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New documentary made in SC will tell the story of a Super Bowl-winning team
A new documentary shot in the Upstate will tell the story of a Super Bowl-winning team and its on-field triumphs — as well as the often-untold stories of struggle, deep
🚨 Denmark issue fresh health update on Christian Eriksen
Denmark national team doctor Morten Boesen has issued an update on Christian Eriksen's condition on Monday morning.For the second time in his career, the former Manchester United midfielder collapsed ...
Out-of-contract Devlin expresses 'love' of Hearts
Cammy Devlin has stated "I absolutely love Hearts" as the Australia midfielder continues to ponder whether to extend his stay at Tynecastle. The 28-year-old, who was a late substitute in his country's 1-1 draw with Switzerland in their final pre-World Cup friendly on Sunday, is out of contract after five years with the Scottish Premiership club. Amid reports that Devlin has offers from clubs in Major League Soccer, the Turkish Super Lig and English Championship, he described Hearts as "an amazing football club" in an interview with Football360.
Dan Green launches CD 9 campaign with $1M and distinguished Navy résumé
The Pentagon veteran and Trump appointee jumps into a GOP field chasing a seat the new map flipped from blue to a national target.
HCA, VCU Health seek dismissal of Bon Secours legal challenges to Chesterfield hospital projects
"Bon Secours, alone amongst the three health systems, has refused to take yes for an answer,” HCA argued in its response to Bon Secours' calls for its competitors' projects to be denied by the state.
Paul Jr.’s American Motor Fest Set to Bring Major Entertainment Weekend to Clearfield County
CLEARFIELD — Engines will roar, music will fill the air, and thousands of visitors are expected to descend upon the
ESPN analyst says former Falcons RB is 'interesting trade candidate'
Former Falcons RB Tyler Allgeier could be trade target in Cardinals' crowded backfield
Rice to be England's vice-captain at World Cup
Arsenal midfielder Declan Rice will be England's vice-captain for the World Cup.
Christian Eriksen Health Update Emerges After Collapsing On the Field During Denmark vs Ukraine
The Danish midfielder has worn an implanted heart device since suffering a cardiac arrest during a match in 2021.
Denmark's Christian Eriksen 'Conscious' After Collapsing On Field Again In Match
Christian Eriksen is conscious after collapsing on the field again while playing for Denmark’s national team according to the country’s soccer federation.
French Open final: Alexander Zverev beats Flavio Cobolli in 5 sets for long-awaited first Grand Slam title
It took a depleted field, but Alexander Zverev is a Grand Slam champion.
Brewers' Pat Murphy Discusses Viral Jacob Misiorowski Interaction
When Milwaukee Brewers’ fire-balling prospect refused to hand over the ball, a veteran manager’s strict rules vanished. Discover how a defiant stare-down forged unbreakable trust at Coors Field.
‘Strength doesn’t mean silence’: Men talk mental health at Jacksonville field day
On the surface, it looked like a day of friendly competition, laughter, and games. But organizers say a Men’s Mental Health Awareness Field Day held in Jacksonville was built around a much deeper mission: breaking the silence surrounding men’s mental health.
Burcum: This small Minnesota hospital is charting its own path to financial health
As Minnesota health care consolidates, Northfield Hospital + Clinics is a bright spot in a health care landscape characterized by strain, columnist Jill Burcum writes.
Olympic Sports Catch Up: June 7 Edition
Covering all things Mizzou diamond sports, women’s hoops, gym, track & field, soccer, tennis & golf
Byron Donalds takes affordability pitch to Palm Coast on 'Defending the Florida Dream' tour
The Palm Coast stop landed just as the Democratic field reshuffles.
Spielberg back in alien territory with ‘Disclosure Day’
Spielberg’s latest film about aliens and UFOs, “Disclosure Day,” arrives this week and rates as an excursion into his perhaps favorite field.
Euro giants confirm what Liverpool already knew about 'special' star
Liverpool are going to go through a lot of changes this summer. The Anfield outfit massively underperformed this season and, without some new faces being brought in, it's hard to see how they'd do any...
Milwaukee 'loudest' crowd in Banana Ball history, and other highlights
So that was fun. And, a lot of it. Here's what happened when the Party Animals played the Loco Beach Coconuts at American Family Field on June 6.
TV tower goes down during storm at the Memorial Tournament
An intense storm rolled through the Columbus area and led to third-round play being suspended at the Memorial Tournament on Saturday at Muirfield Village Golf Club (Dublin, OH). Roughly 30 minutes after play at the PGA Tour event was suspended, the storm caused a TV tower to go down near the 10th green. Thankfully, nobody…
Jacobs Entertainment and Reno Apex Soccer hosting their first downtown youth soccer tournament
The tournament is happening on the newly completed fields in Reno's Neon Line District.
Check out photos from the State Track and Field meet Day 2
Winneconne and Marathon boys claim team titles in Divisions 2 and 3, while Neenah and Assumption girls take runner-up honors in Divisions 1 and 3.
New BYU alumni leader to build on ‘connection’
Derek Miller, BYU's new alumni director, understands firsthand how BYU sports goes well beyond what happens on the field or court.
Jacobs Entertainment hosts first soccer tournament on new Neon Line District fields
Reno’s first downtown soccer tournament kicked off at 9 a.m. Saturday, June 6, on newly completed fields in the Neon Line District, marking a major step in a br
Liverpool one step closer to deal for teenage contract rebel
Liverpool have taken steps in recent transfer windows to shore up the future at centre-back. Ibrahima Konate will officially leave the club on a free transfer once his contract expires this month and ...
A new indoor sports facility sparks enthusiasm among Seaford council members
NXT Level Sports plans to build a 15,000 square foot building in the city, which will include an indoor soccer field and pickleball courts.
Liverpool Transfer Talk Grows After Chiesa Comments on Midfielder
Liverpool Transfer Talk: Chiesa Offers Insight on Jones and AlissonFederico Chiesa has added another layer to what already feels like a summer of considerable change at Liverpool, with the Italian for...
Baker Mayfield, Buccaneers are on a contractual collision course
2026 High School of Science and Technology Prom
The event was hosted by the Marriott in Downtown Springfield.
Sports’ most depressing team, plus the Knicks take a 2-0 Finals lead
The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox. Good morning! At least the weather is nice in Orange County today. Coming up: 🫠 The hopeless Angels 🏀 Knicks in the driver’s seat 🎾 A historic title bid Has your team ever had the second-worst farm system in baseball, sat in last place, trailed 7-0 at home against a team that lost 119 games a year ago, and then gone down more when your right fielder missed a fly ball with his glove and volleyed it over the wall with his head for a home...
A Maine gubernatorial candidate is running as a political outsider. His last name is Bush
Jonathan Bush, the nephew of former President George H.W. Bush and cousin of former President George W. Bush is trying to break through a crowded GOP field in Tuesday’s gubernatorial primary and put Maine in play this fall.
Iran Demands Cash for Peace. That’s a Political Minefield for Trump.
Tehran wants quick access to its frozen funds, a major hurdle to a deal with Washington to end the war.
Dave Roberts Gives Encouraging Edwin Díaz Recovery Update
Dodgers closer Edwin Diaz has been out for more than a month after undergoing elbow surgery, and he is looking to get back on the field soon.
Mariners Infielder Exits Game After Being Hit By Pitch
The Seattle Mariners are down a key infielder after J.P. Crawford left early with an injury
Another Diamondbacks prospect gets the call, Arizona promotes LuJames Groover
PHOENIX — The Arizona Diamondbacks continue to lean on youth as they make roster moves ahead of their next series against the Washington Nationals. The club announced it is promoting top infield prospect LuJames Groover from Triple-A Reno while optioning infielder Jose Fernandez and designating right-handed pitcher Taylor Rashi for assignment.
As inflation and fuel prices stay high, region’s business community feels the pinch
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, heard from members of Lane County’s small business community about their challenges amid a volatile economy.
Functional food science lab changing how students learn
LEWISTOWN — A new kind of lab is reshaping how students think about agriculture — and it doesn’t look like a farm. Inside the Mifflin County Academy of Science and Technology in Lewistown, students are stepping into a growing field where food safety, science, and innovation meet. When Agricultural Sciences instructor Nicolette Cusate arrived at […]
In roundtable, Eugene and Springfield business leaders raise concern about federal policies economic impact
Several business owners at the roundtable, convened by Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley, said customers are spending less. Merkley said higher prices are linked to tariffs, inflation and the Iran war.
How to live stream Royals vs Twins: MLB, TV channel
AL Central rivals meet Friday night again in Minneapolis as the Royals look to build on a dramatic series-opening win over the Twins at Target Field. MORE: 5 MLB players who should be traded during the 2026 season How to…
Chicago businesses 'hurt' and concerned over Bears plan to move ahead with Hammond stadium
Community group Near South Planning Board said the team's move out of Soldier Field will result in potential economic losses for Chicago, from less tourism and visitor spending to fewer jobs.
University of Miami launches Master of Science in Marketing
The University of Miami Patti and Allan Herbert Business School is making its mark on graduate marketing education with the launch of a STEM-designated Master of Science in Marketing, designed to prepare students for a rapidly evolving field shaped by analytics, digital innovations, and emerging technology.
❌ World champions lose midfielder to injury, see replacement
Germany have suffered a cut in their World Cup squad. Lennart Karl, Bayern’s 18-year-old attacking midfielder, had an injury confirmed after tests carried out this Friday (5). The information was ...
Surveillance, immigration and greyfields: CT politics news
Plus: Qualifying candidates, Hartford schools funding, Connecticut's AI legislation and a roundup of other bill signings.
Cardinals activate Nootbaar from 60-day injury list
St. Louis outfielder Lars Nootbaar was activated from the 60-day injured list on Friday in time to make his season debut in left field as the Cardinals begin a weekend series against the Cincinnati Reds. Nootbaar, 28, had surgery on both of his heels in the offseason and has not played in the majors this season. In his last rehab game for Triple-A Memphis, Nootbaar hit a solo home run Wednesday and finished 2 for 5 with a walk, four RBIs and two runs scored in an 18-4 victory over Louisville.
'Unbelievable' star confirms he's ready to join Liverpool
Liverpool had a massive fall from grace this season. Arne Slot hugely underdelivered which led to many fans falling out of love with their football team for some time.In fact, some weren't even tuning...
Platner ex-girlfriend blasts New York Times story detailing alleged abuse
Lyndsey Fifield said the Times twisted her accounts and betrayed her trust in the paper.
‘Political Breakups’: Why relationships are ending over disagreements in politics
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — Political disagreements have long been part of American life, but for many people, those disagreements are now costing them relationships. From parents and childr…
Who is Lyndsey Fifield, Graham Platner's ex-girlfriend?
Lyndsey Fifield made most explosive claims about Platner in Thursday's New York Times story.
NOVUS vet: viral mitigation remains top priority for nursery pig health
NOVUS veterinarian Dr. Alex Hintz says producers are looking for viral mitigation tools for nursery pigs. Speaking to Brownfield at the World Pork Expo in Des Moines Wednesday, he said producers and vets understand a viral outbreak in the nursery phase can be devastating, and a robust management program is key.
Liverpool’s New Era Could Spark a Brutal Summer Clearout
Liverpool Squad Overhaul Looms as Iraola Era NearsLiverpool are approaching one of those summers where a football club has to decide what it still believes in. The badge remains the same, the stadium ...
Brewers linked to trade for .903 OPS Nationals All-Star for drastic infield upgrade
This All-Star would be an incredible pickup for the Brewers.
Surgical technologist apprenticeship helps stay at home mom rejoin workforce
A stay-at-home mom of three home-schooled children, Rebecca Johnson was looking to rejoin the workforce, preferably in the medical field.
The Bear’s Den, June 5, 2026
The Chicago Bears hit the practice field again, as Packers drop serious change on oft-injured receiver.
Why is Taylor Ward’s walk rate blowing up?
The outfielder we used to forget was on the team is putting up some surprising numbers.
Midfielder Smallwood pens permanent Bristol Rovers deal
Midfielder Richie Smallwood has made his loan move from Tranmere to Bristol Rovers permanent, signing a one-year deal.
Farmer weighs in on POTUS visiting Wisconsin
President Trump will be in Derrick Van Orden’s district. He faces a tough re-election this fall.
Report: Arne Slot could be set for shock managerial return
Celtic weigh ambitious move for former Liverpool boss as managerial search takes fresh twistCeltic’s search for a new permanent manager could be heading in a fascinating new direction, with former L...
Manchester City face Bayern Munich competition for Feyenoord’s Givairo Read
Man City looking to add depth to right-back options ahead of the 2026-27 seasonMatheus Nunes performed brilliantly last season but is a natural midfielderEnzo Maresca has held transfer talks with Man ...
Jamie Carragher sounds concern over Andoni Iraola adapting at Liverpool
The Reds have hired Andoni Iraola to replace Arne Slot after a disappointing campaign, with Carragher analysing one of the key challenges for the Basque at Anfield after a successful spell at Bournemouth
Japan change World Cup training sites in Mexico over conditions
Japan's World Cup squad had to twice change their training pitches in Mexico because of the poor condition of the fields, Japanese media said, in a turbulent start to preparations."We came to this conclusion (to change practice venues) because we searched for a better environment," he said, according to Japanese media.
New Business Licenses: 6.5.26
Chesterfield reports an animal hospital, a companion canine company, turf management firm and more. (BizSense Pro required)
Mental health expert breaks down mixed reactions to Bakersfield hostage crisis
KBAK CBS 29 and KBFX Fox58 are the news leaders for Bakersfield, California and serves surrounding communities including Oildale, Lamont, Shafter, Wasco, Buttonwillow, Maricopa, Tehachapi, Arvin, California City, Delano, McFarland, Ridgecrest and Taft.
The Cold Front: This is how Ben & Jerry's ice cream in Israel defeated BDS
Avi Singer was a student in New York when he met Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the Jewish owners of the Ben & Jerry's ice cream empire: their acquaintance developed into friendship and a business partnership, until politics and BDS got in the way
Dalton Rushing Gets Public Support From Max Muncy Amid Scrutiny
Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing has been in the spotlight for his fiery on-field persona, creating a good deal of headlines.
Survey findings show how health insurance denials affect Americans
Patients who have their claims turned down by private insurers often incur debt they need months to pay off, according to an analysis of 4,589 survey responses. More than half the field reported such debt topped $1,000 in their household.
2026 Memorial Tournament Friday tee times: Round 2 pairings
Full 2026 Memorial Tournament tee times for Friday's second round at Muirfield Village, featuring Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and more.
Atlético Seasonal Ratings: How injuries depleted a promising midfield
Into the Calderón rates Atleti’s midfield from the 2025/26 season.
Bears downplayed Chicago talks as Arlington Heights push advanced
Records obtained by Crain's show six conversations between City Hall and team attorneys as Springfield lawmakers weighed legislation sought by the Bears.
Digging out: One man’s recovery and the business it inspired
Craig Stevens was just a kid when he started to build worlds. While growing up in West Brookfield, he’d take the blocks he was always given for Christmas and construct cities in his backyard. He used the garden hose to make flowing rivers, his hands to sculpt the land. When he was 10, he wanted […]
Valverde: “I never imagined being Real Madrid’s captain”
Real Madrid midfielder Fede Valverde talked to Uruguayan TV AUF and shared some thoughts about the upcoming FIFA World Cup and also about the club. “Wearing the armband is something incredible; I never imagined being captain for Real Madrid, and I thoroughly enjoy every opportunity to wear the armband. It carries some pressure too. When […]
Daylen Lile needs to stop swinging at everything
Daylen Lile’s approach has regressed and it has made the Washington Nationals outfielder more ordinary at the plate
Roma reignite interest in Davide Frattesi
Davide Frattesi’s situation has become a veritable soap opera. The Inter midfielder, who was very close to leaving the club last January for Nottingham Forest, finished the season with the Nerazzurr...
Free Summer Entertainment Series returns with varied lineups despite reduced budget
The Fairfax County Park Authority has unveiled event lineups for this year's Summer Entertainment Series, which will feature more than 100 outdoor concerts, movie screenings and other free diversions. Kicking off with Springfield Nights at Burke Lake Park and Arts in the Parks at Frying Pan Farm Park on June 24, the 2026 offerings won't
Banana Ball World Tour brings three nights of baseball entertainment to Truist Field
Would Hackney be an Everton fit?
Middlesbrough fan Tom Green has been speaking to BBC Radio Merseyside's Total Sport show about the Toffees' links with midfielder Hayden Hackney. Hackney is said to have a number of suitors but reports this week have said Everton are one of them. Supporter Green, from The Boro Breakdown podcast, says he would expect a fee of between £15-20m for 23-year-old Hackney, who is out of contract in June of 2027.
GOP lawmakers question Rx Kids as study shows healthier births in Flint
Dr. Mona Hanna, founder of the Rx Kids program in Michigan, fielded questions from lawmakers on where money is going, immigrants and abortions.
Banana Ball World Tour brings three nights of baseball entertainment to Truist Field
Banana Ball is back in Charlotte, bringing its fast-paced, fan-focused version of baseball to Truist Field for three nights beginning Thursday. The Firefighters and Texas Tailgaters will face off June 4-6 as part of the Banana Ball World Tour and the inaugural season of the Banana Ball Championship League. Created by the Savannah Bananas, Banana Ball was designed to put entertainment at the center of the game.
Iran players admit U.S. politics, war affect World Cup preparations
Iran midfielder Saeid Ezatolahi admitted on Wednesday that preparing for the FIFA World Cup in Turkiye while his country is at war with the primary host nation has been a mental challenge.
Analysis: How Andoni Iraola can improve Liverpool
Andoni Iraola’s Liverpool Blueprint: Pressing, Direct Attacks And A Clearer IdentityLiverpool’s interest in Andoni Iraola, as discussed by Dave Davis and Michael Reid on Anfield Index, is rooted i...
Liverpool asking for trouble with crazy Ibrahima Konate plan
Liverpool are just asking for trouble with their plan after Ibrahima Konate agreed to join Real Madrid.Ibrahima Konate will leave Liverpool this summer. His contract expires and there's no agreement o...
Minjae and South Korea win World Cup warm-up
The South Korean national team have won their final warm-up ahead of the 2026 World Cup. In the erarly hours of 4 June, at BYU South Field in Provo, Utah, coach Hong Myung-bo’s side edged a 1-0 win ...
Networks are everywhere. These experts helped make them a science
During NetSci 2026, two of leading network scientists break down how the field began, and why it almost didn't.
Reds recall Noelvi Marte, option TJ Friedl to AAA Louisville
A major outfield overhaul by the Cincinnati Reds.
Why ocean science is still one of the worst-funded scientific fields worldwide
For a planet that is 71% ocean, humanity spends a surprisingly small amount of time (and money) trying to understand it. Ocean science sits in a strange place in the research ecosystem. It underpin…
Dion Dawkins And Wegmans Teach Kids Healthy Eating And Activity!
In partnership with Wegmans, the Buffalo Bills invited St. Lawrence Catholic to the Wegmans Conference Center in Rochester, NY as part of the Play 60 Charged Up By Wegmans Field Trip Grand Prize! The event included an hour of physical activity stations as
Football Extra's Dream Signings: Tottenham Hotspur
Another central midfielder, surely this is a wind-up. You could argue the former even saved them from relegation with his crucial goals against Wolves and Everton, though it seems unlikely Palhinha's loan from Bayern Munich will be made permanent at this point. Spurs may not be that right now – though signing Stiller would show serious aspiration to return to the Premier League's upper echelon.
Jo Adell allows home run off top of his head: How Angels OF's unfortunate misplay stacks up to Jose Canseco
A ball off the bat of T.J. Rumfield Tuesday night bounced off Adell's glove, then head and over the fence
Oldham sign Notts County midfielder Norburn
Oldham Athletic sign midfielder Ollie Norburn from Notts County on a one-year deal with the option of a further year.
From spider silk to science: a new way to access hidden fungal diversity
A new study from Thailand demonstrates that the debris-heavy webs of orb-weaving spiders can serve as natural, non-destructive tools for collecting and culturing viable environmental fungi. Through the isolation of living organisms, this innovative approach has already uncovered potentially new, undocumented fungal diversity within tropical rice fields.
The cult of objectivity has broken consciousness science
With 22 competing theories and no consensus in sight, the science of consciousness is lost. In this exclusive IAI interview, Berkeley psychedelics researcher and bestselling author of a new book on consciousness Michael Pollan insists that even though consciousness lies beyond traditional forms of scientific investigation, we should resist becoming dualists who see it as something radically different from ordinary stuff in the world. Instead, he makes the case for reimagining science itself: it must stop reaching for objective descriptions of physical reality, and instead embrace subjectivity as the indispensable core of all inquiry. Alasdair Craig: How did your experiences with psychedelics get you interested in consciousness?Michael Pollan: One of the things that happens on psychedelics is that they foreground consciousness. What formerly seemed perfectly transparent and ever present—and yet, non-existent, as water is to fish—suddenly you see it. The metaphor I use in the book is that psychedelics sponge the windscreen. Suddenly you realize: wow, there’s a windscreen, there is this phenomenon that’s mediating my relationship to reality. This is not an unusual realization on psychedelics. I think a lot of people are called to think about consciousness after psychedelic experiences. So that was the proximate inspiration for A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness (2026).And then there was a more specific way in which psychedelics influence the book. That was a particular experience I had on psilocybin. I had the sensation that the plants in my garden were conscious and returning my gaze, with their own point of view and agency, and I got curious as to how to evaluate an insight like that. I mean, what’s the truth quotient of insights you have on psychedelics? And I was reading William James—who, of course, wrote beautifully about mystical experience—and he said, we can’t judge the metaphysics here, but we should pay attention to two criteria: (1) How useful is it to think this is true? He was a pragmatist, of course. And (2) can we subject it to other ways of knowing to validate it? Because maybe we should treat these insights as hypotheses. And that’s kind of how I approach psychedelics, as a great generator of hypotheses, but they need to be tested against other ways of knowing. And so that led me down this long path exploring the science of plant intelligence and plant sentience.AC: I love your phrase, “smudging the windowpane of conscious experience.” So do you now start to think, actually, even when I’m not on psychedelics, I’m just seeing a screen all the time, which is not reality, but rather is my conscious experience, behind which reality is hidden?MP: Well, you know, not when I’m brushing my teeth and making breakfast! But yes, in meditation, certainly. I mean, one of the things you realize is that my experience happens to be this way now, but it could be another way. And many things can affect it. My morning coffee changes the screen in various ways, sharpens certain things.___The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness.___There’s this wonderful metaphor in Aldous Huxley’s book, The Doors of Perception, where he thinks we channel consciousness, and that what the brain does is edit it, and there’s a reducing valve. And psychedelics open the reducing valve wider. I don’t know that I’m ready to buy into the idea that consciousness exists outside brains, but I do love that metaphor because there are times when you are more conscious than others. I know I’ve switched from window pane to valve, but you know, a camera aperture can open wider or narrower. And I do have a sense of that. I have a sense of when I’m being less conscious, and when I’m being more conscious, by which I mean, you know, more present, taking in more sensory information. So when you start thinking about consciousness as a matter of degree, that changes things also.I think when we scroll on social media, obviously, we’re conscious. But minimally so, because we don’t have to generate our own thoughts. We’re basically taking these little hits from other people and thinking their thoughts.The process of writing this book made me kind of relativize everyday consciousness as just one type, which is exactly what William James said. Normal consciousness is one type, separated by the flimsiest of screens from the other types.AC: If we stick with the metaphor of the smudge on the window that you get when you take psychedelics, it seems like we’re saying that consciousness has become like an object that you’re looking at, right? You’re looking at the smudge and that just is consciousness. But sometimes we’ll talk about consciousness as a state that you’re in, rather than an object you can perceive. You’re either conscious or you’re not conscious. So it’s difficult to really know what sort of thing we’re talking about when we talk about consciousness, right?MP: Yeah. When you say that consciousness is an object, what’s the subject? Consciousness also? The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness. So we’re in a closed loop and when we get a perspective on consciousness, we’re not achieving any distance from it. That’s one of the problems with studying consciousness. Science is predicated on an objective, God’s eye view of things, and you never get that. There’s no such thing. SUGGESTED VIEWING The brain filters consciousness With Àlex Gómez-Marín But, yeah, there is this sense, I think, that consciousness is something you can approach. Certainly, when you’re writing and trying to recreate a conscious experience, it’s a fiction, but you’re standing back from it, and looking at it. But there’s no real subject-object distinction.AC: That’s so interesting, because when philosophers start talking about consciousness, they often talk about what they call “qualia”, which is their word for the felt experience of, say, the color red. And I think that way of speaking often makes us think of the qualia as an object, which you can see out there: the redness of red. But, as you say, we also want to collapse the subject-object distinction when we talk about consciousness. So there’s something strange going on here…MP: Oh, yeah, there are many strange things going on! *AC: Let’s talk about the varieties of consciousness. Apart from perceptions, there are, pains, emotions, thoughts, and so on. What is it that holds all this diversity together so that they all count as instances of consciousness? What is it that they all have in common?MP: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I mean, there is sensory information, right? Which we perceive coming from the world outside ourselves. And then there’s internal information, which is what’s called interoception. And this is very important too. This is where feelings come from—what are sometimes called homeostatic feelings—that are intended to get the brain to keep us in these narrow ranges of temperature and glucose and so on. That’s a very important part of consciousness. And according to some researchers, who I think are probably right, this is where consciousness begins, with these very primal feelings, like hunger and thirst and warmth and itch, and things like that. And then there’s this third thing, which is our thinking about thinking.And what holds all this together is, I think, the sense of self. Consciousness generates a self: it is probably an organizing principle. All this stuff is happening to the self. It’s a construct, I think, but it is very useful. It can connect all these different streams of consciousness to a single being or a place, metaphorically speaking.* AC: The first half of your book is about the science of consciousness. Is consciousness just another thing, like black holes or the origin of life, which we don’t yet understand, but which we should have every hope that science will one day get to the bottom of, or is there something special about consciousness that makes this unlikely?MP: It depends how you define science. As we define science now, it’s going be very difficult. Science since Galileo has had a set of rules or assumptions, which is that the proper remit of science is to deal with the objective, quantifiable, third-person world. And the physical sciences have done amazing work under that set of limitations. Galileo—for tactical reasons, not for philosophical reasons—said science should not deal with the soul, which at the time was what consciousness was considered to be. So what is subjective, what is qualitative, what is first person, we’re going to leave to the church, he said. And this was a good agreement, and it probably kept many scientists from getting burned at the stake. But it leaves science in an awkward spot, now that it wants to venture into that territory of qualities, of first-person experience. And I don’t think it has the proper tools. I think it will have to add to its toolkit in some way, and find a way to bring in phenomenology, or lived experience and introspection, which science is usually dismissive of.The challenge—we alluded to it earlier—is that the only tool you have to study consciousness with is consciousness. And what I mean by that is, the whole scientific enterprise is a manifestation of consciousness. As much as scientists like to flatter themselves with this idea that they attain a godlike perspective on what they study, when it comes to consciousness, there’s no such thing. And it’s fine for all the things you can step outside of and study from that perspective. But two areas it won’t work are consciousness and cosmology.___It could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.___With cosmology, too, you have to study the universe from inside the universe. It’s not that cosmologists haven’t made progress. We know a lot about the age of the universe and expansion and things like that. But we can’t penetrate what happened before the Big Bang. We just don’t have the tools because we can’t stand outside.The fact that there are 22 full-scale theories of consciousness tells you all you need to know: we’re kind of lost. And I was surprised to find that we are more lost than I thought we were when I started this. I thought that there’d be leading theories, or that we had experiments that we could conduct that would nail some of this down. And the fact is, we don’t.So, I don’t know if science can solve it. But, of course, we can change the rules of science. A really influential book for me was a book called The Blind Spot, by two physicists, Marcello Gleiser and Adam Frank, and a philosopher, Evan Thompson. It’s a reminder that science is a social practice. It’s organized in a certain way and it can be organized in a different way. But it has this huge blind spot at the center of it, which is its failure to recognize that it is a form of consciousness itself, and it doesn’t have a good way of taking account of lived experience.AC: On the one hand, I think you want to resist traditional dualism, which would say that consciousness is something magical, something supernatural, right? But on the other hand, you’re accepting that there is this division in reality between the stuff that you can investigate objectively and measure, and so on—the stuff that science has been good at finding out about—and consciousness, which, for some reason, you can’t objectively measure. Some would take this to suggest that the dualism is actually right. Is there a way of reconciling these two strands of your thinking?MP: To call it magical is full of value judgement. I mean, you could just say immaterial. The interesting thing is, I think, that intuitively we’re all dualists. And I don’t know whether that’s because we’re children of Descartes and other cultures are less dualist than we are. Or it may be because that’s how consciousness feels. It feels different than the body. It feels separate from the body. But I don’t think we should trust that intuition.AC: So let’s think about ways that science might be changed to get at consciousness. I suppose the starting point would be the way that you begin the second half of your book. You have this nice line from William James, where he says, “We now begin our study of the mind from within.” Could you give us some sense of the ways of studying the mind from within? What does this involve?MP: I don’t know what that science looks like. But one of the points I’m making is that it depends on the humanities. I found that I learned as much, if not more, about consciousness, from reading novels and poetry. There is a sense of the fullness and complexity of consciousness that you don’t get in any scientific account. I interviewed this stream-of-consciousness writer and I approached her as an expert on consciousness, and she is. So I think that dialogue is really important.I’m reading Ben Lerner’s new novel, Transcription. Just read the first page of this novel: it’s a man falling asleep on a train, going to conduct an interview, and there is the experience of being in the train, facing backwards, there’s the view outside, but there’s a reflection of himself through which he’s seeing outside. There’s the memory of dropping his kids off at school. All this is going on in one moment of consciousness. Scientists aren’t going anywhere near that. But I think it’s useful for them to think about. That’s where we’re trying to go: like, how does such a layered experience happen? You know, it also makes you wonder, could a computer ever do this? And it gives you some doubt.*AC: Before we get to computers, perhaps we could talk briefly about plants. How did you come to feel that they are sentient?MP: Well, it was a psychedelic experience, and it’s not unusual on psychedelics. In fact, there’ve been studies about how people become animists during psychedelic experience. Their belief in animism arises after a single psychedelic experience.You know, most scientists would say this is all a myth. But we have only 400 years of the age of enlightenment and science. Before that, we were animists, and if you go around the world, most indigenous cultures are still animists, and children are animists, by and large, until they go to school. So it could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.As I said, I wanted to test this idea, and see whether there was conventional scientific evidence for it. And there’s fascinating work going on in a field that calls itself—in a rather cheeky way—plant neurobiology. These are people who fully realize there are no neurons in plants, but they’re trolling conventional botanists! And they’re doing experiments that are demonstrating that plants can learn and remember, which is kind of amazing: how do you store a memory without neurons? They’re finding plants that can solve problems, that can hear and see. In fact, they have 20 senses to our five or six. For example, a bean plant looking for something to twine, and given a pole within eight inches or so of it, knows where that pole is and will aim its spiraling reach at that pole. What is that about? Is it bouncing signals off of it?One of the spookiest things is the fact that the same anesthetics that put us out put plants out. You might think that plants are already out, but they’re not. They’re just slow. If you take a plant with a fast behavior, like a Venus flytrap, and give it an anesthetic, it will stop reacting. So you have to ask yourself, what is lost when the plant is anaesthetized? Some state of alertness, of awareness, of its environment, of reactivity. I’m not prepared to call that consciousness, but maybe it’s sentience—which is a simpler form of consciousness, and involves the ability to sense what’s going on in your environment and assess what’s good and bad for you and act appropriately. That may be a universal quality of life.AC: Let’s turn from plants to AI. You point out that LLMs are trained on the internet rather than direct interactions with reality. You put this really nicely when you say the internet is not the world so much as a shadow cast by the world. So LLMs are living in this kind of shadow world, or in Plato’s cave, as you put it. What’s the significance of this for AI consciousness and moral consideration? And, to recall the beginning of our conversation, if we’re stuck behind a veil or screen of consciousness, are we also stuck in a kind of shadow world?MP: I don’t think they’re the same shadow worlds because our world includes nature and other people. And even if it’s mediated in some ways... There is a reality out there, and we are in relation to it, through consciousness. There’s friction with it. What’s missing from the LLMs is that friction with the real world. There’s more to the world than human representation, which is what they’re dealing with. And that means that so far, AI is a cultural technology for combining thoughts we’ve already had. SUGGESTED VIEWING Cracking the code for thought With Roger Penrose, Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski, Max Tegmark, Güneş Taylor Genuine creativity is more than collage. A lot of what AI does now is tantamount to collage, putting this with that and you know, that’s part of art, certainly. But there are also genuinely new ideas that come into the world that don’t come in through manipulating the representations we already have. So it remains to be seen whether AIs can be truly creative in that more radical sense.But my arguments against AI becoming conscious have to do with the fact that the idea of AI consciousness is based on this faulty metaphor that the brain is a computer. There are dimensions in which the brain is like a computer—it certainly does its share of computation. But computers have this sharp distinction between hardware and software, and brains don’t. In a brain, hardware and software are identical. Every memory is a physical change to the brain. Brains are not interchangeable in the way computers are. So this idea that you could take the consciousness out and somehow run it on another substrate, a silicon substrate, seems foolhardy.Anyway, it’s a more extended argument, and I may be wrong. And when we move to computers that aren’t based on silicon—neuromorphic computers and things like that—all bets may be off.AC: Regarding your point about LLMs being stuck in the world of our representations—the internet or whatever—and not being able to interact with reality, are these representations, the world of the internet, themselves part of reality? We’ve created the internet, but it’s still a real thing that exists. And so while the LLMs may be trapped within that part of reality, they’re nevertheless within reality and interacting with it and so on. So it’s not obvious that there’s a barrier there to them becoming conscious and being creative.MP: Yeah, I mean, if our consciousness is built out of human culture, which is what we’re talking about with all those representations. But I tend to think consciousness comes a bit more out of nature and friction with the natural world, but...AC: So there’s a fundamental divide between the natural world and human artefacts?MP: And we lose track of that, and especially people in this computer world. You know, the people who are creating these AI systems, my guess is they’ve been into video games since the age of three, and they didn’t go outside a lot. And their own contact with nature is somewhat limited. I could be wrong, it’d be a very interesting thing to ask, all the wizards of AI, whether they like to go fishing and hiking and do things like that. Or were they on computers from a very early age? I interviewed Blake Lemoine, the Google engineer who came to believe that LaMDA, the Google LLM out at the time, was conscious and deserved personhood. It was very clear that he didn’t see a distinction between this bubble in which he lived and the real world. And I think we’ve all been distanced from the natural world, and this is taking us even further away. But it’s still there, you know, and we still have bodies, and we’re still mortal, and we don’t live in a simulation.AC: I think that’s a great place to finish. Michael Pollan, thank you very much!
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