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Persona 4 Revival Includes P4G Content, Confirms February 2027 Release Date on PS5
Truth story
NASCAR at Michigan, starting lineup for 2026 FireKeepers Casino 400
The NASCAR Cup Series is in Brooklyn, Michigan, on Sunday, June 7, for the FireKeepers Casino 400. Denny Hamlin and the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota will start the race in the pole position. Carson Hocevar will start the…
Can Marco Rubio convince Trump that a free Cuba is America First?
As Secretary of State, Marco Rubio has been a primary driver of President Trump’s foreign policy. But Cuba is his most personal challenge yet. And as he plots another potential run for the presidency in 2028, it’s the one whose success or failure could most closely define him.
Dr. Andrew Parsons: Dr. ChatGPT is getting remarkably good at diagnosing health problems — but actual doctors are still better at weighing treatment options
A father is worried about his toddler, who has been running a fever for two days and pulling at one ear. A 65-year-old woman has been getting winded on her morning walks and feeling more fatigued than usual. Both reach for their phones and type their symptoms into an AI
KCPD investigating late-night homicide in Westport Road business
A KCPD spokesperson said it was just after 11:30 p.m. when officers found two men shot inside a QuikTrip on Westport Road.
Experts say we should use passkeys, but can a smartphone PIN really be safer than a password?
The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions explores a topical issue of personal cybersecurity
Leader to expand health coverage
Leader Publications will begin providing expanded coverage on health-related topics after the Missouri Press Foundation received a $40,000 grant from the Jefferson Foundation.
Animals have personalities. Here’s what shapes them.
From shelter dogs to stickleback fish, the forces that shape animal personality are surprisingly familiar.
Netanyahu’s mafia politics risk degrading integrity of Israeli government
A coalition run like a mafia, based on fear, personal loyalty, and proof of allegiance, cannot properly serve the public interest because its first priority is protecting the leader, not the country.
Museum of Science and Industry to close on opening day of Obama Presidential Center
Chicago's iconic Griffin Museum of Science and Industry will close for opening day of the Obama Presidential Center, a spokesperson for the museum said.
Southwest eyes deeper revamp; MAX 7 service seen in 2027
Southwest Airlines expects Boeing's long-delayed 737 MAX 7 to enter revenue service in 2027, about six months after the aircraft is certified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson told Reuters on Saturday.
Arizona Sunshine announced for Nintendo Switch 2
Today, Vertigo Games announced that it’s working on Arizona Sunshine for Nintendo Switch 2. Launch timing will be provided at a later date. Arizona Sunshine is a third-person zombie apocalypse shooter. Online play and multiplayer splitscreen modes will both be supported. Further details can be found in the following overview: Sharpen your machete, reload your shotgun, and bring your friends....
Arizona Sunshine third-person shooter remake announced for PS5, Xbox Series, Switch 2, and PC
Vertigo Games has announced Arizona Sunshine, a fully flat-screen third-person shooter remake of the virtual reality game of the same name (now titled Arizona Sunshine VR). It will launch for PlayS…
Jimmy Fallon suddenly drops out of Madonna premiere interview for 'Confessions II'
Jimmy Fallon dropped out of a Madonna interview at the last minute, with Anderson Cooper filling in at the 'Confessions II' short film premiere in New York City.
Business Briefs: June 2026
Bluebird & Co. and Commonwealth Consulting Begin a New Chapter Chelsea Powers and Flannery Buchanan, the founders of Bluebird & Co., announced last month that Powers would be leaving the business to focus on other business interests as well as her growing family. Powers is an owner of Reset and Mountain Mahj and has a
Dear Abby | Boss's new fiance certainly has a way with words
Dear Abby: My boss doesn't set boundaries between work and our personal lives. I adore her, but the job is very stressful and comes first. She recently became engaged, and
Mariners' Colt Emerson: Goes yard again Friday
Mariners' Colt Emerson: Goes yard again Friday
CAPCOM Insider Shuts Down First-Person Fears for Resident Evil Veronica, Warns Fans a Lot Has Been Reimagined
Dusk Golem said Resident Evil Veronica won't adopt a first-person view, but warns fans that there are significant changes from the original.
Joey D’Urso on the politics stitched into soccer shirts
Ahead of the World Cup, the author of “More Than a Shirt” explains how power, money and history shape what teams wear — from club sponsorships to national kits.
Guruzeta, credit for an up-and-down season
Although things did not go well for Athletic as a team, Guruzeta delivered with 17 goals and a personal best.📸 Juan Manuel Serrano Arce - 2026 Getty ImagesIt has not been a good year for Athletic c...
Amir Ibragimov continues rise with important international milestone
Manchester United youngster Amir Ibragimov has hit a significant international milestone in his career.International riseIbragimov has been highly spoken about over the years due to his incredible tal...
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...
Michael Carrick expected to receive special coaching help
Not only is the first team set for changes, but Manchester United also have plans to upgrade their coaching staff over the summer.After Michael Carrick agreed to take charge on a permanent basis, INEO...
Scenes From Thursday’s LARSO Health Fair ‘Stronger Together
Scene from the LARSO Health Fair at Betty Ehart Senior Activity Center. Photo by Maire O’Neill/losalamosreporter.com Scene from the LARSO Health Fair at Betty Ehart Senior Activity Center. Ph…
Graham Platner says his past has been ‘weaponized’ at rally in Maine
Supporters brush off negative stories about the Democratic Senate candidate and rebut suggestions that he is the wrong person to take on GOP Sen. Susan Collins.
Reds pitching coach Derek Johnson takes indefinite 'personal leave'
The Reds have provided no details as to the reason Derek Johnson has taken 'personal' leave, nor have they suggested a timeline for his return.
Gemini app adding new Google Contacts integration
The Gemini app’s latest first-party integration is with Google Contacts to provide "personalized insights and responses based...
Alien: Isolation 2 announced for PS5, Xbox Series, Switch 2, and PC
Publisher SEGA and developer Creative Assembly have officially announced horror first-person shooter sequel Alien: Isolation 2 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Switch 2, and PC (Steam). A release da…
‘What else do we have?’ Maine Democrats signal they’ll stick with Graham Platner, some with regret
Graham Platner is still likely to win Maine’s Democratic Senate nomination in Tuesday’s primary — but some voters in the state who once were excited by his campaign now say they’ll hold their noses while casting their ballots after a series of negative reports about his personal behavior.
Women gather in Jackson to support heart health and maternal care
The American Heart Association's Go Red for Women luncheon in Jackson focused on heart health, maternal care, and CPR training, with advocates sharing personal stories to inspire change.
Milan fans warning of ‘unprecedented’ protest against Cardinale
Milan ultras have called on fans to ‘prepare for an unprecedented’ protest in person against owner Gerry Cardinale. ‘It’s going to be a long summer, and the worst is yet to come.’ITALY – S...
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.
Trump’s troop reversals in Europe could cost taxpayers millions, officials say
The U.S. military is waiting for clarity from the Pentagon following President Donald Trump's back-and-forth on troop levels in Europe, upending the lives of military personnel and potentially costing taxpayers millions of dollars, two U.S. defense officials told The Associated Press.
Last 3 '60 Minutes' correspondents are staying, read the memo
"60 Minutes" is keeping its veteran correspondents after the firing of Scott Pelley and the departure of Anderson Cooper under CBS News' Bari Weiss.
2026 NBA draft profile: Philadelphia 76ers prospect Christian Anderson
Here is a look at potential Philadelphia 76ers prospect Christian Anderson out of Texas Tech.
2026 World Cup Futures Report: Patriotic Play Taking Place at Books
Would you believe that the USA has become a huge liability at sportsbooks ahead of the 2026 World Cup? Patrick Everson has the scoop.
Personal data on mental health patients stolen in provider group hack
In what’s being called a “data security incident,” Acadia Healthcare confirmed a compromised email account led to sensitive data on patients being accessed by hackers. The full number of victims is being tabulated.
Personnel note: Molly Bargmann joins ICF as Vice President
She brings more than 15 years of disaster recovery and emergency management experience.
Rumour: Persona 6 Images Supposedly Leak Online
"Sega believed to be behind the takedowns"
City of Detroit preparing lawsuit against Riverview Health as neighbors report ongoing noise problems
Detroit neighbors in West Village are once again complaining about noise they say is coming from a Riverview Health rehab center on Jefferson Avenue, this time from the facility’s HVAC system.
Ravens Urged to Trade $36M Star After ‘Personal Matter’
Following a personal matter, the Baltimore Ravens could be motivated to a Rashod Bateman trade before the 2026 season.
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.
The Un-Trumping of the Kennedy Center Will Happen Very Soon
An internal memo from the center’s counsel gave staff a June 12 deadline to remove the president’s name from the building’s signage.
Arson investigation underway after fire outside health facility in Camden County
An arson investigation is underway after a fire outside a health facility in Camden County, New Jersey.
Cyberdecks used to look like little laptops, but now they’re getting more personal
The cutest computer on TikTok is a cyberdeck.
Obama's new museum is political and personal
The Obama Presidential Center opens to the general public on Juneteenth after a celebratory dedication in Chicago with dignitaries
Obama's new museum is political and personal
The Obama Presidential Center opens to the general public on Juneteenth after a celebratory dedication in Chicago with dignitaries
Obama's new museum is political and personal
The Obama Presidential Center opens to the general public on Juneteenth after a celebratory dedication in Chicago with dignitaries
Why the National Science Foundation is ripping monitoring instruments out of the ocean
A spokesperson for the National Science Foundation pointed to a National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics report as justification for the 'descoping,' but a co-chair of that group said they never wanted to see the program disbanded.
Career in Sports Forum prepares nearly 175 student-athletes for success after graduation
The Career in Sports Forum provides student-athletes with opportunities to network with peers and decision-makers in athletics. The program helps student-athletes understand how their personal strengths and career opportunities intersect.
Jefferson County Approves $300,000 for Small Business Development Programs
The Jefferson County Commission has approved economic development funding for two organizations aimed at supporting small business growth across the county.Comm
With Oval Office replica and skyline views of Chicago, Obama's new museum is political and personal
Former President Barack Obama’s influence in his presidential museum runs deep, from the Chicago location to the textured stone adorning its dramatic tower, art installations and a striped reading chairs that resemble ones in his own home
The Politics Hour: D.C.'s budget crunch
Montgomery County Councilmember Kristin Mink on how MCPS is navigating cuts and what the council can do to help. Plus, D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson on the council's first budget vote next week.
Alix Earle Is Reportedly Joining Benson Boone’s “The Time of My Life” Video
Alix Earle’s next entertainment move may take her from TikTok, reality TV, and magazine covers into Benson Boone’s music-video world. The influencer and media personality ... Read More
Presidential museum showcases political and personal sides of Obama with sprawling community campus
The Obama Presidential Center opens to the general public on Juneteenth after a celebratory dedication in Chicago.
Samsung Health App Evolves With AI-Powered Proactive Intelligence To Help Users Stay Ahead of Their Health
New update transforms the user experience from passive tracking to proactive guidance with a suite of personalized, intuitive daily insights
Goethe never knew this 40-million-year-old ant was hidden in his collection
Scientists examining amber from Goethe’s personal collection discovered three hidden fossil insects, including an extinct ant preserved in extraordinary detail. Advanced 3D imaging allowed researchers to see not only the ant’s outer features but also structures inside its body. The findings offer new clues about the species’ biology and suggest it likely built large nests in trees.
Is your personal device protecting your business accounts?
Skipping basic security steps—especially on public Wi-Fi—can expose your business accounts to unauthorized access. These five steps can help you avoid an account takeover attack.
How Rachel Carson's Silent Spring changed the world in 1962
Rachel Carson’s look at the dire effects of industrial and agricultural pollution birthed the modern environmental movement when it was first published – and remains as crucial a read today, finds Rowan Hooper
Travel Health Tips: How to Avoid Getting Sick
Learn how to prevent illness while traveling, including cruise and flight tips, immune support, and hantavirus safety tips from health experts.
'Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma' review: Laughing in the face of 'elevated horror'
Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson star in this queer, hilarious slasher from "I Saw the TV Glow" maker Jane Schoenbrun.
Romelu Lukaku explains why he and Pogba struggled at United
Manchester United have been home to some ferocious strikers in the past, but the position has been a weak spot in the squad in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era. The legendary Scottish manager famously s...
Presidential museum showcases political and personal sides of Obama with sprawling community campus
The Obama Presidential Center opens to the general public on Juneteenth after a celebratory dedication in Chicago with dignitaries.
Presidential museum showcases political and personal sides of Obama with sprawling community campus
CHICAGO (AP) — Former President Barack Obama’s influence in his presidential museum runs deep, from the location on Chicago's South Side to textured stone adorning its dramatic tower to striped reading chairs that are similar to ones in his own home.
Presidential museum showcases political and personal sides of Obama with sprawling community campus
Former President Barack Obama’s influence in his presidential museum runs deep, from the Chicago location to the textured stone adorning its dramatic tower to art installations and a pair of striped reading chairs in the library that are similar to the ones he owns.
Bass has 'utterly failed' her constituents throughout political career, conservative commentator says
Conservative commentator Elisha Krauss and former California GOP Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson discuss California’s governor’s race and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ advancement to a November runoff on ‘Fox News @ Night.’
President Trump says he will nominate Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general
President Donald Trump says he will nominate Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general, tapping his former personal attorney who has aggressively pursued the Republican president’s agenda while leading the Justice Department in an acting role
Survey to revitalize Hendersonville with new business
Nashville News, Weather, and Sports
Samsung Introduces Next-Gen Galaxy Watch Features for AI-Powered Everyday Health Companion
New update transforms the user experience from passive tracking to proactive guidance with a suite of personalised, intuitive daily insights
Samsung Introduces Next-Gen Galaxy Watch Features for AI-Powered Everyday Health Companion
New update transforms the user experience from passive tracking to proactive guidance with a suite of personalised, intuitive daily insights
Samsung Introduces Next-Gen Galaxy Watch Features for AI-Powered Everyday Health Companion
New update transforms the user experience from passive tracking to proactive guidance with a suite of personalized, intuitive daily insights
Samsung Introduces Next-Gen Galaxy Watch Features for AI-Powered Everyday Health Companion
New update transforms the user experience from passive tracking to proactive guidance with a suite of personalized, intuitive daily insights
SpaceX sets the stage for a record $75 billion IPO
Elon Musk’s SpaceX unveiled plans Wednesday to set a $135 share price in its initial public offering price, for a sale worth $75 billion. The blockbuster debut would make Musk – already the world’s richest person – the first-ever trillionaire.
Micah Parsons says he has 4 months left in ACL recovery; Packers pass rusher on track for October return
Google's Dreambeans, its weirdest-named AI tool to date, will turn your life into a cartoon
Dreambeans is a curated list of AI-illustrated "stories" culled from the personal data in your Google account.
Trump admin cracks down on Colorado school district that allegedly put up to 61 males on girls' sports teams
The U.S. Department of Education warns Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado over allegedly placing up to 61 male students on girls' sports teams.
Politics: What’s Life Like For The Government Employees Still Working?
More than 300,000 federal workers have left government service since the start of the second Trump administration.Some were laid off by the administration. Some took buyouts. Some walked out. The cuts hit every major agency — from the State Department to the Justice Department.That doesn’t mean things have been easy for those still working for the government. Last week, the Office of Personnel Management proposed requiring all federal employees to sign non-disclosure agreements that would prevent them from sharing internal government information.We sit down to talk about how those cuts are affecting the workers who remained.Find more of our programs online. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.
Uber lays off 23% of People and Places team, says AI isn't involved
Uber is laying off 23% of its People and Places team, or less than 1% of its global workforce. AI didn't factor into the layoffs, a spokesperson said.
WATCH: Rubio scorches claim Trump weighed finances in Iran decisions: ‘Not even for a millisecond’
Secretary of State Rubio calls allegations that Trump considered personal finances in Iran decisions "completely false" during heated House hearing.
Live entertainment boom fuels growth for MSG and Las Vegas Sphere
‘The Big Money Show’ highlights the booming live entertainment industry as Madison Square Garden benefits from the Knicks’ Finals run and Sphere reports strong growth amid rising demand for in-person experiences.
In Leaked Document, Microsoft Plots How to Get People "Addicted" to Its AI
Microsoft explicitly says it wants to "make people addicted" to its new AI personal assistant agent in internal documents.
AHA to celebrate Community Health Improvement Week, June 8-12
The AHA and health care organizations across the country will celebrate Community Health Improvement Week, June 8-12. CHI Week honors those working in partnership to improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities throughout the country. Hospitals and health systems are encouraged to plan in-person or virtual events to highlight and increase awareness of their work. LEARN MORE
Families push CES to expand science curriculum
A group of 13 families has expressed concerns over the quality of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education at Conners Emerson Elementary School, claiming that the current structure of
Why Kalshi Wants Businesses To Bet on the Knicks, Too
A Manhattan bar is using Kalshi as an insurance policy for a free-drinks promotion. This is the future prediction markets want.
Missing Congressman Tom Kean, Jr. Wins Primary
Kean, who hasn’t been seen in months, said he would be “completely transparent” about the medical condition that has sidelined him.
Plex adds new social features ahead of a major price hike for its lifetime pass
Plex has come a long way from being just a personal media server. Over the past few years, it has transformed into a streaming hub, today featuring
Jason Sudeikis calls dating 'daunting' following Olivia Wilde split in rare comment about personal life
Jason Sudeikis finds dating 'daunting,' he says, six years after he and Olivia Wilde ended their engagement.
Apple Announces Europe's First Developer Center
Apple today announced it will open Europe's first Apple Developer Center in Berlin later this year. The facility joins existing Developer Centers in Bengaluru, Cupertino, Shanghai, and Singapore. Apple said the Berlin center, located in Mitte district, will offer developers throughout Europe in-person sessions, workshops, and one-on-one appointments in multiple languages, with consultation areas and dedicated labs staffed by Apple experts.
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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