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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.
Bethesda Health Clinic holds community baby shower
Bethesda Health Clinic held a free community baby shower in Tyler Saturday to connect East Texas mothers with resources.
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.
Construction causes power outage at PitCo Health and Human Services
Construction work hit a buried power line at 3 p.m. on Thursday that supplied grid and backup generator power to the Pitkin County Health and Human Services building, leading to necessary repairs that will last through the weekend and into next week.
World Ocean Day Celebration at Seacoast Science Center
For Seacoast Science Center, this year marks a remarkable 35 years of providing outstanding coastal and ocean education at Odiorne Point State Park along the New Hampshire seacoast! World Ocean Day, a global celebration that honors our one shared ocean, presents the perfect opportunity for us to invite our community to come together and celebrate the ocean that connects us all.On June 20th, the Center will host its flagship World Ocean Day celebration from 10 AM to 2 PM. Enjoy hands-on games, educational activities, naturalist-led tide pooling sessions, music, and much more! You’ll also have the opportunity to meet local scientists, divers, artists, and conservationists who are dedicated to safeguarding our one world ocean. See the schedule and the organizations joining us on our event web page: https://www.seacoastsciencecenter.org/world-ocean-dayWe can’t wait to see you by the coast for learning, discovery, and plenty of fun, all aimed at inspiring the conservation of our Blue Planet!
Suspected shooter arrested after man found dead inside Pinellas Park business
A Clearwater man was arrested on Saturday in connection with a deadly shooting in Pinellas Park.
Today's NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints, Answers for June 7 #622
Here's today's Connections: Sports Edition answer and hints for groups. These clues will help you solve The New York Times' popular puzzle game, Connections: Sports Edition, every day.
Motherhood made me love the World Cup for a different reason
Motherhood changed how I experience the World Cup, turning it into a celebration of family, heritage, and connection.
I hope the iPhone 18 Pro's unnecessary camera tech doesn't make it to the iPhone 20
The iPhone 17 Pro might be the real winner here.
Iranian and African journalists denied necessary World Cup visas, sports press association says
AIPS president Gianni Merlo said in a letter to FIFA that the cases are "countless and unacceptable" and part of a "long-standing" problem.
The Kennedys and British royal family were once romantically linked, new book reveals exactly how
A member from each of the Kennedys and the royal family were once romantically linked, Caroline Hallemann's new book reveals. The two dynasties have been connected for decades, dating back to the 1930s.
New York Jets Flight Connections 06/06/26
Happy Saturday, Jets fans! You made it through the week. As a reward, here are your Saturday Jets links. Michael Nania – Jets’ Garrett Wilson lights up social media with one-handed grab Michael Nania – Jets’ Garrett Wilson lights up social media with one-handed grab Michael Nania – Jets’ AD Mitchell flashes chemistry with Geno […]
Multiple sources, joint analysis: pooling public health data for stronger public health intelligence across the Western Pacific
WHO Western Pacific countries and areas endorse a new policy brief on multi-source surveillance. A new World Health Organization (WHO) policy brief outlines a transformative approach to public health intelligence that connects data across a range of systems, sectors and disciplines. By creating a single, actionable picture of health threats based on multiple sources, such an approach aims to fill critical data gaps and aid countries in decision-making. WHO Member States across the Western Pacific endorsed the policy brief, Multi-source Surveillance to Support Public Health Action and Decision-making, at the WHO-led Asia Pacific Health Security Action Framework (APSHAF) Stakeholders Meeting held on 11 June 2026 in Malaysia.
Rock Ford showcases Lancaster revolutionaries in new exhibit
It’s well known that Lancaster was capital for a day in 1777. But that’s not the only historically significant moment in our nation’s earliest years with a Lancaster County connection.
Melvine Malard: Man United Women star steals spotlight for France
Manchester United Women had numerous players in international action throughout the course of Friday. Three United stars were called up for England’s giant matchup versus Spain in World Cup qualific...
Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for June 6, 2026, puzzle No. 621
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
Nobody Is Happy That Yakuza Studio’s Next Game Is Performing Digital Necromancy On Tupac
"I love RGG, and I love hip-hop, and I absolutely hate everything they're doing with this angle"
Surveillance, immigration and greyfields: CT politics news
Plus: Qualifying candidates, Hartford schools funding, Connecticut's AI legislation and a roundup of other bill signings.
Highly reviewed speaker can be hacked over the air to infect connected devices
Seller of the Sound Blaster Katana V2X doesn't consider the behavior a vulnerability.
Bills, Vikings Connected in Massive $140M Trade Rumor
A proposal has been made from one prominent NFL Analyst, who predicted a blockbuster Justin Jefferson trade rumor connecting the Bills, Vikings.
The Fitbit Air is great, but Google's AI is too nice to be your "coach"
The Air succeeds as a minimalist, reliable fitness tracker, but Google's AI Health Coach feels unnecessary.
Camp Lejeune announces entertainment lineup for 2026 Fourth of July celebration
Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune has announced details for its annual Fourth of July celebration, which will coincide with America's 250th birthday.The 2026 USAA
Talking Business with Tom Garrity: The missing link in family business continuity
Success in family business is not just about planning, opportunity or family dynamics. It’s about connection, and a shared purpose holding the family together.
JUVENTUS AND WWE ANNOUNCE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP TO CONNECT SPORT, ENTERTAINMENT AND GLOBAL FAN CULTURE
Juventus and WWE today announced a new strategic partnership designed to develop original experiences, content and activations that bring together...
AAMC-led HPNEC Holds Congressional Briefing in Support of Health Workforce Programs
The AAMC-led HPNEC held a June 3 congressional briefing on the importance of funding the HRSA Title VII and VIII programs.
Health Care Roundup: Market Talk
Find insight on AstraZeneca, TD Cowen, EBR Systems and more in the latest Market Talks covering Health Care.
NC State Health Plan to propose benefit structure aimed at shifting care to 'preferred providers'
The new structure is necessary, plan administrators say, because costs are continue to outpace premiums. Those premiums are likely to increase next year.
‘Star City’ Cast on Irina & Tanya’s Complex Connection
'Bad Dancer' showed several characters coming undone.
Trump plans pedestrian bridge between Lincoln Memorial and Potomac River
The president and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum cast the proposed “Trump promenade” as fulfilling an early-20th-century vision to connect the National Mall with the nearby waterfront.
Scientists are seriously asking if bees and ChatGPT are conscious
New studies suggest consciousness can't be judged solely by behavior, whether it's a chatbot discussing philosophy or a bee searching for nectar. Researchers are increasingly focusing on the internal mechanisms of brains and computers, concluding that today's AI is likely not conscious while leaving open the possibility for both conscious insects and future machines.
Word on the Street: Election-night parties prove politics cures the loneliness epidemic
Watch parties, campaign friends and the ritual 8:45 p.m. vote drop create a rare sense of belonging in an increasingly disconnected age.
Trump says promenade will be built connecting Lincoln Memorial to Potomac River
President Donald Trump said Thursday that a new walkway will be built connecting the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, to the Potomac River.
From detour to diploma, Maggie House ’26 earns Business degree
Maggie House '26 returned to Columbia College, earned her Business degree and transformed a detour into a success story.
Bello outlines food assistance, traffic safety efforts in State of the County
The Monroe County executive delivered his address at the Seneca Park Zoo on Thursday.
TxDOT Hosting Event for Small Businesses, July 20th
Texas Border Business PHARR, Texas – The TxDOT Pharr District, which oversees the construction and maintenance of state highways in the eight southernmost counties of Texas, is hosting an event on July 20 for small businesses interested in securing state highway construction contracts. The Pharr event labeled BOSS, for big opportunities start small, gives attendees the opportunity to connect with local TxDOT engineers, […]
Does Salt Secretly Damage Your Brain? Scientists Finally Reveal the Truth - Futura-Sciences
The answer is not as simple as saying salt “damages” the brain directly. Current research suggests that excess salt may influence brain health indirectly, especially through blood pressure, blood vessel health, inflammation, and possibly the gut-brain connection. Why Salt Matters for the Body Salt contains sodium, a mineral the body...
AOC-backed Dem connected to Twin Towers bombing terrorist faces congressional pressure after primary win
Rep. Michael Lawler says he will seek a full investigation of Democratic primary winner Adam Hamawy over his ties to Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman.
New Dignity Health program helps identify mental health risks for pregnant and postpartum women
A new maternal mental health initiative in the Sacramento region is already helping connect pregnant and postpartum women with critical support services, according to Dignity Health.
How to Improve Your Gut Health (and Why It’s So Important)
Almost 40% of Americans say their daily lives are affected by their bowel habits so Dr. Trisha Pasricha, author and a director of gut-brain research, joins TODAY to break down why gut health is so important. She explains how your gut is responsible for regulating metabolism, immune health, and mood, highlights signs to know if your gut is healthy, and shares ways to improve gut health like eating more fiber.
More Americans own wearables, connected health devices: survey
Many adults are sharing device data with their providers too. But users are typically healthier and wealthier, suggesting people who could benefit the most from health monitoring are less likely to adopt the tools, according to Rock Health.
Run Google's Gemini LLMs right on your Mac with the new AI Edge Gallery
Google has released its AI Edge Gallery app on the Mac for the first time, allowing AI fans to run its Gemini large language models (LLMs) locally, without the need for an internet connection.
RFK Jr. seeks to peek at Americans’ medical records for clues on autism and vaccines
U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is pursuing federal government access to most Americans’ medical records, in a quest to research a link between vaccines and autism — a connection the medical establishment studied for decades and flatly rejects.
In a stormy session, workforce training wins were a bipartisan bright spot, business groups say
Bills that would restructure the state's workforce training programs — and redirect more federal money to the state, expand career programs beginning as early as middle school, and creating programs to connect college students to career opportunities passed with support from both sides of the aisle.
LiveOne Expands Partnership With AT&T, Cisco For Connected-Car Entertainment.
LiveOne has announced an expanded collaboration with AT&T and Cisco aimed at supporting next-generation in-vehicle entertainment through AT&T’s Connected Car platform. Under the agreement, automotive manufacturers will be able to
'Connections on the Road:' Youth mental health
During "Connections with Evan Dawson" on 6/4/26, we're live at the Greece Early Learning Center to explore youth mental health challenges and supports. Then, a special rebroadcast about allergies.
Watch Commanders' Jayden Daniels connect with Chig Okonkwo during OTAs
Could the Commanders' WR2 already be on the roster and not who you think?
Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for June 4, 2026, puzzle No. 619
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
Powering Appalachia Expo connects business owners to valuable resources
Business owners from across the Mid-0hio Valley attended an expo aimed at connecting them to valuable resources.
REV launches new communications platform for businesses
REV Fiber for Business has launched a cloud-based communications platform designed to help employees collaborate and stay connected with customers through a single mobile and desktop application. “As workplace communication needs evolve from traditional offices to hybrid and remote environments, our business customers need platforms that remove friction,” Tressy Leindecker, REV’s executive vice president of […]
More Asheville business owners band together through community connection meet-ups
Local entrepreneurs have been growing their businesses for free through community connection meet-ups, according to business leaders.
US Ignite Launches SURGE, a National Science Foundation-Supported Initiative to Empower Regional Innovation Coalitions Nationwide
“SURGE provides regional coalitions with structure, guidance, and connections in a peer learning environment. This new program is meant for both existing regional coalitions and leaders who are building new cross-sector partnerships.” -L.Arias, US Ignite Supporting U.S. Regional Growth & Entrepreneurship (SURGE) Convert regional momentum into results! WASHINGTON, June 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- US Ignite officially launched the Supporting U.S. Regional Growth & Entrepreneurship (SURGE) Program
May's top PlayStation games by copies sold
Yesterday’s State of Play gave us an idea of where PlayStation’s heading next. But we’ve had our May estimates for a couple of days now (we always update our data daily for clients), so it’s time to look at what performed best on PlayStation last month. We’ve got a new IP at the top, two evergreens doing their evergreen thing, FC26 smashing it ahead of the World Cup Plus pivot, and a quiet but promising result for Lego Batman. Let’s have a look at the state of Play…Station’s top games for May. 007 takes #001 007 First Light sold 1M copies on PS5 in May, easily making it the month’s top PS5 game by copies sold. Over 80% of those May copies were digital, which is broadly in line with where PlayStation’s digital share has settled for new releases this year. To date, 007 First Light has sold through 2.2M copies across platforms (so no unsold retail copies in that figure). The platform split is 55.1% PS5, 33.1% Steam, and 11.8% Xbox (console, Windows, and cloud combined). In gross revenue terms, 007 First Light has generated $150M. Owing to regional pricing and audience composition differences, the consoles make up a higher share of revenue than they do copies. Of the $150M, 60.5% came via PlayStation, 27.6% via Steam, and 12.9% via Xbox. Part of this is because over two-thirds of 007 First Light‘s PlayStation audience is in North America (43.4%) or Western Europe (23.2%), where local currency means the game generates more revenue per player. On Steam, under half of First Light‘s audience is from those same regions (31.8% North America, 15.1% Western Europe). As we covered in last week’s 007 Steam piece, the Steam version is pulling in higher-than-expected numbers in China, which now accounts for 17.3% of First Light‘s Steam audience. 007 is the equivalent of $44 USD in China, which is roughly 37% cheaper than the US price and about 44% cheaper than Western Europe. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe The crossover data backs up what we’ve seen all year about launch-window cohorts. 11% of PS5 players who played 007 First Light in May also played Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, which launched just a few days before. Last month was a great month for Denmark! IO Interactive is Copenhagen-based, and Lego Group is headquartered in Billund (TT Games is UK-based but produces work under Lego Group licence and direction). Speaking of which… A very blocky #2 and #3 Minecraft sold another 788K copies on PlayStation consoles last month. Business as usual, since Minecraft hasn’t sold fewer than 760K copies in a single month all year. With over 350M copies sold across all platforms, Minecraft is the best-selling game in history and one of the strongest brands in the world. Every month, a new cohort of children reaches Minecraft age, which guarantees a constant volume of new sales regardless of what the broader market is up to. The demographic refresh rate is truly impressive, with the audience renewing itself faster than it’s churning. Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight shifted 757K copies on PS5 last month, bringing its lifetime total on the platform to over 800K. Across all platforms, Legacy of the Dark Knight has now passed 1.5M sold through, so PlayStation accounts for over half of the game’s players. The May crossover data for Legacy of the Dark Knight on PS5 is also useful. 27% of those players also played Fortnite, 16% Roblox, 16% FC 26, and 14% NBA 2K. That’s the household-and-family cohort showing up, plus the launch-window cohort of core gamers who buy practically everything. FC 26 gets players through the door ahead of the World Cup FC 26 sold 411K copies on PlayStation last month (90% via PS5), the fewest copies FC 26 has sold all year and down heavily from April’s 700K. Part of this dropoff is because FC 26 has been available as a PlayStation Plus monthly game since 6 May, cannibalising premium sales. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe The strategic logic is straightforward for EA, which is sacrificing premium unit sales in May to build up the player base ahead of the FIFA World Cup, which kicks off on 11 June. Obviously, a bigger player pool going into the tournament means a bigger pool of potential Ultimate Team spenders during the period when football attention is at its peak. The early returns are around what you’d expect, with 4.4M new players accessing FC 26 via PS Plus last month – a substantial new spender pool. Anecdotally, a few of my mates who were ‘’skipping FIFA and Ultimate Team this year’’, were drawn back in via PS Plus. Lo and behold, one of them is buying packs like it’s going out of fashion. Whether this is all a smart trade for EA depends entirely on the Ultimate Team conversion rate over the next six weeks. Either way, the short-term engagement impact on the game as a whole is evident. FC 26‘s MAUs hit a record 24M on PlayStation in May, up 30% from the previous record set in April. GTA V does what GTA V always does Rounding out the top five is another evergreen title. Grand Theft Auto V shifted another 387K copies on PlayStation last month. No matter what else is happening in the industry, GTA V keeps pulling players in. It’s sold another 1.8M copies on PS5 in the first half of this year alone, helping the franchise pass the 230M-sold milestone across all platforms. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe I have a theory that Minecraft and GTA V are doing the same thing at different demographic levels. Both are functioning as generational gateway games that the audience ages into faster than it ages out of. Minecraft captures kids around age 6-10, GTA V captures much of the same audience around age 12-15 (unofficially, of course). The crossover data suggests this: 40% of GTA V‘s monthly PlayStation players typically play Fortnite in any given month, while 30% play Roblox. Household accounts aside, that’s not the original GTA V audience from 2013. Of course, the under-12 audience would love to get their hands on GTA, too. It’s always been the way of things, and some parents are happy to oblige. Mine did too back in the day, and I turned out just fine. Right? Right!? Want to get your hands on our data for yourself – for free? We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply to this email, and we’ll set you up. The last word Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover. [Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]
Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow tear up over “Friends” and“ The Comeback” connection: 'S---!'
The real-life friends reunited on June 3 for the season 24 premiere of the "Variety" interview series Actors on Actors.
RWJBarnabas Health Expands Lifesaving Naloxone Initiative Across New Jersey
– RWJBarnabas Health (RWJBH), through its Institute for Prevention and Recovery (IFPR), is expanding its hospital-based naloxone distribution initiative to individuals and communities across the state, increasing access to life-saving resources and connecting individuals to recovery support services.
AT&T Expands Connected Car™ Platform with LiveOne and Cisco
AT&T announces collaboration, which simplifies how automakers integrate connectivity, billing, and premium audio content, at AutoTech Detroit.
Meta is trying to sell AI agents to businesses in latest effort to diversify away from ads
The Meta Business Agent will be included in the company's Meta One paid subscription offerings.
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!
Inspiring future innovators: 400+ middle, high school students explore career paths at App State STEAM Expo
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NYT Connections Sports Edition hints and answers for June 3: Tips to solve Connections #618
Everything you need to solve Connections Sports Edition #618
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Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for June 3, 2026, puzzle No. 618
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
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Today's NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints, Answers for June 3 #618
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NYT Connections Sports Edition hints and answers for June 2: Tips to solve Connections #617
Everything you need to solve Connections Sports Edition #617
Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for June 2, 2026, puzzle No. 617
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
Today's NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints, Answers for June 2 #617
Here's today's Connections: Sports Edition answer and hints for groups. These clues will help you solve The New York Times' popular puzzle game, Connections: Sports Edition, every day.
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CT Business Blend: June 1, 2026
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Minecraft DLC Marketplace
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Minecraft seems to be coming to Nintendo Switch 2
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New York Jets Flight Connections 06/01/26
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To strengthen science, institutions must reward collaboration
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