#264 — Consciousness and Self (Rebroadcast)

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Samharris, Currentevents, Politics, Ethics, Religion, Neuroscience, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.6 • 29.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2021

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode of the Making Sense podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Anil Seth about the scientific study of consciousness, where consciousness emerges in nature, levels of consciousness, perception as a “controlled hallucination,” emotion, the experience of “pure consciousness,” consciousness as “integrated information,” measures of “brain complexity,” psychedelics, different aspects of the “self,” conscious AI, and many other topics.

SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.

Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're
0:12.1	hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber feed and will only be hearing
0:16.2	the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense
0:20.7	Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at samharis.org. There you'll find our private RSS feed
0:26.1	to add to your favorite pod catcher, along with other subscriber-only content. We don't run ads
0:31.2	on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers.
0:35.8	So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one.
0:48.1	Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris.
0:51.5	No house keeping today, apart from mentioning that big things are happening over at waking up.
1:00.4	We have redesigned the app, and I'm really happy with the result.
1:06.0	Props to the team over there at waking up, and many good things happening on that front
1:12.7	that I'm excited about. Okay, well today I'm releasing a podcast that we originally aired
1:21.0	a few years ago. This is with Ann L. Seth, a quite celebrated neuroscientist.
1:28.8	And this was a really good conversation on consciousness that runs to three hours.
1:35.8	Ann L. has a new book out available today titled Being You, a New Science of Consciousness.
1:44.6	And I have not yet read the book. He was beginning to write it when we last spoke,
1:48.9	but I'm told it's fantastic. And it has received wonderful reviews and been endorsed by many smart people.
1:58.0	David Eagleman, Nicholas Humphrey, Alex Garland, the director of the film, X-Machina, Sean Carroll,
2:06.3	Nigel Warburton, and it's been endorsed by none other than my wife, Anika Harris.
2:12.4	So anyway, I look forward to reading it. I really enjoyed this conversation with Ann L.
2:17.8	He remains a professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex,
2:23.3	and the co-director of the Sackler Center for Consciousness Science.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Waking Up with Sam Harris, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Waking Up with Sam Harris and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.