Annaka HarrisEvery podcast appearance, updated as new ones drop

Science studies the world from the outside. But for thousands of years, meditators have been running a different experiment: sit still, pay close attention, and watch what reality does. The results of those experiments can feel unintuitive. The self is an illusion. Free will too. There is no thing that exists without other things. Here's the strange part: at the frontiers of physics, the science is catching up to this ancient wisdom. In this episode, author Annaka Harris tells the story of a lifetime spent watching her own mind, from the childhood migraines that taught her to meditate to the formation of the question she now asks leading physicists and philosophers. What if it's awareness all the way down? Her forthcoming book is Unlocking Consciousness: How Solving the Mystery Could Provoke a Scientific Revolution. That revolution begins with a wager: that felt experience is not something the brain produces but what the universe is made of. Subscribe to Futurology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Futurologypod The Futurology Podcast — full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkiuf1eRbAAHP4p--2IFJbn0CIdaZMva Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk Mentioned in this Episode: Unlocking Consciousness: How Solving the Mystery Could Provoke a Scientific Revolution — Annaka Harris (Book, Forthcoming, 2027) Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind — Annaka Harris (Book, 2019) The Gift of Fear — Gavin de Becker (Book, 1997) Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution — Carlo Rovelli (Book, 2021) Life as No One Knows It: The Physics of Life's Emergence — Sara Imari Walker (Book, 2024) Lights On – Annaka Harris (Audio documentary, 2024) "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" – Thomas Nagel (Essay, 1974) Mindful Games Activity Cards – Susan Kaiser Greenland with Annaka Harris (Cards, 2017) "Lifelike chemicals may hold the secret to the origin of life" — Adam Frank (Article, 2023) Lights On: How Understanding Consciousness Helps Us Understand the Universe — Annaka Harris (Audio documentary series, 2025) Where to Find Annaka Harris: Website Lights On (audio documentary) Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind Unlocking Consciousness: How Solving the Mystery Could Provoke a Scientific Revolution

In this episode of the Commune Podcast, Jeff Krasno sits down with New York Times bestselling author Annaka Harris to explore one of the most profound and enduring questions in science and philosophy: What is consciousness? Annaka is the author of Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind and the writer and producer of Lights On, a new audio documentary series that investigates the deepest mysteries of mind, matter, and awareness. Together, Jeff and Annaka examine the "hard problem" of consciousness—asking whether it’s simply a byproduct of brain activity or a fundamental aspect of reality itself. This conversation is a mind-bending journey to the frontiers of neuroscience, philosophy, and the very nature of being human. This podcast is supported by: Bon Charge Get 15% off when you order at boncharge.com and use promo code COMMUNE Puori Go to Puori.com/COMMUNE use promo code COMMUNE to save 20% on a one-time purchase Stemregen Get 20% off your first order at stemregen.co/commune with the code COMMUNEPOD QualiaGo to qualialife.com/commune to try Qualia Senolytic backed by a 100 day money back guarantee, and use promo code Commune to get 15% off! Biohacking Go to biohackingconference.com and get a 30% discount on ticket with the discount code COMMUNE30.

This is an episode of the podcast where I use this clipped discussion by the podcast Lex Fridman and the author of Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind by Annaka Harris (partner of Sam Harris) to open a discussion around the self, the idea of it being an illusion, and our sense of will. Anyway, I’ve always been hesitant in using the language of “illusion” around the sense of self, as I think it can have an unintended spiral effect that is not always helpful for the person coming into a certain “realization.” Why? The self is a default mode of being. The self is what we use to operate within the world. Our “self” is interacting with billions of other-selves…it might not always be best to call this an illusion, especially with our understanding of illusion in a modern context. I discuss more in the episode:) * The self becomes you that is created by the subjective experiences of an individual. * The self exists in some essence and interacts with the universe and the world around us, thus it is constantly moving and flowing and being influenced by our inner state and the external reality. The self flows with the tides of experience. “Our experience of consciousness is so intrinsic to who we are, we rarely notice that something mysterious is going on. Consciousness is experience itself, and it is therefore easy to miss the profound question staring us in the face in each moment: Why would any collection of matter in the universe be conscious?” — Annaka Harris The clip the audio is from: here A Philosopher’s Stone Letter Stay curious, Brenden This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendenslabyrinth.substack.com/subscribe