Powell's Presents: Michael Pollan in Conversation With Dave Miller - TICKETED EVENT

Name: Powell's Presents: Michael Pollan in Conversation With Dave Miller - TICKETED EVENT
Start: 2026-03-03T19:30:00-08:00
Location: Revolution Hall

Schedule

Tue, 03 Mar, 2026 at 07:30 pm

UTC-08:00

Location

Revolution Hall | Portland, OR

JUST ANNOUNCED: Michael Pollan in Conversation With Dave Miller at Revolution Hall on Tuesday, March 3 at 7:30 PM.
📕🎟️: Purchase your book-inclusive ticket here: https://www.powells.com/events/michael-pollan-9781984881991
When it comes to the phenomenon that is consciousness, there is one point on which scientists, philosophers, and artists all agree: it feels like something to be us. Yet the fact that we have subjective experience of the world remains one of nature’s greatest mysteries. How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by feelings, thoughts, and a sense of self? What would a scientific investigation of our inner life look like, when we have as little distance and perspective on it as fish do of the sea? In A World Appears (Penguin Press), Michael Pollan traces the unmapped continent that is consciousness, bringing radically different perspectives — scientific, philosophical, literary, spiritual, and psychedelic — to see what each can teach us about this central fact of life. When neuroscientists began studying consciousness in the early 1990s, they sought to explain how and why three pounds of spongy gray matter could generate a subjective point of view — assuming that the brain is the source of our perceived reality. Pollan takes us to the cutting edge of the field, where scientists are entertaining more radical (and less materialist) theories of consciousness. He introduces us to “plant neurobiologists” searching for the first flicker of consciousness in plants, scientists striving to engineer feelings into AI, and psychologists and novelists seeking to capture the felt experience of our slippery stream of consciousness. In Pollan’s dazzling exploration of consciousness, he discovers a world far deeper and stranger than our everyday reality. Eye-opening and mind-expanding, A World Appears takes us into the laboratories of our own minds, ultimately showing us how we might make better use of the gift of awareness to more meaningfully connect with our deepest selves. Pollan will be joined in conversation by Dave Miller, host of OPB's Think Out Loud.
Please note: Tickets for this event include admission, as well as one hardcover copy of Pollan’s A World Appears. Books distributed at event.