Michael Pollan: “Psychedelics have a way of smudging the windshield of experience” Cayce Clifford/Guardian/eyevine Author Michael Pollan has tackled plants, food and psychedelics in bestselling books including The Omnivore’s Dilemma and How to Change Your Mind . Now, he has taken on the thorny problem of consciousness. In his latest book A World Appears: A journey into consciousness , Pollan charts the work of scientists and philosophers, weaving in literary perspectives along the way. He spoke to New Scientist about the value of writing a book where you know less at the end than before you started. Olivia Goldhill: Let’s start with a deceptively tricky question: how do you define consciousness? Michael Pollan: The simplest way is to define it as subjective experience. We have subjective experience; toasters do not. You could even take off the “subjective” because having experience implies being aware that you’re having experience.…