What Is CONSCIOUSNESS? Everything You Know Is FALSE | Annaka Harris

Annaka Harris is the New York Times bestselling author of CONSCIOUS: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind.

She is an editor and consultant for science writers, specializing in neuroscience and physics, and her work has appeared in The New York Times.

Annaka is the author of the children’s book I Wonder, a collaborator on the Mindful Games Activity Cards, and a volunteer mindfulness teacher for the Inner Kids organization.

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In this episode, we discuss:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:52 - As a kid, Annaka had a deeper sense of reality
00:05:15 - How Annaka got involved teaching meditation to children
00:08:53 - Integrating mindfulness into the school system
00:10:23 - Children learn to meditate easier than adults
00:19:20 - Practice meditating in the midst of everyday life
00:21:05 - Annaka’s early influence into meditation
00:26:53 - Why people have a hard time sticking to a meditation practice
00:31:42 - The emotions Annaka experienced on her first 5-day silent meditation retreat
00:38:43 - A radical shift is timeless
00:42:06 - Consciousness... the fundamental mystery of the mind
00:45:26 - Moving beyond panpsychism
00:49:16 - Consciousness as a felt experience
00:52:56 - The Integrated Information Theory
00:56:19 - The combination problem
00:58:10 - What is binding?
01:04:11 - Our conscious experience is lagging behind
01:06:36 - Free will vs. conscious will
01:13:18 - Brain processing is another part of nature
01:16:46 - When you see conscious will as an illusion
01:21:59 - How COVID is physically affecting the brain
01:26:25 - Your brain is always processing
01:31:28 - The location of consciousness

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About the Podcast
Jesse Chappus has in-depth conversations with health and wellness leaders from around the world. Topics include lifestyle, nutrition, fitness, self-help, sleep, meditation, spirituality and so much more. Tune in weekly to take your health to the next level!

[travisbickle]

the best interviewer and best questions I've ever heard or seen on Tedtalk or any podcast I swear!! amazing job that digs into theme most precisely about consciousness and experience ..WOW just WOW .. my uttermost respect man

[woodcutterdave]

Nice, deep dive. I gained some new prospective on the subject of consciousness. Thank you both. Great interview 🙏❤️

[DavidDW]

Interesting discussion, but I don't understand why Annaka is so hesitant to use the term 'panpsychism'. Unified Field Theory already dismisses space and time as fundamental, but rather emergent from fields. Fields of consciousness seem a great way to reconcile the granularity of experience highlighted by the combination problem, and not something we should dismiss merely because it sounds 'wacky'.

[extremistindustries]

The elements of what amount of decision capabilities is something that is still confusing to me. Example; I used to be quite fit and successful attended a gym 4+ nights per week. Now, twelve years on. I wish I would do so but have other mitigating factors involved (nightshift, dislike a room full of people more etc). Am I simply at the mercy of watching the show unravel (ie beat myself up about not working out) or am do I have some Will which I can exercise?

[dr.destressthebluezoneproj]

A newborn child comes into this world in an open state. Open mind, open heart, open soul, open spirit. They are in a nonjudgmental state. In my early forties, a doctor in India had been reading my post. I received an email from him. Are you a monk? At 50, I went to work on finding that answer. It took two years of studying my past to see it. Age 18 months, I went into a passive state. At age Six a near drowning brought me back to an active state. I was diagnosed mentally retarded, what they did t know. I was a One year old in a Six years old body. How my parents raised me would be like growing up in a Buddhist monastery. Without the use of words. What I discovered was that I lived like no one else. And because of how I was raised, I was able to hold on to these four laws. And they would bring me a great deal of success at being able to manage any business. 1. Accept everything, everyone, every situation without judging it as right or wrong, good or bad. 2. Take a genuine interest in every situation with an open mind and an open heart. Do not assume to know where it's going. 3. Let it all go. The second that moment ends, let it go as though it never happened. 4. Move on to whatever is coming next. -Like all adults, unlike young children. Adults wake up to a life designed around likes and dislikes. This practice will determine what kind of life you will have. When you live through the four laws. There are no likes or dislikes, because, you are living with a growth mindset. The now is always evolving into something new. You are always changing due to this. What you liked and disliked yesterday, isn't so today. If it is so, you will remain in this stuck state. Repeating the same things day after day. There is no growth.

[TonyVega]

"The closer you look, the less obvious it seems that it's even originating in brain processing" - Annaka Harris

Wow! I'm utterly fascinated by Annaka's question and I love that she is open to this idea. I can't help but wonder where her husband Sam stands on this one. I know he is a lot more open minded than Richard Dawkins, but one can't help but wonder if Annaka or Sam have had experiences during meditation that made them more open to questions they weren't that open to before. Thank you Jesse for this marvelous interview.