Jun 4, 2026 11:36 PM
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/wilso...ld-appears
EXCERPTS: Here’s an idea for a game show. It’s called “Materialists on Mushrooms.” A bunch of hardheaded scientists gather in a room to discuss the fundamental nature of consciousness. Each contestant is then given a progressively larger quantity of psilocybin to consume. To stay in the game, the scientists must continue to deny that their increasingly vivid and bizarre experiences are anything more than the product of purely physical reactions in the brain. The final materialist still to hold out wins, rewarded with the collected works of Proust and a stomach pump.
Obviously, I’m being facetious. But if Michael Pollan’s illuminating new book, A World Appears, is anything to go by, something analogous is already playing out in the world of consciousness research...
[...] Koch’s experiences have led him to recognize “the abject inability of physicalism to explain or even deal with consciousness.” These days, he subscribes to a form of idealism, the belief that consciousness, not matter, lies at the bedrock of reality. “Without a mind to observe it,” Koch says during a Zoom call, “the tree doesn’t exist—as a thing with a certain form differentiated from the ground and the sky. Without that observer, it’s just ontological dust… Only consciousness exists for itself.”
Pollan, sensibly, is more cautious, echoing David Chalmers’s wry observation that the only seemingly plausible theories of consciousness are those you haven’t given any proper thought to... (MORE - details)
EXCERPTS: Here’s an idea for a game show. It’s called “Materialists on Mushrooms.” A bunch of hardheaded scientists gather in a room to discuss the fundamental nature of consciousness. Each contestant is then given a progressively larger quantity of psilocybin to consume. To stay in the game, the scientists must continue to deny that their increasingly vivid and bizarre experiences are anything more than the product of purely physical reactions in the brain. The final materialist still to hold out wins, rewarded with the collected works of Proust and a stomach pump.
Obviously, I’m being facetious. But if Michael Pollan’s illuminating new book, A World Appears, is anything to go by, something analogous is already playing out in the world of consciousness research...
[...] Koch’s experiences have led him to recognize “the abject inability of physicalism to explain or even deal with consciousness.” These days, he subscribes to a form of idealism, the belief that consciousness, not matter, lies at the bedrock of reality. “Without a mind to observe it,” Koch says during a Zoom call, “the tree doesn’t exist—as a thing with a certain form differentiated from the ground and the sky. Without that observer, it’s just ontological dust… Only consciousness exists for itself.”
Pollan, sensibly, is more cautious, echoing David Chalmers’s wry observation that the only seemingly plausible theories of consciousness are those you haven’t given any proper thought to... (MORE - details)