LIGHTS ON AUDIO DOCUMENTARY TEASER
A chapter-by-chapter preview of LIGHTS ON, an audio-exclusive documentary by New York Times bestselling author Annaka Harris, available wherever you get your audiobooks. Listen to the full audio documentary here: https://lightsondocumentary.com
Episodes
PREVIEW: CHAPTER 10: The Future of Science
In this concluding chapter, we drop in on a talk Annaka gave at a 2023 conference titled “Treating Consciousness as Fundamental,” in which she presents alongside other LIGHTS ON guests: Lee Smolin, Donald Hoffman, Sean Carroll, and Philip Goff. Listen to the full audio documentary here: https://lightsondocumentary.com
Annaka describes the evolution of her thinking over the course of working on th
PREVIEW: CHAPTER 9: Consciousness as Fundamental
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? Annaka explores these larger than life questions in Chapter 9 through conversations with astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker and cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman. Listen to the full audio documentary here: https://lightsondocumentary.com
F
PREVIEW: CHAPTER 8: Space and Time
In this explosive chapter, Annaka explores the concept of space, how it's constructed, and what our experiences of space might represent in reality. She speaks with two physicists, Carlo Rovelli and Lee Smolin, along with the science writer George Musser, to learn more about what it means for space to be emergent. They also discuss whether or not time might also be an emergency property of somethi
PREVIEW: CHAPTER 7: Memory, Meditation, and Mind
In Chapter 7, Annaka focuses on the role memory plays in both psychological continuity and in the feeling of being a “subject” of conscious experiences. Through conversations with neuroscientist Christof Koch, psychologist Susan Blackmore, and meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein she continues to peel back the layers of the construction of “self'” in the context of neuroscience and a deeper explora
PREVIEW: CHAPTER 6: From Signals to Sensations
In Chapter 6, Annaka contemplates where the sensory addition work of neuroscientists, such as David Eagleman, might lead. She also explores new ways science might expand in order to address questions about consciousness. Listen to the full audio documentary here: https://lightsondocumentary.com
Tools like microscopes uncover vast worlds that were previously hidden from us—we could hardly grasp th
PREVIEW: CHAPTER 5: The Self
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. Listen to the full audio documentary here: https://lightsondocumentary.com
PREVIEW: CHAPTER 4: Plants and Parasites
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 behavior in plants is accompanied by felt experienc
PREVIEW: CHAPTER 3: The Dance
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. Listen to the full audio documentary here: https://lightsondocumentary.com
Philosophy an
PREVIEW: CHAPTER 2: Is Consciousness Fundamental?
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 pro
PREVIEW: CHAPTER 1: The Mystery, An Introduction
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.
