Michael Pollan: "Cannabis, The Importance of Forgetting, and the Botany of Desire"
2011 ж. 24 Қаз.
434 779 Рет қаралды
Michael Pollan presented his lecture as the 2002-2003 Avenali Chair in the Humanities at the Townsend Center for the Humanities, UC Berkeley. Pollan is the author of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, winner of the James Beard Award, The Omnivore's Dilemma, which was named one of the ten best books of the year by both The New York Times and The Washington Post, and The Botany of Desire, among others.
He went on to make Food Inc a film that has educated millions. What a great speaker with powerful energy.
Jewels I agree. I was surprised this brilliant, insightful man didn't receive a standing ovation. I found him to be humble and really admire him for speaking out on such controversial subject matter. Looking forward to reading his book.
Listening to him talk about the importance of forgetting is the best justification for lighting one up 🔥
Many people are tortured by the thought of them not being forgiven by god even though the Bible says god can literally forget your sins, we don’t and that’s what hurts many people
Don’t forget to participate in life too. I think people can fall in this trap by enjoying the company of the plant over people.
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@@skysharksingh Nothing he said excused use of weed. Weed prevents you from learning new things and stops you from forgetting the toxic and irrelevant. Cannabis is a poisonous plant. It reduces REM sleep. REM is where we choose what to forget and what to remember.
I've just been 'Pollanated' ! Thank you Sir Michael!
Hah! Clever! :D
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"Cannabis works on our minds in order to borrow our feet". Brilliant! Absolutely loved this talk.
Felt the same way when I heard him say it lmao
So does God
@@Doriesep6622 Which one?
What a stupid thing to say.
I've smoked weed since the age of 12. I'm now 56 and it has made my life So much better, I enjoy weed planting, harvesting, and smoking😁🌳❤️
I read your post after my post :) DING !
since the age of 12? Holy shit!
Planting, growing and harvesting. Getting close to earth. Good therapy.
Your my best friend
You got me beat by a few years... Started at 13. Just finished a bowl at 53. Still ride bicycle 100 miles a week, hit the gym 5 times a week, held a job my whole life, and am healthier and happier than many of my peer group.
This talk is timeless, thanks! from 🇨🇦 Let’s get back to nature in 2020.
What a phenomenal lecture! Thank you for uploading it.
Absolutely incredible lecture
I love Michael Pollen and his abstract views and how ordinary things can look so advanced
Absolutely incredible lecture, thanks for uploading!
Awesome lecture due to his personality bringing the information alive.🥳
This man is brilliant. Thank you Sir. 🙏🏽
What an impressive and interesting lecture. There's so much to learn here, I'm blown away.
Been longin for a talk like this!
Great lecture!
Michael Pollan 👍thank you for sharing and caring.Your talk has truly been an inspiration.,the insight you’ve shared are greatly appreciated.✌🏼✨
What an excellent interesting lecture, thank you 😊
Although I have enjoyed many controlled substances for recreational purposes all throughout my life, I discovered I didn't want to use them whenever I was involved in healthier physical and intellectual activities. Peer pressure and being unsupervised at a young age led to my experimenting with them, a psychological addiction to marijuana, health issues, abhorrent behavior resulting in a criminal record and a tremendous waste of time and money. The failures of much more meaningful personal relationships and loss of time not spent with loved ones, while being involved with the use of mind altering substances, have been the greatest tragedies of my life. Use your mind to figure out how to have fun without damaging it, lest you prove yourself to be lacking in intelligence. Our mere discovery of these substances is no more reason to use them than eating dog poop because you found it in your yard. I support the research of anything that can be used medicinally, but let's not forget that drugs are for the sick. Take it from someone who has had decades of experience and knows the truth, because I'm still plagued from time to time with an insatiable desire to burn one. Every drug I ever took or drop of alcohol I drank was a mistake that defined me as a dumb ass!
Hey man, i totally agree with you. I had the exact same experiences that you had from using these drugs. At first it felt like a bliss but after a decade when i look back i realised i could have done some things in much more better if i was sober than high. I quit both weed n alcohol after i involved in an accident. As you say still fighting with the thoughts (sometimes) of lighting one up just to watch my fav program on tv. Im married with 2 kids now all i care n worried now is how to prevent this drugs and alcohol from entering their life.
Great talk!
It's interesting the uterus has cannabinoid receptors and explains why it was always a perfect antidote to sever period cramps in my 20s. Funnily enough it wouldn't get me high when I smoked it for pain relief but it sure as hell fixed crippling menstrual cramping. It should be prescribed to women who experience terrible pain during menstruation.
Cannabinoid receptors in the uterus...That explains why I rarely had cramps. It also explains why I don't have the horrid hot flashes and mood swings any longer. Thank you for sharing this valuable information with us.
Georgia Albert - Smoking Woman do you mean hot flashes of the menopause?
@@tracik1277 Absolutely! Cannabis also control mood swings and depression.
Thanks for posting!
Yes! Absolutely its enough that they can eat sun and do all these wonderful things! Thanks for this delightful talk!
So fascinating to see Michael Pollan as a young man, from the point of view from 2019. 💕👏 fundamental evolution! Love the undertone humor jabs at the audience *edit spelling
A revolutionary botanist and a scientist (they use to call them prophets) way ahead of his time. Thank you Mr. Pollan your spores have survived as predicted!
Hit the blunt listen to this
i am an artist and sooo many of my artist friends are hung up on weed. Many do other 'stuff' too. Not one of them proves to be enlightened. They drug out because they can't handle their heads. MEDITATION is the path to well being and Spiritual growth. The joy increases as i go deeper on the inward journey. When i was in the hospital the nurse gave me a morphone shot and asked "How do you like it?" i told her "No place i haven't been on my own". MEDITATION!
HEAVENLY LIGHT Temple ehh. How did you wind up on this video
HEAVENLY LIGHT Temple Right. It doesn’t help them create, it makes them high. They don’t accomplish anything. In a few years they are not struggling young artists, working, striving, misunderstood by society, etc. Nope, they are too old for that. Others have taken their,places. They are now seen as lazy bums who are all talk. An embarrassment to humanity. Friends and family get tired of paying their bills for them.
Michael Pollen is brilliant, and he possesses a fresh and clever sense of humor. I discovered through personal experience that Cannabis stops and prevents the dreaded Hot Flashes and mood swings. I'd like to know how this is accomplished. I figure Cannabis is a natural food for humans, and that the lack of Cannabis in our diet brings on the negative hot flashes and mood swings as a result.
A lady friend has recently started Cannabis therapy to manage the Hot Flashes and Mood Swings since Cannabis has become legal in Nevada with marvelous results. My friend and her husband no longer think about divorce, because her moods have leveled out and she is a much happier person. They go for walks together, their sex life has improved, and laughter has returned to their happy home.
Now this is a lecture I can fall asleep to. Nite nite !
great great great information
This is awesome!
i'm upset that i didn't discover it much sooner. has completely changed my life for the better in pretty much every way imaginable.
Enki.....Better pehaps you found it when you did. Had you discovered it when you were young, you may have had undesirable effects. Everything has its time. *~:)
Excellent well received and well spoken
Wow last answer nailed it on the head. Great improv Polan!
Soooo Brilliant
What I learned in School, not everything but history and math stuff, not working outdoors, making gardens and so forth. I have taken many drugs, now I only use medical marijuana and have dedicated my life to protecting plants, and their care. Love this
we need the prohibition lifted now.
A very interesting discussion. Thanks.
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Mr. Pollen does good service . . . excellent service in using his credibility as a respected author to help illuminate areas of consciousness that mainstream mostly considers off limits, at least superficially. The only complaint I have with Pollen, something he does with this Berkeley talk and to some extent with his latest book, "How to Change Your Mind", is his unwillingness to plant the flag for freedom of consciousness. He always slips into his talks and books the "qualifiers". They are transparent and hypocritical and unworthy of someone ostensibly making the point, in his own way, that a society so intrusive that it deigns to tell its citizens what they can and cannot do with their own minds, is just plain facist. Things are changing, slowly, and to a great extent thanks to the likes of Mr. Pollen and his books and lectures which are rubbing this material under the noses of the fundamentalists and other double digits, but these sly disclaimers he taints his message with are craven and unworthy. If we as citizens of a country where the pursuit of happiness is written into our constitution, cannot do as we choose with our own minds - then that constitution isn't worth the hemp it was written on. I guess he's leaving it for others to decry the hypocrisy of this country's laws that allow cigarettes and alcohol - two of the most deadly drugs on the planet and sold in every corner store, to thrive while incarcerating and often ruining the lives of those whose interest in consciousness alteration leads them to less sordid and more interesting substances.
31:35, hits the nail on the head !
The Botany of Desire was a great read. Need to get some of his other books.
I was pondering this other day, that we (as humans) "work for plants. We provide everything for them. We spread their seeds, we reproduce them on a large scale. Farms are nothing more than plant factories. They take up more real estate than all animals combined. All they have to do is taste good or provide a fiber or a drug that we want or need. Plants have maximized the energy of the Sun, we are only now making a very weak attempt to capture the energy....plants have done this for at least 13,000,000 years ago. Clearly M. Pollan was decades ahead of me. Good video.
Very interesting indeed... Some authors propose that we were domesticated (to force to live in a _domo_ ) by plants (wheat for example), not the other way around.
the most important part: "the Greeks understood this was not something to be undertaken lightly or too often. Intoxication for them was a carefully circumscribed ritual, never a way to live, because they understood that Dionysus can make angels of us or animals; it all depends"
Djalma Reis I like being an angel and being offered the freedom of choice.
He looks very cool with shaved head (over the last few years). Couldn't believe when I saw what hairstyle he was sporting earlier. Happy for him taking the right decision.
the answers at the end are actually pretty good points to think about
Wow great lecture, his journalistic lens has a broad depth of focus.
Holy shit. I'm very glad Michael ditched the comb over.
I believe that Muriel Hemingway the actress remembers every minute of every day of her life. I've heard her interviewed and when given a random date and year and she is able to recall, for example, the acting job she was at, who all, by name was there, what they said, ate, did, etc. And does it minute by minute with complete detail. Such powers of observation as well as recall, seem supernatural, or at least beyond normal. It is amazing to witness.
key4us2c My friend can do this. She can remember things like what everyone was wearing on a given day, who said what etc etc.
and what she was wearing
It's Marilu Henner, not Mariel Hemingway.
@@benmcclen2880 thank you I stand corrected. I was not sure...
This guy is smart and appreciated
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Hendrix was/is a big fave of mine. I know alot about Hendrix' music. I have performed most of the songs of the first 2 albums. Hendrix was often stuck in the 12 bar blues style. He needed more time to mature. He often made alot of noise when he performed. "VooDoo Chile" and "Here my Train..." are good examples of his improvs. He also dabbles into good jazz on the "Axis" album.
Price less mind-blowing topic
What's even more weird about memory is that without it our sense of time dissolves. We need memory to record the past and calculate survival strategies, a function of ego. To extend this further, time is a function of entropy and the difference between the chaos of new sensory data to the order of organised and structured data. It's the movement between these states that gives the illusion of time moving in a linear way. So our ability to remember and forget are intrinsic to our experience of reality itself, by changing the function path of memory we change our experience of reality. Much like meditation who's primary goal is to dissolve all sensory input and witness reality beyond the material world. But even meditation is a hack of the system to produce endogenous chemicals that alter our sensory experience.
Terrence Mckenna talked about plants and human consciousness
Dennis
Fuck you
@@googull2201 Sup brah? Wanna go?
Radiation, RESPECT
Except from us not being mice, excellent talk. Thank you.
Badass combover…love this guy 😎
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I like this guy.
maybe the sacrifice of short term memory is worth the creative glorious beauty that comes from being high. As you said, great musicians, writers, etc create from the glory they feel inside the moment... the oneness with all. who cares who you saw at the grocery store, its not important. finding and realizing your own oneness with the Father of all creation... and all.... is the only point period! :) thank you MJ
I loved your book so much! Have you thought about doing a second edition to include pumpkins, pine trees for Christmas, and white willow bark?
amazing
Awesome 😍😍😍👌
brilliant
not to mention the respiratory benefits of growing plants in the same room you sleep in. the vapor pressure deficit working to benefit us by pulling toxins out of our lungs. Also the sedative and relaxing benefits because of the smells, the flavors, the colors all of this draws us to it. Entourage effect at work
I did a master degree research proposal for these claims, and after a hundred or so of reading scientific articles on the subject, the conclusion was that the benefits from plants were mostly psychological, with two factors : warm glow (pleasure of caring for something) and control (pleasure of controlling the plant). Other factors such as color, smell etc were difficult to prove at all, most experimental designs were arguably questionable at best, wanting to cherry pick a noticeable effect, when there were none to be found.
@@Rhinoch8 You may want to study it a little more. Constantly changing and discovering new things. Stay open. Or positive. Placebo or not it works. Doesn't matter how just matters that it works. The brain is a powerful thing.
Interesting...its not just the cannabis plants it is all plants. Without plants there is no oxygen!!! I find it hilarious that anyone would think that there is no benefits from more plants with produce more oxygen production and air scrubbing properties.. Pretty sure we are supposed to be tending to the garden for our own benefit as well as the earth. Master degree or not... You will still need oxygen.. more plants more oxygen production and toxin removal from the environment.
46:35. To "forget what is not important."
Thank you
The iboga tree.....second bark....now that is the tree of knowledge! In my humble estimation.
Person: [mumbles awkwardly] Pollan: "Yes madam, you smoke too much weed."
Gardens Beautiful creations By man or nature All necessary to mankind
Most people don't see that
The first time I smoked weed after 15 years I asked the question, "What is the fruit of the original sin?". It took me 3 years to figure it out. Attachment is the eating part and judgement is the fruit (produced by the knowledge of good and evil, the tree's namesake). Forgiveness it's spitting it up and grace is leaving at the tree.
Dr. Hurt and Dr. Payne - dentists; Dr. Stork - veterinarian.
Plants are Planted and incredible!
Very interesting the proposal that plants and animals may evolve to keep their genes going rather than a single being all existential and such like and so evolve to be tasty so as to be consumed and therefore carry your memory into the future by making people grow more food because it's tasty. Yet as a musician and writer I realise that that's exactly what I am trying to do existentially by staying remembered and having my words and songs and suchlike 'consumed' and so going on into the future.And it's interesting that if a song or guitar lick is good you refer to it as tasty.
I'd love to see that garden of his.
Dioscorides is the father of all botany, he wrote and analyzed plants to an extent, long before Terrence Mckenna, and Michael Pollan. He wrote about herbal medicine and related medicinal substances when others were still jumping from branch to branch.
Luther Burbank developed his spineless cactus by painfully convincing it to stop hurting him when he tried to lovingly touch it. That story and much more is in the fascinating book, "The Secret Life Of Plants". Plants have consciousness, as does the Earth.
My childhood eye doctor's name was Dr. Tear.
Haha I love you! ❤
27:20 This is crazy! hearing him speak of different worlds(realms), altering consciousness, religion etc. and this is as far back as 2002, he knew/knows a ton more than what he let on when he release his books on psychedelics.
Appetite for all things depends upon forgetting.....developing an appetite is the joy of remembering how good things are or were....appetite
Great lecture, seems like these views haven't caught on in the last decade. Also, damn Pollan that shirt is gigantic.
In Japan his hairstyle is called the "Barcode"
It's ok. I have the same look. Theres not alot we can do about it accept embrace it
i was wondering who would comment..have not seen a comb over in a while
@@devinglis3179 If you have this hairstyle your best bet is to cut your hair short. Its a manly look and it says that you are comfortable with your head. Otherwise its like you are just pretending to have hair. Please tell me you don't comb it over
Very good Bart Fart. Great observation.
@@bartfart3847 you got him fart, you ve got im fart!
good, remember when his book came out
Michael, can you do a video on Kratom?(see KZhead's: "Chris Bell on Kratom". I am curious about the nutritional value.
I like that you requested/mentioned this! I have older friends who are so "anti-THC" for themselves but Kratom is a daily - and totes noticeable when they've taken it! lol
Nice combover mike
Very well put and incredible lecture. It started as a scientific exposition and then suddenly picked up into poetic oratory to a climax. I can see a bit of McKenna/Watts influence here.
Much less ‘woo’ though…
Drugs can make you think drugs are the source of imagination.
You don’t say.
Huh. Quite true, I am stuck in that issue in my real life.
My gastroentorolgist's name was Dr Ring and non of the staff members had even thought of it, ot given voice to it a least.
At the age of 54, I have just completed my Masters degree in education, and believe me cannabis played an important role in thinking and writing critically, it allowed me to open up my mind and enter deep fruitful thought. I achieved a distinction. I have been using cannabis virtually everyday since I was around 16. I left school at 15 with no qualifications and I am now a professional teacher of children, a master carpenter. mechanical engineer, computer programmer, a good artist and also a fair guitarist. I have a theory........
I am quite sure that the powers that be DO NOT want the SHEEPLE to partake in cannabis use, as it, in my opinion, will create unwanted questioning, which goes against THEIR agenda.
@WOOBOE A good, and equally interesting, reply my friend. The brain is built (and reconstructed throughout life), of that there is no doubt. All healthy human babies are born with the same amount of brain cells (around 100 billion) and synapses are formed, which are either strengthened or pruned with the acquisition of knowledge. The effects of cannabis on the human brain is still not fully understood and I can only put forward my theory through experience. Cannabis does without a doubt "temporally" effect short term memory but, FOR ME this was/is not a problem as I have built my brain in such a way that deeper and critical thinking is achieved and in this state critical memory seems to be somehow enhanced. Bottom line is, I believe cannabis is a tool, it can be used for good but it can also be detrimental (as I know through a friend who became schizophrenic through smoking genetically modified skunk weed, which I do not condone) I say Horses for Courses, it does, and will not, suit everyone. (EDIT) When one has an interest in something then it is easier to become a master in this field, this is a fact that we are not taught as a adolescent when planning a career. Who would sweep the streets of stock our supermarket shelves? Food for thought :)
Michael, what do you think of Runes? Each tree is precious and conscious
"Not only do I think Marijuana should be legal, it should be mandatory!"-Bill Hicks
Bill, I understand your opinion and your unspoken reasoning for legalizing it. You like the results and you can control yourself while using. However, imagine this. Pot affects people differently and so does alcohol. Some and many people can't control their actions while using alcohol and do strange things. If pot was legal , we would then find, since it it legal and available, more people experimenting with it or just using it and not controlling their actions which could cause even more chaos and calamity in our society. Pot should remain illegal, that way for the most part, the only people using it are the ones that can handle the effects of it. Govt. Is pushing legalization for the reason of having more control over our free will . They want us to think that they are giving in to us and allowing us free will and choice by legalizing pot. It,s a part of the long ongoing deception that they manufacture to keep us dumbed down and easily controlled. Just saying.
@@skywatcher5978 ¿
There is an endo cannabinoid system of the body temple garden, and the growth and incense of the body Garden is expected, the body temple garden needs it's vegan or better mulch, so it's not like a swamp (Essene Gospels of Peace) .
There is an endo cannabinoid system of the body temple garden, and the growth and incense of the body Garden is expected, the body temple garden needs it's vegan or better mulch, so it's not like a swamp (Essene Gospels of Peace) .
@@skywatcher5978 Lots of people who have trouble being calm after smoking pot. I used to love smoking pot and then I would be so paronoid and had to try to calm down, It's never been the same since, I was 12 when I started smoking pot and about 20 I was paranoid unless I took a tranquilizer like Valium or something like that!
The bit about his cat. Sheer genius
Kalun Myers Funny as funny can be! Did the cat really need him to show where the cat nip was, every time? Or was the cat asking for his approval or maybe his garden is absolutely huge.... either way. Funny indeed. ❣️
He had a "stoner kitty" LOL!!!!!! (24mins)
To forget is huge in cases of multiple sclerosis.
There was an orthodontist near my home who's name was Dr. Straight.... no joke.
I know a women who remembers everything , everything no matter how obscure or petty , and another thing she is really good at is recalling those very same , erhm , issues we will call them now .
is that your wife?
This is interesting.
I think marijuana should be legalized. But ONLY for medicinal purposes..AND recreational purposes...but that's it.
But that's it! No more, no less.
I think it should be weaponized by the military, too.
Joe Smith pretty hard to weaponise a non-toxic medicine with no harmful side effects
maskof and yet they have done just this!
2019 and Denver decriminalized magic mushrooms lol
Very interesting the history of the marjuana plat. One can also hypothetise that if some used it to burn it for heat they may have gotten on a high hence ativating the creatve side of the brain leding to the typical romantic on oppiads wrieters habit of burnin manuscripts cycle.
Great lecture!...except his suit makes me think I'm watching David Byrne wax lyrical about pot. The Herb Superb!
I think your cat just wanted to see if it could train YOU. 😆
I smoke boat loads of weed. I have serious memory issues. And now I find out I’m brilliant. Lol. So funny 😂
Everything in moderation.
Katanya Jason - thank you 🙏🏽. In our culture we teach to strive for balance. Moderation & balance. Very important yes. 😉
@@jesseg9088 Yes, balance is the key! 😊
Your brilliant in your own mind.
George Mooyman - Yes. Hopefully so. For it is there that opinion really counts. 🙏🏽
On what date did this occur?