Explore every episode of the podcast LIGHTS ON AUDIO DOCUMENTARY TEASER

Most people can understand the illusion of self intellectually, but it’s another thing to grasp it on an experiential level—to know what it’s like to move through the world without the illusion. It is, in fact, possible to be aware of all of the usual things (sights, sounds, even thoughts) without feeling like the subject of all of those things or like a “self” who experiences those things. But this is something that’s quite difficult to communicate through language, which fails us when we’re trying to describe an experience to someone who hasn’t had it before. In Chapter 5, Annaka walks the audience through her personal experience of attending a silent meditation retreat and dropping the illusion of self in meditation. She then speaks with two neuroscientists, Anil Seth and David Eagleman, about the experience of self at the level of the brain.

At the heart of science, we face an utterly perplexing question: What is physics describing? What is it fundamentally about? What are the natural laws, laws of? From the perspective of physics, the fundamental stuff of the universe still eludes us, especially if we try to fit the findings of quantum mechanics into a traditional conception of matter and energy. From the perspective of neuroscience, we’ve learned that the world “out there” is not a direct perception, and our perceptions may have even evolved to hide the truth from us, as Donald Hoffman argues. And then from the perspective of the philosophy of mind, Annaka’s own research, reading, and further thinking leads her to believe that consciousness is more likely a fundamental property than an emergent one. Could this different approach help us answer the age-old question? And how would the sciences even attempt to move forward with the hypothesis that consciousness is fundamental? How might we conceivably acquire evidence or validate it experimentally?

Tools like microscopes uncover vast worlds that were previously hidden from us—we could hardly grasp the reality of invisible organisms before the microscope allowed us to perceive them, let alone the realms that have been revealed through telescopes and particle colliders. What tools might we discover in the future to help us reach beyond the familiar experimental neuroscience that Anil Seth and others have relied on so far? We have many intuitions for the laws of physics because we feel them at work through our senses. In Chapter 6, Annaka contemplates where sensory addition work, like David Eagleman’s, might lead. We also explore the ways science might expand in order to address questions about consciousness, as well as about fields, forces, and matter we don’t naturally perceive.

Observing plant behavior helps us investigate our assumptions about consciousness from a new angle. Most of us share the intuition that plants aren’t conscious. But when we look more closely at plant behaviors that fall into the surprisingly similar behavioral categories we might call pain, fear, or even love, we can ask ourselves why we think consciousness is necessary for certain behavior in animals, but not in plants. Is it possible that any processing of information, and subsequent behavior, in plants is accompanied by felt experience? Or, alternately, perhaps we don’t need consciousness to perform human behavior in the ways we have always assumed? In Chapter 4, Annaka talks to Daniel Chamovitz, Zoë Schlanger, and Patrick House about the wonderful world of plants and parasites.

Philosophy and science share a common commitment: seeking truth, along with a willingness to upend one’s intuitions in order to accept an answer that might feel uncomfortable or counterintuitive. The relationship between philosophy and science is like a dance—philosophy poses questions that help steer the science, and science makes discoveries that inform or overturn the philosophy. In order to think more deeply about the hypothesis that consciousness is fundamental and help guide the philosophy, Annaka needs to better understand the physics and the different interpretations of quantum mechanics. So in Chapter 3, she speaks to three physicists—Sean Carroll, Brian Greene, and Janna Levin.

In this first chapter of LIGHTS ON, Annaka provides the audience with a guided tour of the neuroscience and philosophy of consciousness. It is, in part, a review of the material in her book Conscious, but the hope is that even listeners who are familiar with the book and the literature in consciousness studies will enjoy going back to the basics—and might even discover a slightly new perspective.

Could treating consciousness as a fundamental property of the universe help us better understand any of the current theories of quantum gravity? Or, alternately, do any of the established understandings in fundamental physics rule out the possibility that consciousness is fundamental? Is this even a type of knowledge we can ever obtain? Will we be able to design scientific experiments that can provide evidence to support one conclusion over another? In Chapter 2, Annaka speaks with philosopher Philip Goff and astrophysicist Adam Frank about the implications of the controversial question: Is consciousness fundamental?

In Chapter 7, we continue to peel back the layers of the construction of “self'” in the context of neuroscience. Annaka focuses on the role memory plays in both psychological continuity and in the feeling of being a “subject” of conscious experiences. This chapter also presents a deeper exploration of meditation practice in an attempt to get a clearer picture of our direct experience of consciousness and, thus, a more accurate framework for questions about how far down in nature consciousness runs.

In this explosive episode, Annaka explores her curiosity about space, how it's constructed, and what the experiences of space might represent in reality. Annaka—initially skeptical about the significance of subjective experiences in meditation—was surprised to find these experiences can potentially reveal deeper insights into reality and scientific truth. Through her collaboration with neuroscientists, she learned our reality is largely indirect, often described as "controlled hallucinations," according to Anil Seth. However, disciplined attention to our immediate experiences can sometimes alter our perceptions of space, time, and self, offering a potentially clearer view of reality. Annaka's interest in quantum physics, especially theories proposing that space and time are emergent rather than fundamental, paralleled her meditation experiences where consciousness transcends these constructs. This leads her down a path of jaw-dropping exploration about the true nature of space, time, and reality.

In this concluding chapter, we drop in on a talk Annaka gave at a 2023 conference organized by Philip Goff and Andrei Buckareff at Marist College titled “Treating Consciousness as Fundamental,” in which she presents alongside other Lights On guests: Lee Smolin, Donald Hoffman, Sean Carroll, and Philip Goff. Annaka describes the evolution of her thinking over the course of working on this documentary series, and illustrates her most current view of a universe in which consciousness is fundamental. Annaka elaborates further on ways we might expand our methods of scientific experiment, while laying out her prediction about a scientific paradigm shift that is possibly underway.