Michael is quite simply one of the best nonfiction writers out the planet: a real role model. He’s been a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine since 1987, and he’s the bestselling author of many books, including How to Change Your Mind — which I reviewed in 2018 — and its sequel, This Is Your Mind on Plants, which we discussed on the Dishcast in 2021. This week we covered his new book, A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness.
An auto-transcript is available above (just click “Transcript” while logged into Substack). For two clips of our convo — on the magic of spontaneous thoughts, and the consciousness of kids — head to our YouTube page.
Other topics: toasters and other things that don’t have consciousness; Thomas Nagel’s bat; panpsychism; Francis Crick trying to solve consciousness; the global neuronal workspace theory; how brains are not like computers; AI and consciousness; Proust; James Joyce; Wordsworth and the Romantics; William James and stream of consciousness; Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport; words on the tip of your tongue; phenomenology; letting your mind wander; Addison’s Walk at Oxford; how smartphones distract from thinking; Trump taking up our headspace; Oakeshott and “the deadliness of doing”; AI and UBI; Allison Gopnik’s lantern vs spotlight consciousness; how a child’s brain resembles an adult’s on psychedelics; ego death; the default mode network; meditation; the flow state of deep reading; the benefits of boredom; habit and ritual; my 10-day silent meditation retreat; the sentience of plants; Buddhism and Matthieu Ricard; the soul; the film Into Great Silence; and the disenchantment of the Enlightenment.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy. Coming up: Jeffrey Toobin on the pardon power, Derek Thompson on abundance, Matt Goodwin on the earthquake in UK politics, Jonah Goldberg on the state of conservatism, Tom Holland on the Christian roots of liberalism, Tiffany Jenkins on privacy, Adrian Wooldridge on “the lost genius of liberalism,” Tom Junod on his memoir and masculinity, and Kathryn Paige Harden on the genetics of vice and virtue. As always, please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
From a fan of last week’s episode:
I can’t thank you enough for your conversation with Sally Quinn.
I grew up in Washington reading the Style section. Her work inspired me to pursue journalism, and the lessons I learned about the moral power of journalism from Katherine Graham and Ben Bradlee gave my aspiration meaning. (As a teenager on my way to M Street taverns, I may have stolen a parking place in their Georgetown driveways.) Without knowing for sure, I felt adjacent to them, certain that inside those narrow entryways and sparkling parlors, special people were pouring glasses of wine and sharing supper to preserve and preserve peace and enlightenment.
I never did become a journalist. The Post is no longer. But Sally Quinn is still my heartthrob.
Another fan:
Quite possibly my most favorite episode of the Dishcast yet! Thank you for this wonderful conversation.
Another has a quick story:
I enjoyed your chat with Sally Quinn. She certainly seems to know everyone and has revealing insights about them.
Her description of Bill Clinton as a flawed charmer reminded me of the experience of friends who met him as a demonstration of what a great politician he was. Irv was a very wealthy businessman, but he and his wife were also extreme conservatives who absolutely hated Clinton. A business associate had agreed to deliver a table for a $25,000-a-plate fundraiser and was desperate to fill it. He pleaded with Irv to buy two seats, and Irv refused to give Clinton a penny until the associate promised to make it up to him.
When Irv and his wife attended the fundraiser, Clinton worked the room, came over, and chatted with them. Irv told me that after five minutes, both he and his wife wanted to fuck him.
Ha! The most fitting adjective for Bill Clinton is and always has been “seductive”. Another on the Clintons:
I love Sally Quinn reminiscing on Bill’s treatment of Hillary — letting her debase herself. I have a feeling the exact same thing is going on today with Epstein stories and Hillary’s angry denial that Bill was only hitching free rides on Epstein’s plane. C’mon Hillary!
Here’s a book recommendation:
I loved the conversation you had with Sally Quinn, and I was inspired by the part about faith. I’m sure you have already read the book, but if not one, of the best books I have read on the contemplative life is A Time to Keep Silence by PL Fermor. The irony is that he was a party animal, traveller extraordinaire, and even captured a German general in WWII! It’s very short and very good.
Thanks! Haven’t read it. Now I will if I get a chance. On another recent pod:
While listening to your Jonathan Rauch conversation and how Trump fits into fascism, I couldn’t help but consider an alternative interpretation. Consider the following facts and propositions:
Trump’s intellect is damaged and deteriorating.
His most successful venture — his only successful venture, until his presidential campaigns — was his role on The Apprentice.
He’s reported to be a television addict.
What do we see in this administration? Many Cabinet-level people picked for their look for their particular job. Fed chairman nominee Kevin Warsh is “right out of central casting,” according to Trump. He elevated a junior general to the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because he liked his name. Homan is the border czar because he looks tough and is quite articulate. (Have you noticed that Homan is beginning to melt into a puddle? Noem’s behavior is so awful he doesn’t know what to do ... but Noem sure looks like a DHS secretary, doesn’t she?)
Trump is all about the visible signs of being head of the strongest nation on earth: invading Venezuela, missile strikes on defenseless boats that might be fishing boats, complaining that Minneapolis has been ruined and sending in the closest thing he has to troops (and where political opponent Walz is in charge), working on territorial acquisitions such as Canada and Greenland … these are all part of a script he has in a head. (There’s so much that could be here, including Chad Bauman’s observations concerning Trump’s religious upbringing.)
Fascist? Sure, maybe. It’s almost an irrelevant classification, because we don’t impeach and distrust folks based on whether they belong in one or more categories; we do it for specific violations of certain laws, and those violations can be committed by people of many categories. But Trump’s intellectual degradation indicates he’s trying to integrate reality and his dreamscape into one, and so long as we don’t remove him, I’m more or less terrified.
Yes, terror is never that distant while he is in control. On an upcoming episode:
I’m sure you and Chris do your research on guests, but I do recommend you read this piece, on Nick Cohen’s substack, about Matt Goodwin, before speaking to him on the Dishcast. I felt rather positively about Goodwin when I first encountered him: a guy writing about populism without the lefty sneering and automatically associating it with racism. But unfortunately he has, like too many others, decided there’s a lot more fame and fulfilment for his ego available in being the “house intellectual” for a political movement than in serious scholarship.
Well, he just lost his by-election to the Green Party. And of course I’m not going to suck up. But I think it’s worth airing the view from Reform UK. And interrogating it.
Here’s a guest rec:
I suggest you consider Father Paul Morrissey, an Augustinian priest in Philadelphia. He has published four books, the latest being Why I Remain a Gay Catholic, in which he explains the integration of his gay sexuality with his vocational calling. I think he has very important things to say about his specific situation, and about the issue of gay priests and religion in general. He has gotten some national attention in book readings and discussions, but mainly for an interview on a podcast called “The God Show,” hosted by Pat McMahon.
Here’s a reader on last week’s column, “What The Dems Should Say On Trans Rights”:
I just wanted to let you know that not all of us are rolling our eyes at yet another column on the trans issue (and every word of this one is right on the money). You can stop writing about it whenever we see the slightest sign that the Democrats are beginning to acknowledge how foolishly they’ve handled the issue until now. And I’m saying this as a longtime registered Dem — albeit one who wakes up every morning wondering whether today will be the day I become an Independent.
Thanks. Another ditched the Dems already:
Preach it, Andrew. The trans issue is the reason I cannot be a Democrat any longer. I cannot be a member of any party or movement that insists “trans women are women, period” — no debate, nothing but dogma, plus a veiled threat. I cannot ally myself with such people, regardless of the other issues. If they demand ideological adherence to this maxim, what other maxims must I pledge allegiance to, “period”?
And another:
As usual, you’ve written another thoughtful and insightful piece. Your description of the sacralization of minorities is spot-on, and it’s one of the clearer articulations of the progressive worldview that I’ve read.
However, you’ve failed to really grapple with the underlying implication here.
