Michael Pollan

And I guess maybe a place to start with the plants is you taught me something I didn't know, which is you can anesthetize a plant, right?

Isn't that mind-blowing?

Can you talk a bit about that experiment and what it seems to imply?

I appreciate when people troll each other in ways that laymen don't even—I was like, that seems fine.

Okay, so they're plant dorks.

Let me hold you on that, because as I understand the Thomas Nagel essay, it's that it is like something to the organism.

Yes, it's internal.

And so you could imagine a situation where a world in which

It is not like anything for the plant to be awake.

You give actually an example related to this in the book where you say, when you plug a toaster in, you can toast with it.

But when you plug it out, we don't think it is awake.

Like something different or unlike something for the toaster to be turned off.

I don't think it's like anything to be a toaster.

In either state.

The fact that something has response to stimuli doesn't necessarily imply it has a subjective experience.

You're a gardener.

Yeah.

Do you think you're causing plants pain by pruning them?

It's a grim way to put it.

Yeah, but if you... You say it'll make you crazy, but I actually, people know we're causing pain to cows and pigs and chickens and just don't think about it.