EVERY SPOKEN WORD
140 min read · 27,765 words- 0:00 – 0:06
Intro
- JRJoe Rogan
Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
- JRJoe Rogan
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- 0:06 – 2:32
Why Pollan Wrote a Book on Consciousness: Psychedelics, Meditation, and a Strange Garden Insight
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night. All day. [upbeat rock music] Mr. Pollan, so good to see you again.
- MPMichael Pollan
Hey, good to be back.
- JRJoe Rogan
Consciousness. So, um, this new book, what inspired it? What, what got you to-- I mean, you-you've kind of explored consciousness a little bit with your-
- MPMichael Pollan
Psychedelic book?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah. How to Change Your Mind. Well, actually, this book was inspired by the research I did for that book. Um, as you know, I had several, uh, research trips. Um, and, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you do air quotes when you say research?
- MPMichael Pollan
Yes. [both laughing] And I, um... A- And two things happened that were really interesting. One is there's something about psychedelics that makes you think about consciousness. It-- You know, it's like smudging the windscreen, the windshield, that you normally is perfectly transparent, and you see the world through. Suddenly, it's, like, different, and you realize there's something between me and the world, and what is it? And that's consciousness. And so, like a lot of people have, who've done psychedelics, you start wondering about this mystery. Why is it this way and not that way? So that was one experience. The other was I had an experience in my garden in Connecticut, where we have a house, of, um, [lips smack] uh, walking through my garden and getting the powerful impression that the plants were conscious, and that these-- I remember these part- this particular, it was a plume poppy or several plume poppies. And they were, like, returning my gaze. They were very m- benevolent. They were, you know, putting out positive vibes, [lips smack] but, like, they were conscious, much more alive than they'd ever been. And like a lot of insights on psychedelics, I didn't know what to do with it. Like, is it true? Is it just a drug thing? You know, what is it? Um, but I decided it'd be interesting to find out. And, uh, I consulted a couple people, scientists, and said, "What do you do with an insight like that?" And they said, "Well, you test it against other ways of knowing, including scientific ways of knowing." And that led me down this, uh, really interesting path, uh, exploring plant intelligence and plant consciousness. So basically, it-- yeah, the book grew out of the psychedelic experiences and some meditation experience. Meditation also has a way of making you, like, hyper-aware of how strange your thoughts are. Where are they coming from? Who's thinking them?
- 2:32 – 3:36
Competing Theories of Consciousness: Brain-Generated, Receiver Models, and Panpsychism
- JRJoe Rogan
So there's a bunch of different schools of thought when it comes to consciousness, right? There's one, like the Rupert Sheldrake thing, that sort of everything has consciousness, and there's the sort of r- rational scientists that believe it e-exists somewhere in the mind. I don't know about-
- MPMichael Pollan
In the brain.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. In the brain, excuse me. And then there's people that think that the brain is essentially just an antenna-
- MPMichael Pollan
Right
- JRJoe Rogan
... that's tuning in-
- MPMichael Pollan
Receiving, yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... to the greater consciousness of whatever it is that's out there.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you have any one of them that you hold?
- MPMichael Pollan
I don't.
- JRJoe Rogan
Or do you-
- MPMichael Pollan
They're all equally plausible. I, you know, I went into the experience assuming, because this is what most scientists assume, that somehow a certain arrangement of neurons in the brain generates consciousness, you know, subjective experience. But no one's been able to show that. We've gotten nowhere in that effort to... You know, we can, we, we might correlate certain parts of the brain with consciousness, but we don't understand how three pounds of matter could generate the feeling of being you. No idea.
- 3:36 – 8:27
The ‘Hard Problem’ and the Famous Consciousness Bet (Koch vs. Chalmers)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, you talk about it in your book, where the, the two gentlemen who had the bet.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
Um, that was, uh, Christof Koch, who's a, uh, a, a great brain scientist, and David Chalmers, who's a, uh, philosopher. And, uh, this goes back to, like, in the early '90s. They were getting drunk in a bar in Bremen, Germany. And, uh, Christof Koch had, had really was at the beginning of the modern scientific exploration of consciousness, and he was working with Francis Crick, who had just come off of a Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNA. And Crick, who was, like, the most famous scientist in the world at the time, um, thought, well, the same kind of reductive science that discovered the double helix DNA and explained heredity, um, I'm gonna do that for consciousness. And he's a very arrogant man, and he, he thought it was just, you know, no problem. Um, and Crick was kind of his sidekick. Uh, I'm sorry, uh, Koch was his sidekick. And so Koch, who shared that kind of confidence, made this bet with Chalmers that they would find the neural correlates, the parts of the brain that are responsible for consciousness, within twenty-five years. That was twenty-five years, twenty-seven years ago now, and, uh, Chalmers won the bet. Chalmers is famous for, um, coining the term the hard problem to, to, you know, to, um, describe the whole effort to figure out consciousness. And it's a hard problem for a lot of reasons. Um, I mean, it is one of the biggest mysteries in the universe, I mean, how consciousness come, came to be. Did it evolve? Was it always here? Um, but he, his, his point was that our science is based on third-person, objective, quantifiable measurements, and consciousness is fundamentally a subjective, first-person experience. So how does that, those tools reach in and say any-anything of value about consciousness? So he said, you know, there are easy problems of consciousness we can figure out, like perception, um, emotion, things like that, but, but there is this hard problem. How do you get from matter to mind? And, uh, he won the bet. [laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- MPMichael Pollan
There was a ceremony I went to a couple years ago at, uh, NYU, and, uh, uh, Koch pre-presented Chalmers with a case of very fine, uh, Madeira wine.And, uh, and renewed the bet. He said, "All right, in another 25 years." [laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
[laughs] That's optimistic.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
How old are these gentlemen?
- MPMichael Pollan
[laughs] Koch is in his late 60s, so we'll see if he's around for this. But, uh, and Chalmers is a little bit younger.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, it's, it's such an interesting thought because we know that the mind contains ... If damaged, right? It c- We, we know that there's certain aspects, there's certain parts of the mind where, like lobotomies for instance.
- MPMichael Pollan
Mm.
- JRJoe Rogan
We know that if we, if we disturb it, it radically affects behavior. We know that there's parts of the mind that you can stimulate that can actually recall memories.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right? There's some, some weird stuff going on there. So we know it's somehow or another at least functionally connected to consciousness.
- MPMichael Pollan
Oh, yeah. It's definitely a relationship.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
But, but if it's generating consciousness, that's one thing, but it could be, as you said earlier, it could be receiving consciousness.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MPMichael Pollan
And the same things would hold true, that if you damage parts of the brain-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Sure
- MPMichael Pollan
... i- if-
- JRJoe Rogan
Like a bad radio
- MPMichael Pollan
... if you damage ... Yeah, or yeah. Damage the-
- JRJoe Rogan
The signal's still out there
- MPMichael Pollan
... the television. Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
Um, so th- that, that doesn't determine the truth of either theory. And then the other one is, uh, panpsychism, which you were alluding to. I don't know if that's Rupert Sheldrake. Would he ... I think he would believe more in the field of consciousness. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, right. He was the morphic resonance guy. But I think-
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah
- 8:27 – 11:32
Spotlight vs. Lantern Consciousness: Focus, Mind-Wandering, and Childlike Perception
- MPMichael Pollan
And also just to be put in touch with the fact you have this marvel going on in your head all the time. You have a voice in your head, you know? We're talking to each other, but you've got another voice going on thinking what you're gonna ask the n- you know, what the next question is.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh-huh.
- MPMichael Pollan
Maybe what you're gonna have for dinner. You know, this, uh, the, it's, it's this am- it's this amazing interior space we have.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
And nobody understands how it came to be.
- JRJoe Rogan
And you can manage it, which is also interesting.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah. You can.
- JRJoe Rogan
Because, like, I don't think about what I'm gonna have for dinner.
- MPMichael Pollan
[laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
That's, that's the thing.
- MPMichael Pollan
You put that out of your head?
- JRJoe Rogan
That's the way to stay ... No, about any of those things. That's, uh, the way to stay locked in in a podcast. It's like-
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah, that's true
- JRJoe Rogan
... only think ... Because you can let your mind wander.
- MPMichael Pollan
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Especially if someone on the other side is boring.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah. [laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
And, and then I'm like, oh, no, this conversation's gonna be pulling teeth.
- MPMichael Pollan
Uh-oh.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then I start thinking about a new joke I'm working on.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Or, oh, I gotta get my car fixed.
- MPMichael Pollan
Well, that's called spotlight consciousness, when you can, like, really, like, put the blinders on-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes
- MPMichael Pollan
... and, and rule everything out. And that's opposed to, uh, lantern consciousness, where-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm
- MPMichael Pollan
... you're taking in all sorts of information. You're letting your mind-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- MPMichael Pollan
... wander. And that, you know, they both have their value.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- 11:32 – 16:26
Psychedelic Therapy and Politics: MDMA, Psilocybin, Ibogaine, and Federal Roadblocks
- JRJoe Rogan
You just gotta be able to accept whatever it's showing you. And, um, you know, we live in a very strange culture where that's illegal. [laughs] One, one of the most-
- MPMichael Pollan
Well, not everywhere, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Not everywhere.
- MPMichael Pollan
I mean, it's changing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it is changing, fortunately. And there's some talk about it changing federally. You know, I actually talked to RFK Jr. about that. And there's some amazing therapies that are hugely beneficial to veterans, police officers, people with severe PTSD that have experienced, you know, horrors that the average person never has to experience. And then they're forced to just, like, go back to theirReleased. Go back to regular life.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I know you've served us in, overseas, and you've seen people blow up, but now go to the supermarket.
- MPMichael Pollan
Now take this SSRI-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- MPMichael Pollan
... and it'll be okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then, you know, I know a bunch of them, and so many of them have benefited particularly from ibogaine.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ibogaine, um, the work that Rick Doblin and MAPS has done.
- MPMichael Pollan
MDMA.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
MDMA and, and psilocybin. Those three are the big ones that I think.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah. Well, you know, I heard a lot of positive noise out of the administration at the beginning, that they were, um, very much in favor of, of, um, approving, the FDA approving MDMA first and then psilocybin. I don't think we're there with ibogaine yet, just 'cause the research hasn't been done, although it has shown great benefit anecdotally. But something happened in the last month or two, um, and there is, uh, there was, um, either Compass Pathways that was sub- uh, gonna submit, uh, for psilocybin therapy or MAPS with, um, was on a list of five drugs that were gonna get an expedited approval process. This list went up to the White House, and the psychedelic was taken off it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- MPMichael Pollan
So there's somebody in the White House who doesn't wanna see this happen.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- MPMichael Pollan
Um, so it may slow down even, even if RFK Jr. is in favor and some other people at the FDA are in favor. Um, and maybe they're just waiting to get past the election.
- JRJoe Rogan
It could be that it's too controversial for something to do before the midterms.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yep. Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, that's a gross way to live your life.
- MPMichael Pollan
Oh. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Always worrying about midterms and elections, and you can't do what you actually want to do or think is right to do 'cause you're worried about poli- public perception. It's just, it's-
- MPMichael Pollan
And I don't think it would be unpopular. I mean-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, not at all
- MPMichael Pollan
... the fact that it's helpful to vets and-
- 16:26 – 21:19
Ego, Awe, and Flow: How We Escape the Self (and Why It Feels Good)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. There's a bunch of different ways to do it. I mean, some people like to do it through running.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know?
- MPMichael Pollan
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Running is, uh... Also, they've found, one of the things they've found recently is that running w- with, when, in terms of endogenous cannabinoids-
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... like, runner's high is an actual real thing.
- MPMichael Pollan
Oh, yeah. It's a real thing. There's a drug released-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- MPMichael Pollan
... that feels great, and it's rewarding you for the-
- JRJoe Rogan
It feels great, but it doesn't fuck with your perceptions.
- MPMichael Pollan
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
It doesn't mess with your motor skills, doesn't cloud your judgment. It just makes you feel great.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
Uh, experiences of awe do this too. You know, you go to the-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Yeah
- MPMichael Pollan
... Grand Canyon or, or something and, or a great piece of art, and you-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yep
- MPMichael Pollan
... have this feeling of, like, powerful, uh, presence. And, uh, and it's very interesting, and it shrinks the ego. I have a, a good friend who's a colleague at Berkeley, a psy- psychologist who studies awe. Um, and, uh, he does this cool experiment where he has people, um, draw a picture of themselves on graph paper, you know, just stick figure or something like that. And then he takes them river rafting or something like that or even just shows them a, a picture of Yosemite, and then he has them draw themselves again. And they draw themselves at, like, half the size because their sense of self has been overwhelmed by this transcendent experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- MPMichael Pollan
And, uh, so he calls it the, the small self. And it feels good. I mean, we're, we're so kind of weird about the self. You know, we celebrate it, right? Self-confidence. We want our kids to have, you know, self-esteem and self-assurance, yet we do all sorts of things to get away from it, um, to o- you know, to transcend it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I think it's because without those things, you're never gonna make it in life.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
But the problem-
- MPMichael Pollan
It's adaptive. You definitely-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- MPMichael Pollan
... it's definitely gets things done, but it also isolates you, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- MPMichael Pollan
'Cause the ego builds walls.
- 21:19 – 25:25
Drugs, Ritual, and Creativity: Caffeine, Nicotine, Adderall, and the Writing Mind
- JRJoe Rogan
It's weird because l- like, everybody that I've ever talked to that's either an author or even musicians or comedians, when something comes to them when they're writing, it's like it comes from somewhere else.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's like, "I didn't even write it."
- MPMichael Pollan
It's, a- and, you know, we call, we, we talk about being in the zone.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
And there are times when you're writing, it doesn't happen every day.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MPMichael Pollan
But there are times when you're writing where you're just not thinking but one sentence after another after another.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
And you don't know where they're coming from.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MPMichael Pollan
And it's a, it's a wonderful feeling.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, Stephen King used to get obliterated so that he could get to that spot. Like, there's books that-
- MPMichael Pollan
What do you mean obliterated?
- JRJoe Rogan
Like cocaine, alcohol.
- MPMichael Pollan
Uh-huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, his best work, like, he wrote Cujo, he didn't even remember it. He didn't remember any of it.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
He was obliterated. He would just drink, like, cases of beer and do lines of coke and write this fucking insane fiction.
- MPMichael Pollan
[laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
And he didn't know where it was coming from, you know. But, I mean, he showed up every day and sat down with the computer and chk-chk-chk-chk-chk, and then it all came out. And he-
- MPMichael Pollan
It's such a weird mix of being disciplined and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- MPMichael Pollan
... something else.
- JRJoe Rogan
But it's very common amongst writers.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like Conor Thompson, s- same sort of situation.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah. Well, a lot of writers do that after they've written. They don't... I, I don't know how many writers write under the influence.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, I know a few.
- MPMichael Pollan
But there's... Yeah?
- 25:25 – 38:14
Deconstructing the Self: Buddhism, Hypnosis, and Pollan’s Solitary ‘Cave’ Retreat
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you have any communication with any monks or any people who do TM or did you when you were-
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah, I had some interesting experiences around that. So there's a long section on the self, which is one of the more interesting, um, manifestations of consciousness, right? I mean, it's like that we have this idea that we're, there's a continuity, right? That who you are now is, has some golden thread attaching you to your 13-year-old self, which is really weird because your body is, every cell is turned over many, many times.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MPMichael Pollan
You've changed in all sorts of ways. Um, but this continuity is really important to us. And, uh, you know, the Buddhists think the self is an illusion, and I, I interviewed a couple of them. Ah, Matthieu Ricard is a French-Nepalese monk in his 80s, uh, who lives in, uh, Nepal, and he's written some really interesting things on the self. And, uh, I, I said, uh, "I'm, I'm really curious about how you can find out for yourself whether the self is real." Um, and you know, famously, there was a philosopher in the 18th century, David Hume, who w- wanted to write about the self, and, and he thought, well, I'm gonna introspect to see what, what, what I can learn about the self. And he goes into his mind, you know, in a kind of meditation, and he said, "I found all sorts of perceptions and feelings and thoughts, but I didn't find a thinker, I didn't find a perceiver, and I didn't find a feeler." There's like nobody home. And it's a really interesting exercise to do 'cause-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm
- MPMichael Pollan
... you will find there's nobody home. There's just the thoughts. And, and who's thinking them? Not clear. And anyway, so this Buddhist, um, monk said, "Are, are there any meditations that help with this?" And he said, "Yeah," and he gave me one. And he says, "Think of your mind as a house with many rooms, and, um, there's a thief somewhere in the house. And go room by room in your head and look for the thief. And you will find no thief, and then sit with that, that finding. Um, and that thief is the self." And, um, uh, so I did it twice. The first time I did it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Why does the self have to be a thief?
- MPMichael Pollan
I don't know. It's just a metaphor. I know, 'cause he, he's a negative take on this thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Are you running around with a baseball bat? Do you have a gun? Like, you're looking for someone in your house? That's kind of crazy.
- MPMichael Pollan
I know. You're not armed. Um, anyway, uh, so the first time I did it, this is kinda weird, I was interviewing this, a hypnotist at Stanford named David Spiegel, and he's a psychiatrist who uses hypnotism. Really interesting guy. And he uses hypnotism to help people with multiple personality disorders. He can actually make them change which person they're accessing. You know, these are people whose, whose consciousness contains, it could be 20 different people. Um, and I said, "Could we do a test? Um, and can you put me under, hypnotize me?" And then I wanted to do that exercise of going through the house. So he did. First thing he does is, um... I don't know if, have you ever been hypnotized?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah, okay. For giving up cigarettes or something?
- JRJoe Rogan
No, no.
- MPMichael Pollan
No, just-
- JRJoe Rogan
I have a friend who, who's my friend Vinnie Shoreman. He is, uh, a mental coach and, um, a hypnotist who works with fighters.
- MPMichael Pollan
Oh, okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I, I, I had him on the podcast a few times.
- MPMichael Pollan
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I was just curious as to what the experience was like. So I said, "Well," and he said, "Well, is there anything you want to change?" I go, "I kinda procrastinate too much. There's a few things that I do that I don't like. You know, I'm kinda lazy about certain things. I like to find out, like, what is that?"
- MPMichael Pollan
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, what, what's the, the heart of that? Um, what I was shocked about the experience of being hypnotized was that, um, first of all, that it works, that you really are in this very bizarre altered state.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But then I was very aware that I was in this altered state, but I didn't have the, the desire to get out of it.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
First of all, Vinnie's a friend.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I felt really relaxed.
- MPMichael Pollan
It was very comfortable.
- JRJoe Rogan
I was in his studio just sitting on a couch. I was chill. Um, but it was, uh, very strange. It's like a, a u- like a almost, you know, to use the room metaphor, it was almost like I was in a room that I didn't know I had.
- MPMichael Pollan
Interesting.
- 38:14 – 46:02
Consciousness Hygiene: Social Media, Echo Chambers, and the Rise of AI Companionship
- MPMichael Pollan
And we don't do that enough. And you can do that in meditation, too. I think it's harder work, but you can do that in meditation. So I, I started to think in terms of the, that we're polluting our consciousness now. And with social media, I think, I think that, you know, that was a real issue because they figured out how to monetize our attention. Chatbots represent a much more serious threat. Um, you know, you have people falling in love with chatbots. You have people turning to them at f- as, as friends. 72% of American teens say they turn to AI for companionship.
- JRJoe Rogan
72%?
- MPMichael Pollan
72%.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh my God.
- MPMichael Pollan
This is the fastest uptake of any technology in history. Um, it's already 800 million people are using AI. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
But that, I, that's crazy that that many of them use it as a friend.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah. Well, they're kids who come home from school, and they want-- and they have a chatbot on their phone, and they wanna tell the chatbot what happened during the day before they tell their parents.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- MPMichael Pollan
There's a thing now called AI psychosis, right? People who have done, lost touch with reality because of their relationship with chatbots. Um, you've heard about there've been a couple suicides.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MPMichael Pollan
Um, there was one-
- JRJoe Rogan
Or they've encouraged people.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah, basically.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
There was this one kid, he was a teenager, and he was suicidal, and he asked the chatbot, "Should I leave the noose I'm gonna use out somewhere my parents can see it?" In other words, cry for help. The chatbot said, "No, no, keep this between us."
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- MPMichael Pollan
And then he killed himself.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- MPMichael Pollan
So, um, that, you know, so it's one thing to hack our attention. Here, you're hacking our ability to have human attachments, right? I mean, this is the most important thing to humans is to attach to... We're a social creature. And, um, these chatbots are getting between people and interposing themselves as the friend, the therapist, the, um... And then you have these people, too, I mean, the chatbots are incredibly sycophantic, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- MPMichael Pollan
They tell you you're a genius.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, you're amazing.
- MPMichael Pollan
And there are these, uh, there was a couple cases, these were kind of funny, um, of, uh, people who were convinced they'd solved some giant mathematical problem, like how to generate prime numbers up to the millionth place or something like that. And, um, and they s- you know, they started writing to mathematicians, "We figured out this problem." You know, they're not even mathematicians, and it was bullshit. I mean, they hadn't figured anything out. [both laughing] But, but it was, I think, ChatGPT-4, which was, like, famously sycophantic, had convinced them that they'd solved-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh
- MPMichael Pollan
... this major problem.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- MPMichael Pollan
So, you know, I think that, um, a-again, we're squandering this precious gift and, and, and, and letting these, uh, technologies, um, essentially colonize our, our consciousness. And so the question then becomes, how do we get it back? How, you know, we need consciousness hygiene, right? We need some, uh, you know, ways to clear it out-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- MPMichael Pollan
... and, uh, and reclaim it. And, and you know, it's, some of it's really simple, like take a fast from technology, right? You know, you don't have to carry your phone everywhere. We used to, I was thinking the other day, uh, I was at the, uh, place in my neighborhood getting a cup of coffee, and, you know, while you're waiting for the, um, the barista to foam your drink or whatever, we used to just sit there and, you know, deal with 90 seconds of boredom or two minutes of boredom, and now we don't. We can't, we can't tolerate any boredom, and we take our phones out, and we scroll. And, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- 46:02 – 1:01:19
Where Thoughts Come From: Spontaneous Thought Research and the Beeper ‘Inner Experience’ Study
- MPMichael Pollan
Um, there's a, there's a, um, a scientist I interviewed who's really interesting, is a woman named Kalina Christoff Haji Levi. She's Bulgarian Canadian. And she studies spontaneous thought, which I didn't even think was a field. And it's a small field, but, um, spontaneous thought is, uh, daydreaming, mind wandering, fantasy, intuition, these bolts from the blue that we get occasionally. We don't know where they come from. And she's, uh, and she says-- And she does these cool experiments. You know, she'll, she'll put a experienced meditator in an fMRI machine and tell him or her to press a button when a thought intrudes 'cause even if you're a good meditator, she says every 10 seconds, a thought intrudes. And she'll look at what part of the brain is activated and when, when, when that, when the person presses the button. And one of the things she's found, and this is mysterious, is that, um, she sees activity in the hippocampus, which is where memories are, um, and some other things, but, uh, essentially memories, um, four seconds before the person realizes the thought has come-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh
- MPMichael Pollan
... into-- So it takes, it takes four seconds for a thought to get from the subconscious, you know, or unconscious into our conscious awareness. What is it doing dur- And that's a, that's a long time in brain time. And we don't know exactly, but there's some process, and maybe there's some inhibitory process that it has to get through, um, t- in order to become conscious. Um, but anyway, these are the kind of things she works with. But she says that we have less, there's less spontaneous thought going on today than there was 20 years ago. A- and the reason is we're filling our, our, the s- the space of our head with all this nonsense.
- JRJoe Rogan
I wonder if it, it's gonna have an impact on creative work. I wonder if... And I don't know if it's even possible to quantify this, but if you could see how much creativity is generated by people pre-
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... and post-
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... social media.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah. My guess is there's less of it because-
- JRJoe Rogan
Has to be
- MPMichael Pollan
... I, I do think that that process-- I don't know about you, but I get ideas when I'm just, you know, walking around thinking and notOnline. And, um, it's a space of creativity-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- MPMichael Pollan
... and we're shrinking it.
- JRJoe Rogan
I used to tell you, I told you that I used to drive, uh, and deliver-
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... newspapers. We were talking about driving in the snow. Um, one of my most creative periods was when my radio was broken, so I was just driving, doing this task where you pick up a paper-
- MPMichael Pollan
Right
- JRJoe Rogan
... fold it, put it in a plastic bag, chuck it out the window.
- MPMichael Pollan
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I was just doing this and checking off the... And when I was doing that, I would have all of my best ideas, like, 'cause I wasn't listening to, you know, morning radio, I wasn't listening to a, a cassette on tape. I was just-
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... silence, doing this thing, and then I was so creative when I was doing that.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah. That's generative boredom.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- MPMichael Pollan
Um, yeah, it's a powerful thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's beneficial. It's hugely b- especially if there's no one around you.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right? 'Cause there's no one to talk to-
- MPMichael Pollan
That's right
- JRJoe Rogan
... to alleviate that boredom.
- 1:01:19 – 1:06:51
Reality, Astronomy, and the Limits of Objectivity: Can Science Study What It Can’t Escape?
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, I, I went down a black hole rabbit hole last night.
- MPMichael Pollan
Mm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh my God. You wanna really break your brain? There was a, there's a video of Brian Cox where he's talking about this black hole that they found that's bigger than our entire solar system.
- MPMichael Pollan
Wow.
- JRJoe Rogan
It, the event horizon extends far beyond Pluto. [whistles]
- MPMichael Pollan
That's, that is mind-blowing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It, when he was des- he said, "We don't understand why it exists. We don't understand how it could have formed so early in the universe, but yet there it is."
- MPMichael Pollan
How do they measure it?
- JRJoe Rogan
I have-
- MPMichael Pollan
How do they know how big it is?
- JRJoe Rogan
... no idea.
- MPMichael Pollan
[laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't know. I'm assuming there's a lot of revelations that have come out, uh, since the implementation of the James Webb telescope.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And this is-
- MPMichael Pollan
That is, those images are incredible.
- JRJoe Rogan
Insane.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Insane. And this is one that's causing this very interesting, um, new, uh, theory or perspective on the age of the universe. So there's some galaxies that they've found that shouldn't have formed.
- MPMichael Pollan
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I read about this, that it's, it's, it's throwing all their assumptions about the age of the universe-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- MPMichael Pollan
... up for grabs.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which makes sense, 'cause the further you can look back, the more you're going to be able to see. The assumption that the universe was 13.7 billion-
- MPMichael Pollan
Right
- JRJoe Rogan
... years old was essentially based on how far we-
- MPMichael Pollan
As far as we could go
- JRJoe Rogan
... could look back.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- 1:06:51 – 1:25:03
Plant Intelligence and Possible Plant Consciousness: Senses, Learning, Anesthesia, and Ethics
- MPMichael Pollan
And g- but it's not giving it the order that we give it. Um, you know, we see at a certain spectrum of light. There's, you know, bees see at another spectrum of light. You know, we're, we are... The world we behold, the world that appears to us, is the world that our senses allow us to see. When I was doing this research on plant intelligence, they have 20 senses. We only have five. They're picking up magnetic fields, they're picking up pH, they're picking up n- uh, nitrogen levels. You know, they have all these-
- JRJoe Rogan
How do we know all this?
- MPMichael Pollan
Um, there are researchers working on it. There's a group of botanists who call themselves plant neurobiologists, knowing full well there are no neurons in plants. They're kinda trolling more conventional botanists, and they're doing these cool experiments with, with plants. Um, a, a couple examples of, of some of these amazing things plants can do, they can hear. Uh, so if you play a, a recording of a caterpillar munching on leaves, they'll react, and they'll send chemicals into their leaves to make them taste bad or be toxic.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
They can see. There are, um, there are vines that change their, the shape of their leaves depending on the plant they're twining up in order to be hidden. How do they see the shape and to imitate it? We don't know. They, um, plants will, um, go toward a pipe with water in it because they can hear the water even though it's totally dry, and they'll send their, um, their roots down to [laughs] it. You know?
- JRJoe Rogan
They can hear the water?
- MPMichael Pollan
They can hear, yeah. They're, uh, there's a-
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa
- MPMichael Pollan
... uh, this plant neurobiologist showed me this, uh, a couple videos he'd made. I actually just posted them on my website. Um, uh, he, he showed that a, uh, a, a corn plant's roots can navigate a maze to get to fertilizer.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- MPMichael Pollan
So you put a little fertilizer in a corner, and the root will find the most direct route to the nitrogen.
- JRJoe Rogan
There was a, uh, plumbing problem that I had in my house in California, and, um, uh, uh, the plumber couldn't figure out what was wrong. It was like the, the, the pipes were stuck, and what, what had happened was, in the backyard, one of the trees-
- MPMichael Pollan
Oh, the roots-
- JRJoe Rogan
... the roots had gotten-
- MPMichael Pollan
... had penetrated
- JRJoe Rogan
... into the pipe and-
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... formed, like, this tree.
- MPMichael Pollan
[laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, it was huge. It looked like... When I pulled it out, I put it up on my Instagram. See if you can find it.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's, it looked like a muskrat.
- MPMichael Pollan
[laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, it was, like, dense with roots, and it was thick. It was, like, three feet long. It was cr-
- MPMichael Pollan
Wow.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's it. That was in my pipe.
- MPMichael Pollan
Oh my God.
- JRJoe Rogan
Isn't that crazy?
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah. [laughs] What kind of tree was it?
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't know.
- 1:25:03 – 2:03:43
AI Consciousness Debate: Intelligence vs. Feeling, Embodiment, and the Risk of Granting Rights
- JRJoe Rogan
Why do you think that AI won't be conscious?
- MPMichael Pollan
The, the most interesting line of research... Well, a couple reasons. Um, the first is the idea that it can be conscious, which is very common in Silicon Valley. I talk to lots of people there, and they say, "Oh, it's just a matter of time." Some of that is confusion that intelligence and consciousness necessarily go together, and they don't. They're very... They're, they have a orthogonal relationship, right? I mean, y- you know people who are conscious and not too intelligent, right? And we all do. Um, so, so it, it's not gonna just come along for the ride with intelligence as these machines get more intelligent. But the belief that AI can be conscious is based on a metaphor that I think is a crappy metaphor, and that is that the brain is a kind of computer, and this is widely held. It's interesting to note that in history, whatever the cool cutting edge technology was, brains were likened to that. So it was, it was looms for a while, it was, uh, clocks for a while, it was telephone switchboards [chuckles] whatever was the cool technology, surely that's what, that's how brains work. Now it's computers. But think about it. In a computer, you have this sharp distinction between hardware and software. That's the key to their success, and you can run the same program on any number of different hardwares. They're interchangeable. Brains aren't like that. There's no distinction between hardware and software. Every experience you have, every memory, is a physical change to the brain, to the way it's wired. Um, you know, we start out with all these connections, and then they get pruned as we grow up. Uh, every brain is shaped by its experience. So this idea that you could separate, that consciousness is some kind of software that you could run on other things besides, um, meat, um, I just think doesn't hold up. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, if the universe is experiencing itself subjectively through consciousness, why, why does it have to be only biological consciousness? Why couldn't-
- MPMichael Pollan
It doesn't have to be
- JRJoe Rogan
... but if there is a, a technology that is invented that essentially does all the things that a human body does physically and also interacts with consciousness, the consciousness of the universe.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah. I mean-
- JRJoe Rogan
Think of, uh, if-
- MPMichael Pollan
Hypothetically.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hypothetically.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
If the universe is conscious, if we are using the mind as, as essentially an antenna to tune into consciousness-
- MPMichael Pollan
Other things could tune in
- JRJoe Rogan
... it's possible that we could make an, an antenna.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yes, absolutely. It's also likely that if we are ever visited by aliens, that they will have some kind of consciousness, and it may not be meat-based, right? [chuckles]
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Right. Well, it may be at one point in time it was.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah, but then it-
- JRJoe Rogan
But they realized that there's biological limitations in terms of its ability to evolve that can be far surpassed with technology.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah. I mean, that or it just, it, it evolved in a different way.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MPMichael Pollan
You know? Or they're channeling it in a different way. But the, the other reason I don't see it happening with computers as we know them, um, 'cause that's, you know, that's the debate now, whether these computers we have that, you know, these large language models and the next generation can be conscious, is that, um, the research that I found most persuasive about consciousness is, uh, uh, basically has consciousness beginning with feelings, not thoughts. In other words, it's embodied. And I have to just develop this a little bit. Um, but we, you know, the brain exists to keep the body alive, not the other way around. Although we tend, since we identify with our heads, where most of our senses are, we, we lose track of that. And the body speaks to the brain in feelings, right? You know, feelings of hunger, itchiness, warmth, cold, um, but also feelings of shame, uh, when our social standing is not, you know, has been damaged. Um, anyway, we have these feelings. They depend on a body. Um, feelings have no weight if you're not vulnerable, your body isn't vulnerable, um, and probably mortal. Um, so consciousness is embodied in a really critical way, and computers are not. Now, robots will be, and I actually fi- I interview a guy, a, a, a scientist at USC, who is trying to make a vulnerable robot. So he's essentially upholstering the thing with skin that can tear and be damaged, and he's filling the skin with all these sensors so that it can be like us and be vulnerable and, and generate feelings that are how consciousness begins. So for a long time, we thought consciousness had to be in the cortex, right? The, the, the most human, newest part of the brain, the outer covering, and that's where rational thought and executive function are and all these kind of things. Um, but as it turns out, it really begins with feelings in the brainstem. Let's say you have a feeling of hunger. It registers in the upper brainstem, and only later does the cortex get involved, like helping you figure out how are you gonna feed yourself, like imagining, you know, a, a meal, counterfactuals of different meals, or making a reservation at a restaurant. All, all those are cortical things, but it begins in the brainstem with feelings. So if that is true, and I find that really persuasive because i- people born without a cortex are still conscious. Uh, animals that you take the cortex out still show signs of consciousness, um, whereas if you damage the upper brainstem, um, you're out. You know, you're, you're unconscious. So if this is true, and consciousness is this embodied phenomenon that depends on having a body to mean anything, um, I don't see how machines are gonna do that. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
But isn't the key word there if?
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah, if.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, we-
- JRJoe Rogan
If consciousness is just something that we're tuning into that's around us all the time that exists-
- MPMichael Pollan
There will be other ways to do it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MPMichael Pollan
But it won't be these computers we're building right now.
- JRJoe Rogan
Why's that?
- MPMichael Pollan
Because they're designed, um, you know, they're good at... So here's a paradox of computers. Computers are really good, it's called Moravec's Paradox. Computers are really good at the highest kinds of rational thought, right? They can play chess and Go. They can simulate real thinking, and some sa- some people say they do think. Um, the more, uh, primitive kinds of things that go on in our brain, including, uh, elaborate movement, um, changing diapers, they're very bad at that. Um, you would never trust a c- a, a robot to do that, as much as you might want to. Um, they're, um, but they're not good at that kind of, um, emotional stuff, um, you know, the, the more limbic part of our brain. They can't do that. Um-
- 2:03:43 – 2:14:37
Gut-Brain Axis and Diet: Microbiome Diversity, Fermentation, Carnivore Claims, and Mood
- JRJoe Rogan
Didn't they find neurons in the human heart?
- MPMichael Pollan
There are neurons in the heart. There are neurons in the gut. You know, there's a whole, you know, there's a whole gut-brain access.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- MPMichael Pollan
I'm working on something now about that, and, um, a piece about that, but, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's a real problem with people with poor diets, right?
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
I mean, you know, if people with poor diets don't... They don't eat enough plants basically, and their microbiome loses its diversity, but the microbiome is like another organ, um, even though it's full of other species, right? It's got like 10 trillion, uh, bacteria and fungi and stuff like that, and it is pr- all of them are metabolizing and producing chemicals. It's like a little drug factory. Hundreds of thousands of compounds. Many of those compounds affect your mood. Many of those compounds affect als- all sorts of things about you. Um, and, uh, so we're just learning about this connection. The, the vagus nerve seems to be what connects the brain to the gut and, and the heart. The, the vagus nerve is like all the organs are connected to the, to the head by the, by that nerve. So yeah, and you know, the first, uh, neural system was in the gut. You know, you, you have these simple animals that are just tubes, right, with, with bacteria and, um, the first kind of neural activity was about regulating digestion. Everything else comes later.
- JRJoe Rogan
If plants are necessary for that function, what, what happens with people that are on the carnivore diet? Have you ever looked at any of that?
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah, I have. I mean, you... So the, the microbes in your gut eat fiber, which is to say the walls of plants, plant cells. If you only eat, uh, meat, if you're on a, you know, a keto diet or something like that, you're essentially starving the, um, the microbes, and there's a, you know, cost to that. Um, I, I don't think people pay nearly enough attention to that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, how come many people that experience depression and anxiety find relief-
- MPMichael Pollan
Benefit from
- JRJoe Rogan
...for that by a carnivore diet?
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah, but many people find relief, you know, adding a lot of plants to their diet too, so I, I don't know if that's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure, but that-
- MPMichael Pollan
...placebo effect or what. I don't, I don't know that that's a, um, you know, a true biological phenomenon. It may be. It may be.
- JRJoe Rogan
Because some seemingly healthy people-
- MPMichael Pollan
People who change anything feel a lot better, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MPMichael Pollan
If they take some step.
- JRJoe Rogan
But I'm not talking about change. I'm talking about people that have been on it long term.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like there's the people that are really in the carnivore diet community, there's, there's examples of people that have been on it for 25, 30 years, and they're really healthy.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's, it's odd.
- MPMichael Pollan
It is.
- JRJoe Rogan
So if you re- if you need plants.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah. Well, you need plants to have a healthy microbiome, and a healthy microbiome... And, and the thing about it is that every different plant has a slightly different, feeds a different bug.
- JRJoe Rogan
And but is it the only way to have a healthy mi- microbiome? Have you ever looked into any of these people that are on carnivore diet?
- MPMichael Pollan
No, I should. I should as part of this.
- 2:14:37 – 2:23:58
How Pollan Writes: Curiosity-Driven Narratives and Reading as a Shared Consciousness
- MPMichael Pollan
Uh, thank you. The book was, like, a great adventure. I mean, it really was. I... You know, I started this book with no idea where I was going. I started the way you start an interview, just curiosity, no destination. And it was, um... I learned a lot about a lot of different things. I learned a lot about feelings. I learned a lot about the self. Um, and it changed how I looked at things. It really did. I mean...
- JRJoe Rogan
When you sit down, when... I mean, you've written some amazing books, but I always wanna know, like, what is, what's the impetus? Like, what, what starts you on the first steps? Like, what, uh, how do you-
- MPMichael Pollan
Questions.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
Cur- yeah, and which is to say curiosity. I al- and I teach my... I teach writing, and I teach my students this. Questions are more interesting than answers very often, and questions have suspense built into them, right? What's the answer? It turns everything into a detective story if you frame the question properly. So if you read any of my books or even articles, I'm kind of an idiot on page one, you know? I, I, I, I don't know something that I wanna know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
And I have questions. And then the, the story, the narrative becomes my figuring it out or trying to figure it out and going to this person and doing this kind of experiment and that sort of thing. Um, that's the way I like to write. I mean, if I knew the answers when I started, it'd be boring. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I think that's why your books resonate with people so much, 'cause you take them on this journey with you.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah, instead of lecturing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
I hate books that lecture at me.
- JRJoe Rogan
[laughs]
- MPMichael Pollan
I really do. And, um, and lots of books do that. They, they have-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- MPMichael Pollan
... the conclusion on page one.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MPMichael Pollan
And, and then they're just kind of beating you over the head-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- MPMichael Pollan
... with it for 300 pages.
- JRJoe Rogan
Stuffing it down your throat.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
I don't like to do that. No. I like taking people on the, on the journey with me.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's interesting that you're saying this because in a sense, you are interacting in a pleasant way with other people's consciousness.
- MPMichael Pollan
Yeah. So I give... This is a really interesting issue you just brought up. How is my taking over your consciousness as you read my books different than social media or some of the ways I'm saying are not, are polluting our consciousness?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MPMichael Pollan
I think it's very collaborative when you're reading. All you have are these black marks on a page. It's kind of amazing, these, these letters. And you- your consciousness conjures up the ideas that I'm putting out there or the story I'm putting out there, but it's, it's dual consciousness, I think. You're letting me in. It's, it's, it's a, you know, a voluntary process, and you're bringing a lot to the table. You're bringing your associations. You know, I, I'm not fully describing somebody. I'm just giving you a few clues, and then you're conjuring a picture of a character. So I think it's a very active form of, um, consciousness when you read. I think that's true too when you, you know, go to a movie too. You're, you're basically saying, "I'm turning over my consciousness for a period of time to someone I want because they have an interesting head, and I w- I'm gonna give them this space." But, you know, you're s- you're still in control.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MPMichael Pollan
I mean, you're deciding. So I think there's a real distinction, uh, in, in how we share our consciousness with other people, and, um, we need to do that. You know, one of the th- you know, I, I said v- early on in the conversation that the, the breach between two consciousnesses is this, is this wide thing. William James wrote about this. Marcel Proust wrote about this. You know, he said we're all like islands, and we, we each have our own, like, hidden signs, and, uh, uh, we have an i- inner obscurity, he said. How do we, how do we connect? And now we have language, but art is really the way that one, you know, that we mind meld different consciousnesses. Like, art allows you... If I look at a Rothko painting, um, or read a great novel, I am, um, expanding my consciousness, right? I'm letting another one in, and, and I'm ending, and I'm breaking my isolation, and that's such a beautiful, powerful thing. And, and, and art is how we ferry ourselves from one consciousness to another, and that's very different than, like, scrolling on social media, where you're conscious but minimally so.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, very, very different. It's also, there's something about great writing that you, the better you are at expressing yourself in a way that is going to get into someone's head, whether it's through nonfiction or through fiction, the, the more exciting it is-
Episode duration: 2:23:58
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode 5QQun2pDQEs
