great mind often disagree with each other. Their thoughts are certainly interesting, but sometimes Pollan gives us a little too much. Just summarize, dude.
The key question is why are we conscious? One theory is that consciousness is a universal field preceding matter, and our brains tune into that field. Another theory is that our brain creates consciousness. But how? Did consciousness evolve? If it did, how did that happen? Are only humans and higher animals conscious? Or are all beings conscious or sentient at some level?
One of the most interesting questions the book raises, in my opinion, is the question of whether we have moral obligations to non-human beings who seem to exhibit consciousness. Animals? He even makes the case for some level of consciousness in plants. One “being” that I wouldn’t worry about having a level of consciousness that would rise to the level of moral consideration is AI. A couple of the scientists Pollan talks to speculate that AI will become conscious. I completely disagree. I submit that you can’t be conscious without feelings and you can’t have feelings without a biological body. Pollan seems to lean towards disagreement for the same reason. But it’s a very interesting question.
In the end, Pollan ends where he began: with the notion that consciousness is a mystery and a miracle. In the last chapter, he seems content to exist in the enhanced state of consciousness that comes from fully living in the moment, in acceptance of the mystery.
This book wasn’t very well organized, but I’m glad I read it. It made me think hard, and I like that.
Pollan talks to some of the greatest minds that are working on the riddle of consciousness, and shares highlights of those conversations – along with his own impressions and experiences. Unsurprisingly, given the complexity of the topic, those great mind often disagree with each other. Their thoughts are certainly interesting, but sometimes Pollan gives us a little too much. Just summarize, dude.
The key question is why are we conscious? One theory is that consciousness is a universal field preceding matter, and our brains tune into that field. Another theory is that our brain creates consciousness. But how? Did consciousness evolve? If it did, how did that happen? Are only humans and higher animals conscious? Or are all beings conscious or sentient at some level?
One of the most interesting questions the book raises, in my opinion, is the question of whether we have moral obligations to non-human beings who seem to exhibit consciousness. Animals? He even makes the case for some level of consciousness in plants. One “being” that I wouldn’t worry about having a level of consciousness that would rise to the level of moral consideration is AI. A couple of the scientists Pollan talks to speculate that AI will become conscious. I completely disagree. I submit that you can’t be conscious without feelings and you can’t have feelings without a biological body. Pollan seems to lean towards disagreement for the same reason. But it’s a very interesting question.
In the end, Pollan ends where he began: with the notion that consciousness is a mystery and a miracle. In the last chapter, he seems content to exist in the enhanced state of consciousness that comes from fully living in the moment, in acceptance of the mystery.
This book wasn’t very well organized, but I’m glad I read it. It made me think hard, and I like that.
May 15, 2026
What is consciousness, and how do we properly define it? Like trying to define what we mean by “life”, the answer depends on who you ask. How to define and understand a phenomenon that we can never part from, step outside of? A birds-eye view isn’t available to us – so how can we study consciousness?
Are brains and nervous systems necessary for consciousness to arise? Some scientists say no. Perhaps the brain isn't the seat of consciousness, maybe it's elsewhere in the body, which then begs the question -- can animals and plants be conscious? Studies in botany have shown plants and flowers performing actions that would suggest possible awareness of itself and its surroundings.
"Consciousness is felt uncertainty."
In a world as uncertain and ambiguous as ours, consciousness may have arisen to contend with the unknown. Consciousness allows us to have conversations with ourselves -- our inner monologue. These may be attempts to sort out problems and provide multiple ways in which events can take place.
Are feelings and emotions a part of consciousness? Are they intertwined or separate?
A World Appears left me with more questions than answers, and that is ok. I believe Pollan’s goal was to start a conversation and in that he succeeded. I find neuroscience such an interesting topic. When and how did the mind begin to experience itself?
We are the universe experiencing itself as the great Carl Sagan once said. How mind-blowing.
Are brains and nervous systems necessary for consciousness to arise? Some scientists say no. Perhaps the brain isn't the seat of consciousness, maybe it's elsewhere in the body, which then begs the question -- can animals and plants be conscious? Studies in botany have shown plants and flowers performing actions that would suggest possible awareness of itself and its surroundings.
"Consciousness is felt uncertainty."
In a world as uncertain and ambiguous as ours, consciousness may have arisen to contend with the unknown. Consciousness allows us to have conversations with ourselves -- our inner monologue. These may be attempts to sort out problems and provide multiple ways in which events can take place.
Are feelings and emotions a part of consciousness? Are they intertwined or separate?
A World Appears left me with more questions than answers, and that is ok. I believe Pollan’s goal was to start a conversation and in that he succeeded. I find neuroscience such an interesting topic. When and how did the mind begin to experience itself?
We are the universe experiencing itself as the great Carl Sagan once said. How mind-blowing.
March 30, 2026
A book where you know less after you read it than you did before? Yes, please! I adore everything about this exploration, from Pollan's personable narration to his voracious curiosity. I think of myself as quite a connoisseur of rabbit trails but he went down paths I hadn't even thought of. As someone who is slightly obsessed with the idea of identity, this deep dive into sentience was fascinating. Who am I? What makes up the I? Add in the stuff about nature and how to measure consciousness, I am fully invested in the entire conversation. Please read this so we can talk about it!
April 2, 2026
Pollan attempts to report current thinking on consciousness: what it is, how it works, where it came from, who has it and who doesn’t. However there is a scholarly position for nearly every conceivable idea about consciousness, so this survey of current thinking is no different from idle speculation. Pollan is unable or unwilling to search for fundamental principles or common denominators. It appears that the topic defeated him. The result is a superficial survey of thinking about consciousness since about 1994 (the date of the first Tucson conference).
Essentially all the ideas about consciousness covered are either physicalist or computational-informational. Pollan does a decent job in such a short book in summarizing those. He tries to critique them but has no foundational tools to do so. Instead, he seems to equate mind and brain, consciousness and sentience. He, like his interviewees, hopelessly confuse subjective and objective description, observer with observed, mind and brain, ontology and epistemology, self and world, functional and phenomenological terminology.
Pollan very briefly takes up idealism, the idea that all the world is made of consciousness, but declares without analysis that it is “implausible” (a verdict that confuses subjective and objective points of view). He briefly discusses panpsychism, the idea that consciousness is “in” everything, or at least everything alive, without realizing that it does not solve any problem. Spreading consciousness very thinly over everything does not address what it is.
Beyond his offhand dismissal of idealism, Pollan does not seriously consider non-physical, non-functional theories such as Advaita, phenomenology, religion, or any of the philosophical idealists beyond Kastrup. He reports briefly on drug-induced experiences of physical transcendence but without interpretation or integration into any theory of consciousness.
In the end, he opts for an anti-intellectual Buddhist practice, chopping wood and carrying water, failing to realize that as soon as you open your mouth that solution becomes invalid. For someone who has not been paying attention to recent thinking on consciousness, the book might be a useful catch-up, but for anyone else it is an exercise in frustration.
Pollan, Michael (2026). A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness. New York:
Penguin
Essentially all the ideas about consciousness covered are either physicalist or computational-informational. Pollan does a decent job in such a short book in summarizing those. He tries to critique them but has no foundational tools to do so. Instead, he seems to equate mind and brain, consciousness and sentience. He, like his interviewees, hopelessly confuse subjective and objective description, observer with observed, mind and brain, ontology and epistemology, self and world, functional and phenomenological terminology.
Pollan very briefly takes up idealism, the idea that all the world is made of consciousness, but declares without analysis that it is “implausible” (a verdict that confuses subjective and objective points of view). He briefly discusses panpsychism, the idea that consciousness is “in” everything, or at least everything alive, without realizing that it does not solve any problem. Spreading consciousness very thinly over everything does not address what it is.
Beyond his offhand dismissal of idealism, Pollan does not seriously consider non-physical, non-functional theories such as Advaita, phenomenology, religion, or any of the philosophical idealists beyond Kastrup. He reports briefly on drug-induced experiences of physical transcendence but without interpretation or integration into any theory of consciousness.
In the end, he opts for an anti-intellectual Buddhist practice, chopping wood and carrying water, failing to realize that as soon as you open your mouth that solution becomes invalid. For someone who has not been paying attention to recent thinking on consciousness, the book might be a useful catch-up, but for anyone else it is an exercise in frustration.
Pollan, Michael (2026). A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness. New York:
Penguin
May 6, 2026
I really enjoyed it! The complexity it covers is quite formidable. So while I have finished the audiobook (Michael Pollan's narration is excellent), I have also picked up a Kindle copy to retrace my steps with the vain hope of grasping some understanding of the topic.
I loved how this book in some way reconciled earlier books by the author: Second Nature: A Gardener's Education, The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World, This Is Your Mind on Plants and How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics. They all come together in aid of this new topic of exploration.
Everything by Pollan is pretty excellent and deserves my recommendation!
Started in parallel: The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety.
Want to read next: The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
I loved how this book in some way reconciled earlier books by the author: Second Nature: A Gardener's Education, The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World, This Is Your Mind on Plants and How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics. They all come together in aid of this new topic of exploration.
Everything by Pollan is pretty excellent and deserves my recommendation!
Started in parallel: The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety.
Want to read next: The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
March 30, 2026
This is my first "did not finish" book on Goodreads! I've been a big fan of Pollan's for many years and have read all of his generally excellent books. This one did not engage me. Even he admits that it didn't turn out as he'd expected. He's tackling consciousness here, and it's pretty dense going. I feel like I got a LOT more out of Dan Brown's most recent book, which also covers the topic, but packages the science in a fast-paced narrative. This was just dull. Onward and upward.
June 20, 2026
A World Appears was lent to me to see what I thought about it. I’ll say here what I said then: It does a pretty good job of covering all the bases on the topic of consciousness. This was on Goodread’s most-read list in the science and non-fiction category for several months, so it seems there is a lot of interest in the topic of consciousness. For the reader who is just beginning to probe the subject of cognitive science, consciousness, and AI sentience, A World Appears provides a decent (if at times misleading) overview, so it would be fair to say that it deserves at least three stars for that.
Readers will learn about idealism, panpsychism, dualism, physicalism, quantum consciousness, simulation theory, and transmission theory. That last one is a real doozey as it posits that the brain is merely a receiver which takes its directives from a disembodied eternal soul. While some of the ideas are very fringe, it pays to at least be aware of them. Pollan also spends a lot of time exploring more "experiential” approaches: phenomenology, psychedelics, hypnotism, and mediation. I suppose, if Pollan had taken a different tone, this could have all been quite entertaining. But I found all the earnest and wonder-struck forays to the fringe exasperating.
Obviously, I am not the targeted audience for this book. I join with a number of thinkers who adamantly believe that there is no “hard problem” of consciousness, among them Zizek, Rovelli, Dawkins, Dennett, Kuhn, Kauffman, Carrol, Hossenfelder, Seth, Gilbert and Thompson. From the start of the book Pollan seems to be totally enamored of David Chalmers, who has made a lifelong career of the “hard problem.” This is what I meant by misleading, because at every turn Pollan too easily dismisses the biological mechanisms for consciousness.
In a nutshell (because you won’t find this anywhere in the book), we all inhabit our own closed sensory feedback system. There’s nothing mystical about this, no cause for hand wringing about who we are or how consciousness arose from quantum chaos. Everything Pollan talks about regarding sleep, daydreams, meditation, the “I behind the I,” the “expanded sense field," psychedelic-induced states, or the stupor caused by reading woo-woo books can be readily explained via the closed sensory feedback system. Tracing back to the origins of environmental awareness, first as simple chemical reactions, then later as organisms became more complex and evolved into prey and predator dynamics, organisms adapted in an ever spiraling arms race, always seeking optimal survival conditions. Homo sapiens developed the capacity for memory in order to learn from the past and consider optimal choices moving forward. All incremental until at some point some creatures such as humans, elephants, dolphins, chimpanzees evolved self-awareness. But this all developed within closed sensory feedback systems, a critical point which is not even mentioned in this book.
When this is understood, there is no cause for hand wringing when we realize that as outside observers we can’t account for the subjective experiences in other people (well, pending some future mind-melding apparatus!). But consider just how far mankind has come to get a glimpse beyond our own feedback systems: first and foremost through language and written communication, then later we added the scientific method and tools of technology to ‘see beyond’ our own limitations. Once you understand that consciousness was a long process, not simply flipping a switch, the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness is entirely moot. I kept waiting for Pollan to reveal that critical component, but no, he leaves the reader dangling with unanswered questions. But what we have achieved is cause for wonder and joy, much as Jacob Bronowski revealed so poignantly in his crowning opus, The Ascent of Man.
Overall, for the intended reader I can see this being an interesting journey of discovery, but I can’t recommend it as a “one and done” on the subject. Further reading will be required. There’s always Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained, or for a more approachable but no-nonsense explanation, Sabine Hossenfelder’s Existential Physics. If you’ve read this book and had enough of the topic, but are looking for something thought-provoking without being too dense with science, I suggest The Light Eaters, by Zoe Schlanger about the possibility of consciousness in plants. Her explorations mostly stay within the biologically plausible range of sensory feedback systems. Or if you hunger for a more cosmic perspective, A World Beyond Physics by Stuart Kauffman suggests that even non-organic structures like crystals follow a hardwired fundamental law of attraction and order, a sort of proto-consciousness, if you will.
In sum, I wasn’t too impressed that Pollan spent several years travelling around the globe looking for answers, dismissing the most plausible explanation, and yet had nothing meaningful to share. So, while Pollan certainly tickles our curiosity, don’t expect any real answers in this book.
Readers will learn about idealism, panpsychism, dualism, physicalism, quantum consciousness, simulation theory, and transmission theory. That last one is a real doozey as it posits that the brain is merely a receiver which takes its directives from a disembodied eternal soul. While some of the ideas are very fringe, it pays to at least be aware of them. Pollan also spends a lot of time exploring more "experiential” approaches: phenomenology, psychedelics, hypnotism, and mediation. I suppose, if Pollan had taken a different tone, this could have all been quite entertaining. But I found all the earnest and wonder-struck forays to the fringe exasperating.
Obviously, I am not the targeted audience for this book. I join with a number of thinkers who adamantly believe that there is no “hard problem” of consciousness, among them Zizek, Rovelli, Dawkins, Dennett, Kuhn, Kauffman, Carrol, Hossenfelder, Seth, Gilbert and Thompson. From the start of the book Pollan seems to be totally enamored of David Chalmers, who has made a lifelong career of the “hard problem.” This is what I meant by misleading, because at every turn Pollan too easily dismisses the biological mechanisms for consciousness.
In a nutshell (because you won’t find this anywhere in the book), we all inhabit our own closed sensory feedback system. There’s nothing mystical about this, no cause for hand wringing about who we are or how consciousness arose from quantum chaos. Everything Pollan talks about regarding sleep, daydreams, meditation, the “I behind the I,” the “expanded sense field," psychedelic-induced states, or the stupor caused by reading woo-woo books can be readily explained via the closed sensory feedback system. Tracing back to the origins of environmental awareness, first as simple chemical reactions, then later as organisms became more complex and evolved into prey and predator dynamics, organisms adapted in an ever spiraling arms race, always seeking optimal survival conditions. Homo sapiens developed the capacity for memory in order to learn from the past and consider optimal choices moving forward. All incremental until at some point some creatures such as humans, elephants, dolphins, chimpanzees evolved self-awareness. But this all developed within closed sensory feedback systems, a critical point which is not even mentioned in this book.
When this is understood, there is no cause for hand wringing when we realize that as outside observers we can’t account for the subjective experiences in other people (well, pending some future mind-melding apparatus!). But consider just how far mankind has come to get a glimpse beyond our own feedback systems: first and foremost through language and written communication, then later we added the scientific method and tools of technology to ‘see beyond’ our own limitations. Once you understand that consciousness was a long process, not simply flipping a switch, the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness is entirely moot. I kept waiting for Pollan to reveal that critical component, but no, he leaves the reader dangling with unanswered questions. But what we have achieved is cause for wonder and joy, much as Jacob Bronowski revealed so poignantly in his crowning opus, The Ascent of Man.
Overall, for the intended reader I can see this being an interesting journey of discovery, but I can’t recommend it as a “one and done” on the subject. Further reading will be required. There’s always Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained, or for a more approachable but no-nonsense explanation, Sabine Hossenfelder’s Existential Physics. If you’ve read this book and had enough of the topic, but are looking for something thought-provoking without being too dense with science, I suggest The Light Eaters, by Zoe Schlanger about the possibility of consciousness in plants. Her explorations mostly stay within the biologically plausible range of sensory feedback systems. Or if you hunger for a more cosmic perspective, A World Beyond Physics by Stuart Kauffman suggests that even non-organic structures like crystals follow a hardwired fundamental law of attraction and order, a sort of proto-consciousness, if you will.
In sum, I wasn’t too impressed that Pollan spent several years travelling around the globe looking for answers, dismissing the most plausible explanation, and yet had nothing meaningful to share. So, while Pollan certainly tickles our curiosity, don’t expect any real answers in this book.
April 1, 2026
An excellent journalistic survey of scientific and philosophical attempts to understand consciousness - that ineffable sense we all have of being something and being aware that we are aware of the world.
Pollan tells us that there are three great mysteries, the two others being ‘why is this something rather than nothing?’ (how is it that there is a universe or possibly multiverse) and ‘how did life start?’. (Is it possible that these, together with the mystery of the nature and provenance of consciousness, are linked?)
The book is framed around a bet made in 1998 between the German-American neuroscientist Chrstof Koch and Australian philosopher David Chalmers.
Koch (who had professional backing from Francis Crick, of DNA fame) was confident that a physical explanation for consciousness within the brain (for an example, a particular network of neurones in the brain) would be found within 25 years. That is, there would be a physical or materialist explanation of the kind congenial to hard scientists.
Chalmers wasn’t so sure. Two years previously, after finishing his doctorate, he’d presented a paper at a conference distinguishing between the ‘easy problem’ of consciousness or mental processing (identifying parts of the braining associated with functions like learning, memory and perception) and the ‘hard problem’ (figuring out why it is that we are aware and self aware). He thought that the so-called ‘easy problem[s]’ were susceptible to scientific analysis and were being solved in a piecemeal way. As for the ‘hard problem’, Chalmers doubted it would or could be solved by current scientific approaches. Consciousness, he thought, might be an unknown thing, a substance or force like gravity, woven into the fabric of the physical world.
Chalmers won the bet. Koch delivered a box of nice wine to him in 2023.
In an email to Pollan, Koch explained where he was with his quest. It is a very interesting account and it’s almost worth reading the book just for this.
First, contrary to his youthful optimism in 1998, scientists were unable find a ‘consciousness generator’ (for example a network of nerves or pattern of electrical impulses) in the brain. Scientists were coming up with all sorts of excuses for this, one being that ‘consciousness is just an illusion’ but, of course, that begs the question of who or what is consciously registering the illusion.
Secondly, quantum entanglement (the phenomenon of subatomic particles influencing each other over great distances) raised the possibility that things happening in the brain itself might be linked to things happening elsewhere which suggests that you won’t get answers by focussing exclusively on the physical structures other brain.
Thirdly, Koch had had a personal epiphany during a five day ceremony with an indigenous group in South America under the guidance of a shaman. This seems to have impacted on him in a similar manner to LSD on Aldous Huxley, dissolving his sense of self while expanding his consciousness - or perhaps ‘pooling’ his consciousness with a more general consciousness. Again, this suggests that the answer to the mystery of consciousness does not lie exclusively within the brain.
There is a lot more to this book - discussions of philosophy (including David Hume’s theory of mind and personality), meditation, consciousness in animals and plant, and the frontiers of artificial intelligence.
I liked the discussion of dopamine v serotonin. Both make you feel good but apparently dopamine is to do with rewards and achievement (getting a PB in the park run) whereas serotonin is associated with wonder and openness (being in nature for example).
And now we have modern alchemists or Dr Frankensteins trying to engineer consciousness within decion-making computers. Have Google developed a self-aware AI computer, a bit like sky net but slightly more neurotic (fortunately)? Will they in the future? Probably not, but not for want of trying.
Pollan tells us that there are three great mysteries, the two others being ‘why is this something rather than nothing?’ (how is it that there is a universe or possibly multiverse) and ‘how did life start?’. (Is it possible that these, together with the mystery of the nature and provenance of consciousness, are linked?)
The book is framed around a bet made in 1998 between the German-American neuroscientist Chrstof Koch and Australian philosopher David Chalmers.
Koch (who had professional backing from Francis Crick, of DNA fame) was confident that a physical explanation for consciousness within the brain (for an example, a particular network of neurones in the brain) would be found within 25 years. That is, there would be a physical or materialist explanation of the kind congenial to hard scientists.
Chalmers wasn’t so sure. Two years previously, after finishing his doctorate, he’d presented a paper at a conference distinguishing between the ‘easy problem’ of consciousness or mental processing (identifying parts of the braining associated with functions like learning, memory and perception) and the ‘hard problem’ (figuring out why it is that we are aware and self aware). He thought that the so-called ‘easy problem[s]’ were susceptible to scientific analysis and were being solved in a piecemeal way. As for the ‘hard problem’, Chalmers doubted it would or could be solved by current scientific approaches. Consciousness, he thought, might be an unknown thing, a substance or force like gravity, woven into the fabric of the physical world.
Chalmers won the bet. Koch delivered a box of nice wine to him in 2023.
In an email to Pollan, Koch explained where he was with his quest. It is a very interesting account and it’s almost worth reading the book just for this.
First, contrary to his youthful optimism in 1998, scientists were unable find a ‘consciousness generator’ (for example a network of nerves or pattern of electrical impulses) in the brain. Scientists were coming up with all sorts of excuses for this, one being that ‘consciousness is just an illusion’ but, of course, that begs the question of who or what is consciously registering the illusion.
Secondly, quantum entanglement (the phenomenon of subatomic particles influencing each other over great distances) raised the possibility that things happening in the brain itself might be linked to things happening elsewhere which suggests that you won’t get answers by focussing exclusively on the physical structures other brain.
Thirdly, Koch had had a personal epiphany during a five day ceremony with an indigenous group in South America under the guidance of a shaman. This seems to have impacted on him in a similar manner to LSD on Aldous Huxley, dissolving his sense of self while expanding his consciousness - or perhaps ‘pooling’ his consciousness with a more general consciousness. Again, this suggests that the answer to the mystery of consciousness does not lie exclusively within the brain.
There is a lot more to this book - discussions of philosophy (including David Hume’s theory of mind and personality), meditation, consciousness in animals and plant, and the frontiers of artificial intelligence.
I liked the discussion of dopamine v serotonin. Both make you feel good but apparently dopamine is to do with rewards and achievement (getting a PB in the park run) whereas serotonin is associated with wonder and openness (being in nature for example).
And now we have modern alchemists or Dr Frankensteins trying to engineer consciousness within decion-making computers. Have Google developed a self-aware AI computer, a bit like sky net but slightly more neurotic (fortunately)? Will they in the future? Probably not, but not for want of trying.
March 20, 2026
This review comes with a special distinction. I fed my entire reading journey of the last ten years to Claude and asked it to suggest a book that was releasing soon. It suggested this one. Lo and behold, it turned out to be exactly what I love. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to explore the subject of consciousness.
I have read many books about consciousness. Most of them try to answer a lot of questions but never quite get there. A few attempted to address the biological aspects, but this book completes the picture for me. It rounds out my overall view of consciousness beautifully. Michael Pollan did a great job. He spoke with some fascinating people who offered genuinely thoughtful perspectives on the subject.
To sum it up, consciousness is essentially about how you define yourself, how you define others, and how you try to understand another point of view. At the end of the day, the brain does not want surprises. It wants to predict so that you are always ready. Consciousness is more of a survival skill than anything mystical. It is a byproduct of evolution. There is nothing particularly fancy about it, and in various forms and bits and pieces, it exists everywhere. Our definition of consciousness is very broad, and people sometimes pick and choose certain aspects connected to it and call it conscious.
My personal opinion is that machines will never truly be conscious. You can always switch off a machine without guilt. They may overtake humans in certain areas, but at the end of the day, humans will remain at the helm. We will always be the ones in command and control, using machines as tools to aid us.
The idea of transferring consciousness into an electronic medium is not entirely far-fetched, because we evolved based on the conditions present on Earth, and Earth, as we know, is not permanent. In a few billion years, there will be no sun, no solar system, nothing as we know it. We may well attempt to carry our consciousness, our life, our information, to other places. We will be galaxy-hopping, if not planet-hopping.
As far as we know right now, the life we are living is a cosmic coincidence. The chances of you being here are one in billions, perhaps more. There will not be another you. You will be gone, that is certain. So just enjoy your life. Realising that you are temporary makes it all the more precious.
Give what you can, live the way you love, and my personal guiding principle is simple: do not hurt others, do not hurt yourself. Make some progress if you can. If not, at least leave things as you found them.
That said, human nature is human nature. As long as there are humans, there are nuances, quirks, and people working in their own interests. This translates into capitalism and everything else we see around us. What exists today is a product of everything that has come before. I am not apologetic about it, not angry, not disappointed. This is the natural course of history taking its due path. I am nobody and I am insignificant in the grand scheme of things. All I can do is enjoy myself and enjoy time with my family. That is what I have decided, and that is how it goes.
All in all, this is a wonderful book. Please read it if you love the subject of consciousness.
One Minor Irritation:
The author discusses the work of Dr. Kalina Christoff, a Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, and her contributions are genuinely interesting. However, I have one bone to pick with Michael Pollan. He insists on using her full name every single time he mentions her. Every. Single. Time. After about the fiftieth repetition of "Kalina Christoff Hadjiilieva," I was ready to put the book down. It felt like he was under some kind of court order and would face prosecution if he dared refer to her simply as Kalina.
Mr. Pollan, if you are reading this, here is a memo you may have missed: the first mention, full name, absolutely. After that, the first name alone does the job just fine. Your readers are intelligent people. We remember who she is. This is the one and only moment in the entire book where I genuinely wanted to stop listening, and it had nothing to do with the content.
A small thing, but an oddly persistent one.
I have read many books about consciousness. Most of them try to answer a lot of questions but never quite get there. A few attempted to address the biological aspects, but this book completes the picture for me. It rounds out my overall view of consciousness beautifully. Michael Pollan did a great job. He spoke with some fascinating people who offered genuinely thoughtful perspectives on the subject.
To sum it up, consciousness is essentially about how you define yourself, how you define others, and how you try to understand another point of view. At the end of the day, the brain does not want surprises. It wants to predict so that you are always ready. Consciousness is more of a survival skill than anything mystical. It is a byproduct of evolution. There is nothing particularly fancy about it, and in various forms and bits and pieces, it exists everywhere. Our definition of consciousness is very broad, and people sometimes pick and choose certain aspects connected to it and call it conscious.
My personal opinion is that machines will never truly be conscious. You can always switch off a machine without guilt. They may overtake humans in certain areas, but at the end of the day, humans will remain at the helm. We will always be the ones in command and control, using machines as tools to aid us.
The idea of transferring consciousness into an electronic medium is not entirely far-fetched, because we evolved based on the conditions present on Earth, and Earth, as we know, is not permanent. In a few billion years, there will be no sun, no solar system, nothing as we know it. We may well attempt to carry our consciousness, our life, our information, to other places. We will be galaxy-hopping, if not planet-hopping.
As far as we know right now, the life we are living is a cosmic coincidence. The chances of you being here are one in billions, perhaps more. There will not be another you. You will be gone, that is certain. So just enjoy your life. Realising that you are temporary makes it all the more precious.
Give what you can, live the way you love, and my personal guiding principle is simple: do not hurt others, do not hurt yourself. Make some progress if you can. If not, at least leave things as you found them.
That said, human nature is human nature. As long as there are humans, there are nuances, quirks, and people working in their own interests. This translates into capitalism and everything else we see around us. What exists today is a product of everything that has come before. I am not apologetic about it, not angry, not disappointed. This is the natural course of history taking its due path. I am nobody and I am insignificant in the grand scheme of things. All I can do is enjoy myself and enjoy time with my family. That is what I have decided, and that is how it goes.
All in all, this is a wonderful book. Please read it if you love the subject of consciousness.
One Minor Irritation:
The author discusses the work of Dr. Kalina Christoff, a Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, and her contributions are genuinely interesting. However, I have one bone to pick with Michael Pollan. He insists on using her full name every single time he mentions her. Every. Single. Time. After about the fiftieth repetition of "Kalina Christoff Hadjiilieva," I was ready to put the book down. It felt like he was under some kind of court order and would face prosecution if he dared refer to her simply as Kalina.
Mr. Pollan, if you are reading this, here is a memo you may have missed: the first mention, full name, absolutely. After that, the first name alone does the job just fine. Your readers are intelligent people. We remember who she is. This is the one and only moment in the entire book where I genuinely wanted to stop listening, and it had nothing to do with the content.
A small thing, but an oddly persistent one.
June 10, 2026
What I loved about this book was how intensely you could feel the author’s curiosity coming through. I haven’t read anything by Michael Pollan since The Omnivore’s Dilemma in college, so that’s how I associate him in my mind, but clearly his interests are vast, and this foray into the nature of the self and consciousness was fascinating.
I appreciate that Pollan is endlessly curious without being overly credulous. There is a very interesting chapter about whether AI can develop emotions or a consciousness, and while Pollan ultimately (and correctly, I think) concludes that the answer is no, his interviews with various scientists and programmers are open-minded and thoughtful. In the “age of AI,” whether we like it or not (I do not), I enjoy reading an analysis that engages with the concept without offering wide-eyed credulity or lending authority to vested interests.
In the rest of the book, he explores consciousness in plants, the development of being able to recognize our own consciousness, and more. One interesting segment was when he talks about the development of memory and its connection to the understanding of self. He says that the time that children start recalling memories coincides with when they start recognizing themselves as distinct beings (usually through the mirror test). And he notes that often early memories are tied into those of their parents’ - for example, if a child is taken to the zoo, their strongest memory of the event will relate to whatever it is their parent finds notable enough to comment on.
Given that it’s a pop philosophy book I’m sure it’s not the deepest dive into consciousness and I’m sure that those who have thoroughly tackled the concept in academic research will have its quibbles with it. But for someone who thinks a lot about the self but mainly on a personal rather than conceptual level, I found it to be a good introduction to some other concepts in idealism. And Pollan’s engaging writing made it an enjoyable read.
I appreciate that Pollan is endlessly curious without being overly credulous. There is a very interesting chapter about whether AI can develop emotions or a consciousness, and while Pollan ultimately (and correctly, I think) concludes that the answer is no, his interviews with various scientists and programmers are open-minded and thoughtful. In the “age of AI,” whether we like it or not (I do not), I enjoy reading an analysis that engages with the concept without offering wide-eyed credulity or lending authority to vested interests.
In the rest of the book, he explores consciousness in plants, the development of being able to recognize our own consciousness, and more. One interesting segment was when he talks about the development of memory and its connection to the understanding of self. He says that the time that children start recalling memories coincides with when they start recognizing themselves as distinct beings (usually through the mirror test). And he notes that often early memories are tied into those of their parents’ - for example, if a child is taken to the zoo, their strongest memory of the event will relate to whatever it is their parent finds notable enough to comment on.
Given that it’s a pop philosophy book I’m sure it’s not the deepest dive into consciousness and I’m sure that those who have thoroughly tackled the concept in academic research will have its quibbles with it. But for someone who thinks a lot about the self but mainly on a personal rather than conceptual level, I found it to be a good introduction to some other concepts in idealism. And Pollan’s engaging writing made it an enjoyable read.
June 6, 2026
Michael Pollen is a good journalist but not a philosopher or neuroscientist. This became obvious, although he is honest about thinking he had known something about consciousness before starting this project and discovering that he really didn’t by the end of it. Consciousness is one of the mysteries that science can’t fathom.
True to his journalistic roots, he interviewed widely; this included neuroscientists, botanists, AI specialists, psychologists and philosophers. It’s a messy progression, although his chapter headings – Sentience, Feeling, Thought, and Self – suggest more structure than there is.
His chapter on sentience is largely about whether or not plants are sentient, which, as far as I’m concerned, is off topic from the get-go. And it’s quite a long chapter.
Next, a group of AI developers who are working to create conscious AI. This is terrifying and BS at the same time. Pollen rightly references Frankenstein. The tech-heads have already drawn up protocols to pull the plug if their monster gets out of control – too late? Pollen then interviews a psychologist whose main interest is spontaneous thought. When asked about the prospect of conscious AI she rolled her eyes and said: “Just have a baby. We know how to make them.”
In later sections he finally shifts to philosophy but also meets with others who, like him, have experimented with psychedelics. In his own experience with psilocybin, he experienced a heightened sense of awareness beyond the boundaries of body or even place. He interviewed other ‘psychonauts’, including former hard-core materialists who had also tried psychedelics and had their previous beliefs utterly shaken and reconfigured.
I got tired with Pollen name-dropping philosophers – mostly Hume with a smattering of Schopenhauer and Sartre. He could have done with spending less time with the empiricists and more with the existentialists. They have better kinship with Buddhism which offers the best arena for exploring consciousness so far. In his final chapter, The Cave, Pollen spends an extended time meditating in said cave under the tutelage of a Buddhist nun. It did not add much to the discussion of consciousness but was interesting nonetheless.
Pollen admits that he confused himself with this enquiry into consciousness. There is an emerging theory that consciousness might be one of the fundamental elements of the universe, like gravity and electromagnetism, but as yet this is too controversial a theory for most scientists to accept.
True to his journalistic roots, he interviewed widely; this included neuroscientists, botanists, AI specialists, psychologists and philosophers. It’s a messy progression, although his chapter headings – Sentience, Feeling, Thought, and Self – suggest more structure than there is.
His chapter on sentience is largely about whether or not plants are sentient, which, as far as I’m concerned, is off topic from the get-go. And it’s quite a long chapter.
Next, a group of AI developers who are working to create conscious AI. This is terrifying and BS at the same time. Pollen rightly references Frankenstein. The tech-heads have already drawn up protocols to pull the plug if their monster gets out of control – too late? Pollen then interviews a psychologist whose main interest is spontaneous thought. When asked about the prospect of conscious AI she rolled her eyes and said: “Just have a baby. We know how to make them.”
In later sections he finally shifts to philosophy but also meets with others who, like him, have experimented with psychedelics. In his own experience with psilocybin, he experienced a heightened sense of awareness beyond the boundaries of body or even place. He interviewed other ‘psychonauts’, including former hard-core materialists who had also tried psychedelics and had their previous beliefs utterly shaken and reconfigured.
I got tired with Pollen name-dropping philosophers – mostly Hume with a smattering of Schopenhauer and Sartre. He could have done with spending less time with the empiricists and more with the existentialists. They have better kinship with Buddhism which offers the best arena for exploring consciousness so far. In his final chapter, The Cave, Pollen spends an extended time meditating in said cave under the tutelage of a Buddhist nun. It did not add much to the discussion of consciousness but was interesting nonetheless.
Pollen admits that he confused himself with this enquiry into consciousness. There is an emerging theory that consciousness might be one of the fundamental elements of the universe, like gravity and electromagnetism, but as yet this is too controversial a theory for most scientists to accept.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 751 reviews