Harris has been grappling with the idea of the conscious mind for years through her work in meditation and mindfulness spaces (and in her 2019 book Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind). Part of what makes this inquiry so compelling is that the answers are so elusive…
I always enjoy arguing with Sean behind the scenes, but I was nervous about having this conversation in public view. It turns out (and is no surprise) that he has the same commitment to kindness, openness, generosity, and truth-seeking in public as he does in private. I had a blast, as always, taking consciousness with one of my favorite physicists!
I relished Annaka Harris’s documentary LIGHTS ON, reckoning with the mystery of felt experience and the possibility that consciousness might not be an emergent property of matter, as the current model holds, but fundamental, there from the very beginning of the universe, before gravity compacted the first atoms into the first stars to forge the first matter. Find my thoughts on and highlights from it on The Marginalian today…
My interview with my husband, Sam Harris, on his “Making Sense” podcast, in addition to a full chapter excerpt from LIGHTS ON, Chapter 8: Space and Time, is available now.
Click here to listen to the interview and LIGHTS ON, Chapter 8