In short
The Rich Roll Podcast: Episode Summary
Episode Title
Annaka Harris On Why Consciousness Just Might Be Fundamental To Reality
Episode Description In this episode, Rich Roll interviews Annaka Harris, a New York Times bestselling author and creator of "Lights On." The discussion revolves around the question of whether consciousness is a fundamental aspect of the universe rather than merely an emergent property of complex matter. They delve into the nature of consciousness, the illusion of self, and the constraints of human perception, all while exploring how these ideas might reshape our understanding of reality.
---
Key Themes and Concepts
- Understanding Consciousness
- Definition: Harris emphasizes that consciousness should be understood as "felt experience," rather than merely complex thought or self-awareness.
- The Hard Problem of Consciousness: This philosophical question probes why and how any collection of matter—like our brains—can result in subjective conscious experience.
- Consciousness: Fundamental vs Emergent
- Traditional View: Consciousness is seen as an emergent property of complex systems (e.g., the brain).
- Harris's Proposition: Suggests that consciousness may be a fundamental aspect of the universe, existing at a more basic level than previously assumed.
- Illusion of Self
- Self as a Construct: Both Roll and Harris discuss how the sense of self is an illusion, especially highlighted during meditative practices.
- Experiences of Non-Dualism: Meditation and psychedelics can lead to experiences where the boundaries of self dissolve, offering a deeper connection to consciousness.
- Perceptual Limitations
- Human Perception: Our understanding of the universe is limited by our sensory perceptions, leading to misconceptions about the nature of reality.
- Emergence of Space and Time: Discussion around current physics theories suggesting that space and time may also be emergent properties, which could redefine our understanding of consciousness and existence.
- Scientific Integration
- Cross-Disciplinary Insights: Harris argues for a collaborative approach across neuroscience, physics, and philosophy to better understand consciousness.
- Potential for New Paradigms: She expresses hope that future scientific inquiry will embrace these broader questions and foster deeper insights into the nature of reality.
---
Personal Reflections and Experiences
- Rich Roll shares a personal experience involving psychedelics, which deeply shifted his understanding of reality and consciousness. This anecdote emphasizes the profound impact that altered states can have on one’s perception and understanding of the self.
---
Conclusion and Implications
- Implications for Humanity: The conversation highlights a potential shift in how we view consciousness, identity, and our interconnectedness with the universe. Acknowledging the fundamental nature of consciousness could foster empathy and a greater appreciation for all living beings, potentially leading to a more compassionate society.
- Embrace the Unknown: Both hosts underscore the importance of remaining open to the mysteries of consciousness, encouraging listeners to adopt a sense of wonder and curiosity about existence.
---
Key Takeaways
- Consciousness may not merely arise from complexity; it might be a fundamental feature of the universe.
- The experience of the self is largely illusory and can be transcended through practices like meditation.
- Future scientific endeavors should embrace interdisciplinary approaches to explore the depths of consciousness and reality.
- Personal experiences, whether through meditation or psychedelics, can offer profound insights into the nature of consciousness and existence.
Additional Resources
- Annaka Harris's audio documentary series "Lights On" for further exploration of these ideas.
- Rich Roll's podcast archives for more insights on consciousness, wellness, and personal development.
---
This episode serves as a thought-provoking exploration of consciousness, inviting listeners to reconsider their beliefs about existence and the universe.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00We're brought to you today by Momentus. As an athlete, as a cookbook author, a wellness advocate, and a podcaster who has hosted conversations with countless experts on diet and nutrition, I can tell you that nutrition is extremely complicated, extremely personal, all of which has made me more skeptical than I once was when it comes to supplementation products and the claims they make. That said, I truly do believe in responsible supplementation as an important part of nutritional health. Even the most diet rigorous among us has deficiencies, many of which go unnoticed until we undergo a comprehensive blood profile.
0:38All of which is why it's very important to be conscientious when it comes to selecting supplement products, which is what Momentus is all about as a company that is radically committed to quality, rigor, and purity, which they call the Momentus standard, an approach to nutrition that truly captures the essence of performance for life. Where most brands perform cursory checks, Momentus actually conducts exhaustive NSF certified testing that goes well beyond industry norms. Every batch is meticulously examined for purity, label accuracy, and potential banned substances. Their philosophy is simple.
1:13If a batch doesn't meet their exacting standards, it simply doesn't exist. For someone always seeking the most intentional approach to nutrition, Momentus represents a genuine commitment to performance for life. A reminder that nutrition is about supporting our body's potential, not just filling a gap. So if you're ready to elevate your nutrition, head to livemomentus.com slash richroll or use the code richroll at checkout for 35 % off your first subscription. That's livemomentus.com slash richroll for 35 % off your first subscription.
1:51When we use the word consciousness, people think of human consciousness, people think of complex thought, but it is just the simple fact of felt experience. Why would this non-conscious universe get configured in such a way that manifests this conscious felt experience from the inside? What is consciousness? Now, maybe you think you know what it is. I mean, we know it's real. It is something. But the more you attempt to precisely define it or to understand it or to actually locate it or arrive upon why we even have it to begin with, the more mysterious and ineffable it all becomes. And this is what's called the hard problem of consciousness.
2:36But what if the assumptions we've been making about this fundamental mystery are entirely wrong? The only way to actually address the hard problem is to put consciousness at the most fundamental level. And so I'm asking this question. Is consciousness fundamental to the universe rather than an emergent property of complex matter? This is the question Annika Harris has been asking. It's a question that just might be the most important one science has on offer, in which she went on this journey to answer in her new audio documentary series, Lights On, which is astonishingly good and has forever altered how I think about my own mind, myself, or lack thereof, and most importantly, the very nature of reality itself.
3:26And while these ideas may seem completely detached from anything of practical use in our everyday lives, I would suggest, for reasons you will soon discover, nothing could be further from the case. We know from neuroscience that there is no concrete self in the way we feel there is. Just like the illusion of self can be dropped during meditation, there seem actually to be experiences of a spaceless consciousness. At least every physicist I work with is convinced that space itself is an emergent property, that it's not part of the fundamental story. And that is something that you feel. That's super wild.
4:00You feel that in meditation. You know, that's a brain twister, like, you know, bar none.
4:10Annika, it's great to see you. Thank you for making the time today. It's been, amazingly, it's been almost five years since you first came on the show. Yes, we were just realizing that, yeah. Doesn't seem like it was that long, but my relationship with time, which we'll probably talk about today, has been warped. Yeah. partially probably by age, but also by COVID and the rapidity of the world changing and deranging ways. Technology and yeah, all of it, yeah. But in that conversation, we talked about your book, Conscious and the topic of consciousness at large, which is a conversation we're gonna continue today.
4:46But much like my relationship with time, both of our respective, I would say, relationships with the nature of consciousness and how we understand it has also evolved. You have changed and shifted your perspective. Yeah. I have evolved quite a bit in terms of how I interface, you know, in thinking about this subject. And I wanna say upfront that your book was really profound for me. And then subsequent to that, the Waking Up app has like sent me over the last couple of years down this rabbit hole of non-dualism. I love that, that's great. And deepened my practice of meditation in really interesting ways, which I'm sure we'll talk about it.
5:30Yeah. But I don't wanna assume that anybody watching or listening today, you know, can recall that episode that we did today. So I think we should start with some basics. Okay. Before we get into your audio documentary series and your evolved thinking on this by just basically, you know, defining our terms and what you mean when you talk about consciousness. Consciousness, yeah. It's good that you remember to start there. That's an important one. So people use the word consciousness in different ways. And usually when we use the word consciousness, people think of human consciousness, people think of complex thought, self-awareness, those types of things.
6:12But the thing I'm interested in and the thing that I think is deeply mysterious is consciousness in a much more basic sense. So I often use the word felt experience, just the pure fact of felt experience, the fact that some collections of matter in the universe get configured in a way that suddenly there's something it's like to be that matter from the inside. So if you think of a snail, you know, we don't know if snails are conscious, but if they are, we can imagine, you know, of course, a snail doesn't have self-awareness. It's not thinking about things. It's, you know, it's nothing like a human being.
6:47but it's possible that it feels some sort of pressure as it's moving. You know, the most, you know, very, very basic senses of pressure, of heat, of cold, maybe some kind of amorphous feeling of hunger. So it knows how to go toward food, that type of thing. And then of course, the more simple a system is, the more simple that type of qualia that the felt experiences are. But so when I use the word consciousness and when I talk about it being mysterious. It is just the simple fact of felt experience. Why would this non-conscious universe made of all these non-conscious materials in some instances get configured in such a way that they manifest this conscious felt experience from the inside?
7:33And so we often, it's so intrinsic to who we are. We often think it's not that mysterious. You know, we understand that when, I see this table, it's because the light waves are bouncing off of it and hit my retina and get processed by the brain. But we don't think about the fact that it's interesting that that then becomes an experience of seeing brown and yellow and stripe. That it's not just processing that's going on, there's a felt experience associated with that processing. So we imagine cameras and computers can do something similar. They can transcribe the light waves that enter the apparatus and can, you know, all kinds of processing can take place in a computer to do things without those light waves.
8:19But we don't imagine that cameras and computers have a felt experience. They don't see Brown. You know, an experience of Brown does not come into existence when it comes to computers and cameras. But for some reason, for us, it does. And so that's a long answer, but that's what consciousness is. You know, the more that you try to hone in on this definition, the more elusive it becomes. Like, what does that mean to have a felt experience? In a way, yeah. We can kind of take it at a surface level. You can only know it if you have it, yeah. And dismiss it. But if you really, you know, kind of investigate that, it becomes, you know, an incredibly compelling and confusing, you know, sort of morass of inputs of trying to make sense of what that actually means.
9:07And there's a profundity at the bottom of that. But in order to answer that question, you can't just turn to neuroscience or physics or philosophy. You have to look at all of them and then perhaps look where nobody else has looked before in order to truly answer that question. Yeah, I mean, I think we all thought, myself included in the sciences, that the field of neuroscience would figure this out. It was just kind of a matter of time. And as time goes on, that seems less and less likely. And there's been no progress made in terms of answering what's called the hard problem of consciousness, why any collection of matter, even a brain would have a felt experience associated with it.
9:48And so as time goes on and neuroscience uncovers all of these fascinating things about the brain and how it works, we're no more closer to understanding why there is felt experience associated with all the things that you do. Right, the hard problem remains hard. And as much as science has attempted to answer this question, it continues to run into walls. That's right. Correct. So I spent 20 years or more working with neuroscientists as an editor and a ghost writer and coaching for public talks and that sort of thing. I also just always been fascinated by this topic. And as I said, I felt the same way that other scientists felt, that it's, I assumed consciousness arises out of complexity, that one day we would be able to explain it in the same way that we're able to explain life, even though that seemed, you know, deeply mysterious at some point.
10:41And it was actually through the experiments in neuroscience and our current growing understanding of how the brain works that I realized we had some false assumptions that were related to how we were assuming consciousness comes into being. And so it was a very slow process for me where these questions just kept coming up for me related to the experience of being a self, which we now know is at least is not a reality in terms of the level of the brain and the way we experience ourselves to be selves. that there are many illusions that go into this kind of creation of feeling that we're not what we are, that we're not, you know, an ever changing electrical firing of brain processing.
11:31But we feel ourselves to be this concrete thing, this concrete self that, you know, has some basic properties that have always been with us and will continue to be with us. Like a solid entity moving through time, which we now know is not the case. So experience of self, experience of conscious will, of willing actions and how that, you know, what's actually happening at the level of the brain. We can talk about some of these examples if it's helpful. Priming processes, the way many different signals come in from the environment and we perceive things and the signals take different times to get to us, sound, sight, touch.
12:07But our brain kind of goes through this process where it delivers us this present moment experience. even though those signals are arriving at different times. And so all of these things made me realize that the way I had been thinking about consciousness was not quite right. And I slowly realized that these very intuitions then actually are related to the hard problem of consciousness. And it's interesting, when I first started having these thoughts, it was so taboo that I didn't speak to, I wouldn't bring this up with my colleagues. My husband, Sam said, don't say this. You know, it's the next dinner party.
12:48Be careful what you say. Because, you know, it seemed like I had to protect my career. And if I said these things, and so we've come a long way since then. And now there are conferences devoted to this topic and many neuroscientists and physicists are actually interested in this possibility. And I consider it to be a possibility. It's not something that I believe at this point. I've just, what I've come to believe is that it's just as likely that consciousness is a simple fundamental property of the universe as it is a complex property. And so, yes, I'm so I'm open to the question. And that's what my documentary focuses on is asking this question.
13:29Is consciousness fundamental to the universe rather than an emergent property of, you know, complex matter? That's right. Matter. And are, you know, have we developed any science so far that would rule that out? Is, you know, I talked to a lot of physicists for this documentary. So a lot of the question I came in with, you know, maybe we already understand something about the physics of things, about the fundamentals that will tell us that this doesn't actually make sense. And I was curious if I could find that. And alternately, if I could find that it was interesting to physicists to think about consciousness this way and what that might mean for any of their theories about quantum mechanics, quantum gravity.
14:11I mean, it's interesting in the series, you talk to a series of physicists and all different people, and they're all in a different place with this idea. Some are open to it, some are resistant to it. Yeah. Some are captured by the biases that come with pursuing a career through the lens of the way they've always done things. And nonetheless, like you asking the question, I feel like was sort of welcomed if for no other reason that it's a curious thought experiment. But it wasn't like, how dare you ask this question? Like, I feel like there's a receptivity to this question right now. And perhaps that's an evolution from what we've historically referred to as panpsychism.
14:55Like I remember when you first came on the show and you have a section in your book about panpsychism and that's really fun to like think about. Like the idea that like, you know, everything has consciousness from, you know, the grains of sand on the beach, you know, mountains and all the like. Yeah. But it doesn't really capture what you're talking about. Like panpsychism is sort of like - That's what I realized. Feels like dorm room bong hit talk, like, you know, plants are conscious and all this. I think the term panpsychism also kind of fits well with that image. A little bit. Like it's really cool to think about, but I think the fundamental flaw here, and I've had Philip Goff on, you introduced me to Philip Goff and I've engaged with him in this conversation.
15:37To me, panpsychism still assumes that consciousness is an emergent property of matter. And it's just that it is localized in every assemblage of matter in some form, right? Right. I mean, there are different versions of panpsychism, but yeah, that basically describes it. And basically what you're saying, and correct me if I'm wrong here, because I think I have an intuition about this and maybe this is different from yours or I'm misinterpreting you. Yeah. Basically what you're asking or saying is that rather than the aggregation of matter or the complex assemblage of matter giving rise to consciousness.
16:24In other words, consciousness as an emergent property of matter. Perhaps consciousness, when you say fundamental, it's similar to saying that consciousness is perhaps a or the substrate of the universe from which all matter is emergent. Like you're flipping the coin completely. Sort of, I wouldn't say matter is emergent. I'm taking it a little further, I think. But yeah, but it's amazing. I mean, one thing I just wanna comment on is you're saying something that I can almost agree with and that's almost my view. It sounds so crazy to me. I really have to say a lot to explain why I think that. Because you're saying that, I'm like, no.
17:02Let me just say this too, like, you know, consistent with what we're talking about. There's an infinite version, infinite number of versions of this conversation that we could have in the multiverse, right? Yes, and if you take a many worlds interpretation, yes. I want to make sure that we're addressing these questions in a way that they deserve, while also staying grounded enough so that people are getting something out of what we're talking about. Okay, let me say two things about what you just said. One is, as far as panpsychism goes, so I started having these thoughts and questions before I came across panpsychism.
17:41What I've come to believe is that we don't yet understand consciousness. at all. And this is a legitimate question to ask, period. One thing I don't like about panpsychism is it implies that there's some fully formed set of beliefs for us to subscribe to. And there is not yet a theory. There are many suggestions, but we really don't know. And so I think part of the reason why scientists have also been receptive to this is because I'm simply asking the question. I'm simply making the case that we've gotten to the point where we can say this is a legitimate and important scientific question to be asking.
18:22Is consciousness more fundamental than the sciences have previously assumed? As far as your description of consciousness being fundamental and what that means about matter, I wouldn't say that matter emerges out of consciousness. And one thing I should also say is that in my thinking and in my 11 hour docuseries, you can kind of follow my thinking around this where the evolution of my thinking changes. And so by the end of the documentary, I get to the place where what I realize is the hard problem of consciousness, which is the thing I'm trying to address. you bump into that wherever you try to place consciousness, no matter how far now, if you put it in electrons, if you put it and panpsychism does a little bit of this.
19:06The only way to actually address the hard problem is to put consciousness at the very, at the most fundamental level. And so if that's the case, and that's a big if I, you know, I don't know, but if this is something that I, that I like to entertain now and to think about and to think about how all of these different theories about quantum gravity and all the rest. I talked to Lee Smolin and Carlo Rovelli about their views. I like to now think of this all through the lens of if consciousness is fundamental, you know, how do we interpret this phenomenon or that phenomenon? And so if consciousness is fundamental, matter, what we perceive to be matter is just other conscious experiences arising in the universe.
19:49And so the mathematics, the physics, that's all a description of conscious experience. And so, what everything actually is at bottom is felt experiences arising and passing away in the universe. And again, they can be very, very simple and incomplete also because we can only perceive, you know, a very small fraction of what's actually happening. All we can actually agree on is that consciousness is real and that that we are experiencing consciousness. And as Sam sort of always repeats in his daily meditations, like consciousness is all we have, right? Like, and the idea that you're over there and I'm here and this is happening and tomorrow, like these are all on some level, like kind of flawed interpretations of a reality that we are not, we don't have the perceptual ability to accurately interpret.
20:45Yeah. Yeah. Whatever description we have of the reason why we're having the conscious experiences we have. I mean, if we were brains in a vat, we would expect this to be exactly the same. Right. And so the only thing we can have direct experience of is our conscious experience. And we know those are real and those exist in the universe. But what they mean about the external reality, we really don't know. And so in some sense, it really is the only thing we know. And the truth is everything we know or think we know has to happen within consciousness as well, because, you know, you can make ridiculous statements and you just, you know, put at the end of it.
21:24But I was unconscious and it actually makes no sense. You know, I decided to have eggs for breakfast this morning, but I was unconscious when I made that decision. Those things we we absorb information and knowledge and process it always as a conscious experience. It is so incredibly difficult to try to process what you just said in any meaningful way. You know what I mean? Like I've spent years, I guess like the way in really is meditation and a real like sort of confrontation with the illusion of self and the kind of emergence of thought and perceptual stimuli that allows you to first connect with a deeper reality that is beyond our ability to kind of perceive in our normal everyday lives.
22:19Yeah, I mean, I'm not even sure I would call it a deeper reality. I would call it a clearer way of seeing even our own conscious experience. And so we certainly walk around with a lot of illusions and we know the brain is creating illusions like this all the time for us. change blindness just in terms of our visual field. But yes, the illusion of being a self in the way that we typically feel ourselves to be when you're able. So there are different ways of kind of seeing through this illusion. Some of them are just intellectual. You can understand how the brain works and realize there's no self in there to find.
22:57But you can do it introspectively as well through meditation or through psychedelics. Often you have this experience and we now understand also how this was related to the state of the brain. You know, when the default mode network quiets down, it's in that state that we tend to be able to drop that illusion of self. And the experience of it is of seeing things more clearly is it feels like a simpler, more basic understanding of the reality. And it happens to be in line with the neuroscience, which is very interesting. And this happened very late for me in my career, actually, where I've been meditating for almost 30 years now, it's a huge part of my life.
23:36I never saw any way in which those experiences would overlap with my scientific work. But what I started to find and, you know, at some point there were experiments that were done in neuroscience to understand what's happening at the level of the brain when people are meditating. And so that's one, that was kind of the first crossover I experienced, but I never thought that insights that we have in meditation would give us any information about scientific information about the way the world works. And it seems like there actually, there are some cases where that's true. Now, I would never say that if you have an experience about how the world works, that must be true, even if it's in meditation.
24:21But there seemed actually to be just like the illusion of self can be dropped during meditation and we know from neuroscience that there is no concrete self in the way we feel. There is experiences of a spaceless consciousness. Most physicists, at least every physicist I work with and know of at this point is convinced that space itself is an emergent property, that it's not part of the fundamental story. And that is something that you feel. That's super wild. You feel that in meditation. Yeah, that is like way wilder than the idea that consciousness is fundamental to the universe. Yeah. And many physicists at this point think that time is emergent as well.
25:05And I talked to some of them in my documentary series. So, I have one chapter devoted to space and time in my documentary series. And what I wanted to do in that chapter first was just understand better what physicists mean when they say space is not part of the fundamental story. I wanted to talk to some physicists who believe time is fundamental and some who believe time is emergent and try to get a sense of what that would mean, especially in the context of if consciousness is fundamental, what does the universe look like if time is also fundamental and what does it look like if time is emergent?
25:39You know, that's a brain twister, like, you know, bar none, right? Yes, although I will say, I just wanna interject, yes, it's a brain twister. And yes, this is how I spent a lot of my time twisting my brain in these ways. But there are experiences that people have in meditation and on psychedelics that actually make this a little more intuitive. You can have, it's possible to be a conscious human being and have an experience of not having self, not having space and not having time. I mean, there are countless reports of this type of experience. And so, you know, whether or not that's actually what's happening in the world, it is possible to have an experience where those things are not part of the experience.
26:18Well, this feels like an opportune moment to share my experience with that. Because I did have an experience recently and I haven't talked about it publicly. I was hoping you'd talk about it. But I really wanted to share this with you today. You're like the perfect person to help me process this. Yeah. In the context of my evolving perspective and interest in consciousness, I've also evolved my perspective and receptivity with respect to psychedelic therapies. Like it's just obvious at this point that these compounds have tremendous benefits for a lot of people. And as somebody who has been sober for a long time and is very kind of like steeped and indoctrinated in 12 step, this saved my life.
27:07and there's a set of principles around this. The idea of entertaining those therapies just felt like not for me. No, that's understandable. I certainly see people whose lives have been improved by it, but the idea that a mind altering substance of that potency might hold answers to my problems, like just lights up all the, lights my brain up and in a way that scared me a little bit. Sure, that's appropriate. It just became like undeniable after, you know, guest after guest after guest sharing these experiences that I shifted my perspective and Michael Pollan's work, your work in this area and your husband's work that I changed my mind and thought maybe, you know, at some point this is worth exploring.
Read the full transcript
27:55And a situation arose recently where the opportunity presented itself. And I just thought, well, you know, okay, let's do this. So I underwent a medically supervised MDMA and psilocybin journey, I hate that word. I know, me too. I don't know what else to call it, experience. Experience. And I went into it very intentionally. And I guess my purpose was really like, I'm trying to like heal some childhood wounds and like make sense of my past and alleviate some unnecessary suffering, et cetera. So I was very like, I had a very limited kind of like, kind of focus on what I wanted to get out of this and what I was hoping to gain, right?
28:41Instead, it just absolutely like completely rewrote like everything I think about fundamental reality. Like I had this incredibly expansive experience in which time and space evaporated, the self completely dissolved. I was gonna ask, yeah, okay. And it was, I inhabited this expansive space that I sort of jokingly kind of describe as like inception meets interstellar. Like I had that experience of sort of being in that four dimensional tesseract and a tactile knowing that like in every moment, every thought or decision leads you onto a different timeline and that time as we experience it is an illusion and that connection or that profound sense of oneness that completely changed how I think about everything.
29:40It's sort of like, oh, that's cute. You wanna like do this, but like, how about this over here? And I love that you had that experience. I think when I emailed Sam and you, it was, I described it as the most profound single event experience of my life. and it's been a handful of months now, but like I think about it every day. Yeah. Well, I had a very similar experience and when I had it, it was, I'd have to do the math, but over 30 years ago and still it's, I mean, it's impacting the work that I'm doing now. Yeah. And I guess it's relevant here because it really did connect me with a notion of consciousness that is very different from our intuition.
30:26And I did walk away from that convinced that consciousness is not only like a much more complex and profound kind of idea, but that it is fundamental. Like that's why I was like, perhaps what we think of matter really is just emergent from this substrate of consciousness that is this connective tissue of everything. And it felt more real than this reality, I guess is what I would say. But I also have to check myself and say, just because it felt more real, does that mean that it's more real? No, and the truth is no. And that's why I think we have to like ground this all in science because yes, I'd had all those experiences at a pretty young age.
31:12I've also been always interested in the sciences. My career is now embedded in the sciences. I'm a very scientifically minded person. I never thought to make assumptions about the way the universe is structured based on those experiences, one thing that we know is true is that those experiences are possible. So, you know, separate from everything else, it's incredibly informative and interesting that a human brain, that the conscious experiences of a human brain can be transformed to that degree. And that in and of itself, I think is fascinating. The fact that some of these experiences happen to actually line up with where science has landed and where science is headed, I think is interesting.
31:56And I don't think we need to make more of it than that at this point. I would not assume that because I have those experiences and because science seems to be moving in that direction, you know, those experiences are insights into the true nature of reality. I'm not ready to make that claim at all, but I think there's something very interesting about the fact that we know the brain creates these illusions for us that are extraordinarily useful for being human beings, for getting through our daily lives, right? But they're not necessarily delivering us an accurate picture of the underlying reality.
32:27I mean, even something as simple as seeing a green leaf, right? Scientists kind of made this mistake actually for a very long time, thinking that the color green is actually out there, right? And we now know this isn't the case, the color green is being created by my brain. There's no green out there in the world. There are light waves and some of them get absorbed by the leaf and some bounce off the leaf. It's just the wavelength that is not being absorbed. So the leaf itself is not green. There's no green. There's no such thing as green. Green is an experience. Well, there is, but it's only in the experience of it, right?
33:06That's the word we give to that qualia, to that type of experience. And so what I think is interesting and very valid is breaking through those intuitions, whether intellectually or through meditation or through psychedelics, I think does, it makes sense that that would help you see reality a little more clearly because those things are in place to help us survive. They're not in place to help us see things accurately or to interpret what we see as being accurate. So, you know, in the same way that we would all gather around without, you know, scientific understanding and say, there is green out there.
33:42We all see it. We can all talk about it. The green, it's out there in the universe. We can understand that that's not really the underlying reality. And so, yes, everything that you're talking about, I actually think is possible. They are windows onto a deeper truth because what psychedelics so successfully do is stop your brain from. And actually, you know, this is true of meditation. I find this interesting. One of the conversations I had with a meditation teacher in this documentary series was about how counter to evolution meditation is as a practice. And the same is true of psychedelics. If you were on that dose of psychedelics in your life, you wouldn't survive very long, right?
34:23Right, we are - It's clearly not. Yeah, we are consciousness in localized form and our perceptual abilities are restricted so that we can survive. Exactly. But if we could see and perceive reality as it actually is, we would just be paralyzed. Yes, and meditation is a super interesting way to look at that because, you know, you are investigating all of the felt experiences that are coming online for you when in a survival sense, those experiences are coming online to get you to act. You're hungry, so you go get food. You're tired, you go to sleep. But in meditation, the practice is just to watch all of that unfold.
35:00And if you only watch it unfold and don't respond, you'll starve to death. You won't survive.
35:12After hosting more than 900 episodes of this podcast, I have noticed a pattern. And that pattern is that the highest performers don't buy into the latest trendy hacks. Instead, they obsess on what actually works, which is always the unassuming basics. And there is nothing more basic than hydration. But here's the kicker. Your body can't hold onto water without the right minerals. Without them, water is just like this temporary visitor. But Element has cracked the code on this, which is why I've been using it religiously for years. Zero sugar, no artificial junk, just sodium, potassium, and magnesium in the ratios that actually work.
35:53And look, I'm not exactly crushing ultras right now, healing from this surgery, but in some ways I need it even more. In order to properly recover, I need to treat my body even better than ever so it can heal properly and expeditiously while also maintaining my focus and my energy levels to rock out all of these podcasts, write a book, be a husband and a dad, And I got to say, Element keeps my brain firing in a way that water alone can't. Their new sample pack features their most popular flavors. Citrus salt, raspberry salt, watermelon salt, that's my favorite, and orange salt. Eight stick packs total, perfect for finding your favorite or sharing with a friend.
36:36Get a free eight-count sample pack of Element's most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at drinklmnt.com slash richroll. find your favorite element flavor, or share it with a friend. We're brought to you today by the wonderful folks at Go Brewing. Let me tell you a story. A few years ago, this guy Joe Chura rings me up out of the blue, and he asked if I'll fly out to Illinois and speak at this event that he was hosting called Go, which ended up being this really incredible weekend oriented around taking inspired action. Joe and I hit it off, but you You know, that was kind of that. And it wasn't until I ran into him a couple years ago at Jesse Itzler's Running Man event that I realized that he had taken inspired action himself by creating this new enterprise that was also called Go.
37:24Go Brewing, in fact, which from Go has grown into what it is today. One of the most exciting revolutions in craft brewing. One of the many things that makes Go Brewing extraordinary is that they don't outsource like most companies. They handcraft everything from scratch in small batches. In fact, this commitment to quality has fueled their growth into one of America's fastest growing breweries now in over 5 ,000 locations across 20 states and available online. The Salty AF Gelata earned the untapped number one non-alcoholic lager in the United States. And they're constantly creating bold new flavors almost every month that push the boundaries of what non-alcoholic beer can be.
38:05Double IPAs, mouthwatering sours, all with zero added sugars and none of the junk. Hear that? Incredible stuff. The non-alcoholic revolution is here, people. I am proud to help champion it alongside Joe. So get on board by getting with Go by going to gobrewing.com where you're going to use the code RICHROLL for 15 % off your first purchase. Go.
38:37When it comes to health, sleep is a big deal. And there's just so much science out there to back up the role that it plays in every facet of well-being, from heart health to mental health, recovery, cognition, and just being able to show up as your best self. Getting a quality eight hours per night is a personal, non-negotiable that I go to great lengths to ensure. It's sort of a commitment not only to myself, but to my career and to those that I love that all begins with what I'm sleeping on. Now, I've tried many mattresses, but the one that's really won my heart is Birch. And there's many reasons for this, all of which boil down to the simple fact that Birch just does things right.
39:17In addition to being incredibly comfortable and cool, helping you regulate temperatures at night, which are essential for quality rest, Birch mattresses are also firm in all the right places, and all their materials are sustainably sourced, including organic fair trade cotton. and also everything is hypoallergenic and toxin-free, meaning no harmful off-gassing typical of most mattresses. Birch is so confident in their product. They're offering both a 100-night risk-free trial as well as a 25-year warranty. Plus, they provide free delivery right to your door in a conveniently-sized box-up. And so I want to offer all of my listeners the chance to enjoy a deep and restful night's sleep with a new mattress from Birch.
40:04So right now you can get 27 % off site-wide plus two free EcoRest pillows with mattress purchase. Just go to birchliving.com slash richroll.
40:22In my meditation practice, in this exploration of non-dualism, this idea of confronting the self as an illusion and this practice that you talk about of like not having a head, right? Was it Douglas Harding? Harding, yes. Who wrote this book about this. His book is on having no head. Yeah, like the idea that you think that everything is happening inside your skull is an illusion in and of itself. And to like direct your gaze inward and try to identify exactly where that's happening as a way of evaporating that sense was such a difficult, I could not get there. I could not actually feel what that experience would be like.
41:09And the experience that I had, this experience that I had really allowed me to have that experience. It was like, oh, now I completely understand what that is. And in the aftermath of that experience, I've chosen to like really invest in my meditation to like anchor that. Cultivate. And I've been able to like stay in that space. Yeah. But in the experience itself, when I was starting to understand that and feel that, my intuition was that consciousness is this fundamental thing. And it's this field like you talk about, but it can only be experienced in some material form. And like our human form is a way of like extruding consciousness into this like entity that allows the experience to occur.
42:04But you could like extract yourself from that extruded being and be in pure consciousness. And again, like that's, this is just a, you know, like my brain being, you know, completely exploded by, you know, this substance, but that was what it felt like. Yeah, I wouldn't describe it in quite that way, But I know exactly what you're talking about. And I think there are different ways of interpreting that experience. It's also extraordinarily difficult to talk about in language. It's impossible. Yeah, and I talk about this a lot in my documentary series in different episodes, different chapters. Originally they were called episodes and then now they're chapters.
42:45Is there a printed form of this also that you're doing or is this meant to be purely audio? It is purely audio for now. My hope is that we will do a printed version of it at some point. I think that will be useful, especially for academics. But no, the idea was to create a documentary to have an immersive experience of following me on this four year journey of, you know, the moment I finished my book to from all the questions that I was left with after that and then interviewing and having conversations with all these different scientists. And then, I mean, you follow my whole path. So I write a couple of articles in that period of time.
43:21I give a talk at a conference and you basically just follow me through that period of time where the evolution of my thinking kind of lands me squarely in if consciousness goes deeper in nature than the sciences have previously assumed, it probably goes all the way down. And then also, what does that mean? What does that mean for the future of science? What does that mean for our current theories of physics? So one thing I talk a lot about it in my documentary series is the fact that we are very limited in our communication by the experiences we share. So, you know, if you imagine trying to explain the color green to someone who was born blind, it is impossible.
44:02You're never going to get there because they don't have the shared experience. And so, again, this is why we think we have evidence only of consciousness in other systems that are like us, because we can't talk to each other. We can't communicate anything unless we're using a shared set of felt experiences to communicate. And so our language has developed around those shared experiences. So things that human beings don't typically experience, we don't have language for it. And so our language is completely embedded in space and time and self and all these other things. And so it is almost impossible to use language to describe the types of experiences you're talking about and for good reason.
44:43One of the chapters I interview a participant in a study where they gave participants the experience of magnetic north. So many fish and birds have this perception already because it helps them navigate the world. Human beings obviously don't, but they created this belt that delivered electrotactile signals that were related to the Earth's magnetic field. And eventually the brain learns to interpret these signals in a way that you're not just, you're not feeling the sensation around the belt anymore. You actually develop a new sense. And actually these types of things were developed originally for blind and deaf people as a way for them to be able to see and hear.
45:26And those studies are incredibly interesting. David Eagleman has been involved. He's a neuroscientist involved in a lot of those studies. And I talk about them in one of the chapters of the documentary. So that's called sensory substitution when they're turning light waves into sensory signals so that blind people can navigate the world. you know we call it through vision we don't know exactly what experience they're having but the brain over the course of eight six to eight weeks the brain learns to interpret these signals so well that people using these devices who are completely blind can shoot hoops can walk through mazes can navigate the world the way we do using using vision so these participants were given this belt that gave them an experience of magnetic north.
46:14And I think there were only eight people in the study. But these eight people then had this new sense. It's called sensory addition instead of sensory substitution. And it was so interesting to me to talk to one of the participants for many reasons. But one was that it was so impossible for him to describe to me because there is no language for it. And he felt this incredible kinship with the other participants in the study because they were the only people in the world who could talk about this feeling. They're the only eight people who have this qualia. So we're very limited. There's two things here though.
46:51There's the limitations of language to describe these experiences that only, so few of us have had that we don't have the vocabulary for it. But then there's the sort of, I don't know if it's extrasensory or just the cultivation or development of new ways of sensing and percepting our world around us? Yeah. Is that extrasensory perception? It's more like - I'm not sure what you mean. Like bird migratory patterns or things like that. Like how do those things relate to this idea of consciousness as this kind of fabric? Yeah. So I think, I mean, when I imagine that consciousness is fundamental, when I ask questions about how the universe works, if that's the case.
47:41The idea is that for some reason consciousness has a structure, right? There's a clear structure to the universe. We do have the laws of physics. We do experience the things we experience. And the question is, if consciousness is fundamental, why does it have a structure? And I find that question fascinating and I think about it all the time. But the idea is that every shape that takes form in the universe, every structure, and actually Sarah Walker is a fascinating scientist who has a theory about life called assembly theory. And she talks about structures in time so that we would understand there's certain phenomena we would understand a lot better if we could see the structure as it unfolds in time rather than the way we experience things, which is one moment at a time.
48:30We're always kind of stuck in the present moment and can't see. And so the idea is that every conscious experience that arises in the universe is based on the structure of consciousness at that point. And I'm going to use space time now, even though that's probably not fundamental either. But, you know, to speak our language, whatever structure exists in this, you know, area of space time will give rise to these types of experiences. And so the experiences are related to the structure. and all of the structures, as you said, it is all one thing. And the truth is, you know, most scientific advancements have led to this point anyway.
49:09You know, we now know we're made of stardust, you know, the universe is made of the same ingredients and it is essentially all one thing. If consciousness is fundamental, everything that exists is a felt experience. The thing it is. the thing we're perceiving, the thing we're describing. But there is a clear structure to it. So whatever the structure is, is what determines the felt experience in that particular structure. And so... So we can intellectualize all of this, right? Like we know that, you know, separateness is an illusion and we can look at micro rhizal networks or forests in the way they communicate with each other.
49:57There's all these examples in nature to disabuse us of our innate intuition around being individuated, I guess. Yes. Similarly, like we live in a three-dimensional world, you talk about like, you get into this whole thing about interdimensionality and we think we understand what it would be like to be two-dimensional because we can draw on a piece of paper, et cetera. But do we really? Like we don't really, right? No, we don't because paper is not two dimensional. And we know for - We can't even conceive of something that's two dimensional because you get to paper and then you go thinner and eventually the depth disappears.
50:33And for us, that's nothing. We cannot conceive of something that's truly - We have no ability to conceptualize that. Anything that's not three dimensions. And similarly, we know for a fact that a fourth dimension exists - And probably many more. And we can draw geometric kind of representations of that. Although this makes a lot more sense. If space is not fundamental, those things make a lot more sense. And I get into that in the documentary series as well. So this is, well, there's two things here. I want you to explain that more fully. Okay. But at base level, what you're getting at is this idea that if indeed consciousness is fundamental, some of these quagmires that have,
51:17basically hamstrung physics, quantum physics, all the like, like all these problems out there that scientists have been unable to resolve. Yeah. Does consciousness being foundational help resolve those questions? I would say it doesn't necessarily help resolve them, but it helps us understand what they're telling us about the nature of the universe much better actually. And I have an article that's coming out soon making this argument. Physicists who are working on interpretations of quantum mechanics and new theories of quantum gravity What's coming out of a lot of those theories is something called relationalism, that there's no outside picture of the universe from which to stand, that it is all different views of itself.
52:04Lee Smolin is a physicist who's working on a theory right now called the causal theory of views, which kind of explains what it is, right? It's about the laws of physics as we know them and causality and how ultimately everything is a perspective on something else. Carlo Rovelli also has a theory of quantum gravity that has a similar punchline, which is a relationalist punchline, that everything is in relationship to something else. And it kind of comes into being based on its relationships to other things. And there is no outside view of things. What's interesting to me and what my new article is about is that, you know, leaving the physics aside, if I just come at this from an experiential perspective, from a neuroscientific perspective, if I imagine what the universe is and how it works, if consciousness is fundamental, you end up with a very similar picture.
53:08It's a relationalist view. It is the sense in which everything I'm perceiving is not only a representation of other conscious experiences that arise in the universe, but they're clearly shaping the conscious experiences that are arising here, right? So I'm looking over at you. The fact of your whatever conscious experiences are happening where you are, that's creating a vision for me of the hair and a face and, you know, all the things that I'm seeing that is part of my conscious experience. And that's being influenced by the conscious experiences over there. And so there is kind of this, I don't know, interesting picture of a morphing series of conscious experiences that arise and pass away in the universe, all of which affect one another and all of which are related to each other.
54:01That sounds crazy. I know. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to understand it. I actually have, I don't know if you want it, but I brought a quote from Carlo Rovelli, who I'm sure I did not convince in my conversation with him that consciousness is fundamental. So he's not on this train at all. But when you read the conclusion of the theory he's working on, he's a very well respected, very brilliant scientist. The way he describes what the universe is at a fundamental level is the same way we would describe the universe if consciousness is fundamental. And I find that really interesting. And that doesn't convince me that it's the case, but I think it's useful for physicists who are working on these theories to think about this because it does give us, instead of it being kind of an amorphous, almost like platonic idea of like, the ultimate thing is the equation.
54:57How can an equation be the fundamental, anyone who's a proponent of the many worlds interpretation? They have to kind of get to the point where they believe that it is this equation that is fundamental. And so if you're interested in a deeper understanding and if you want to say, okay, but what does that equation represent? What is that about? If it's about felt experience, if it's actually describing felt experience from another perspective, describing the structure of felt experience, that is actually something we can absorb. And it does kind of give it ground to stand on. In the same way, actually, I talk a little bit about this in the series.
55:45There's some physicists and mathematicians like Max Tegmark. He's one example of a well-known physicist who really believes that the structures that come out of the math, like a 10-dimensional object called a decorat, these are things that come out of the math. They exist in a mathematical sense. His belief is that if it comes out of the math, it actually exists in reality. It's not just an idea. It's not just a hypothetical. if the math says it exists, it actually does exist in the universe, which doesn't actually mean anything, I think. But if consciousness is fundamental, a Dekorak is the structure of a certain type of conscious experience.
56:30And that is something that makes a little bit more sense. And I think possibly will actually help move some of these theories forward. What can the average person kind of interpret from the fact that there are multiple dimensions beyond our ability to perceive and how that impacts like how we think about consciousness. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, if consciousness is not fundamental and we're just talking about a non-conscious universe, that is something that I don't think any human being will ever be able to understand. I mean, we can understand it mathematically, but the idea of a two-dimensional object or a hundred dimensional object, that is just not part of our imagination.
57:10We can't quite go there. If we realize that space is not fundamental, which is actually just a conclusion that I think physicists are drawing now, our experience of space is representing something kind of at a deeper level. And actually I can go back to the color example as an analogy. So we don't experience the full spectrum of light, but we can understand that there are these other light waves that we don't perceive. And so, and there are light waves. They're not, it's not that red is out there in the world and green is out there in the world. There's, we understand kind of the mechanics of how that works and that we don't perceive.
57:50There are all these other light waves that we're not perceiving. If space is not fundamental and it's something else that we are perceiving about the structure of reality, there could be other dimensions like there are other light waves that we just don't perceive. And they wouldn't need to be in a new direction in the way we think of space because it's not about space. It's about something else in the same way that color is not about color. It's about something else. And so I think there's something very interesting about the fact that space is not fundamental and what that means for the human brain and what it is we're perceiving that gives us, it's giving us a map, right?
58:31In the same way that color gives us a map. It's giving us a map of the world that's accurate in a way that we can use, but it's giving us the sense that space is out there in the same way that color is out there and space is probably not out there. So imagining another dimension of space is probably the wrong way to think about it because it's not about space. What is it about then? And so, well, then we don't know, but then we go back to if consciousness is fundamental, it's just a much more complex experience that we can't imagine, but ultimately it's just about experience. So there's an experience that includes 10 dimensions of space, whatever space is at the fundamental level.
59:14I mean, what I take away from that and how I ground that into lived experience is simply to say, we are very limited in what we're capable of understanding, perceiving, seeing. And we walk around with these convictions based upon our intuitions, but our bandwidth is so incredibly limited. And within that, I can kind of connect with an inner humility, like that allows me to hold ideas a little bit less tight and make space for awe and wonder and like, you know, just comfort with not knowing. You know what I mean? Like there's so much going, like the deeper you go into is the crazier it gets, right?
59:57And so it's like, clearly we have no fucking idea what's happening. You know what I mean? And we're all caught up in like our, you know, our social media feeds and whatever. And it's like, this whole thing is so much crazier than you can possibly imagine. Yes, that's probably true. And within that, like you have a choice, you can say, well, it's all meaningless or it all can be reduced to a math equation or something like that. Or you can choose to say like, that is so cool. Like, we just don't know, you know what I mean? And just like live your life and like do what, everybody who preceded us tells us to do, which is to like, love more and like be present and like, you know, make sure that you're taking care of the important things.
1:00:44And smart people like yourself are looking at all these things. Maybe one day we'll resolve them. But I think it's important to like, we think that we're capable of understanding everything and that our brains are like the ultimate, like, you know, like we have evolved, you know, to the furthest point possible to conceptualize and understand everything. And we're just, we're just like, we're like at the very beginning stages of that process. Like we just don't have enough lobes and all of it. Humanity's in its infancy. We can't get it. And we're not going to get it. And even when science says there's a deserract or whatever, it's like, well, what are we supposed to do with that?
1:01:20Like we're not wired to understand that. Think about it because it's fascinating. Yeah, I mean, it's cool to think about. No, but you have to surrender to not knowing. And there's a beauty in surrendering to the not knowing. Yes, that's my point. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I have a children's book on the subject. Right. The original title was, I don't know. How did this become such an obsession for you? I mean, really it's an obsession. I'll answer that, but I wanna say one other thing because there's an important piece here that I learned in this process from a physicist, which is so interesting.
1:01:49It was Jan 11, actually, who I was talking to. She studies black holes and she's a fascinating woman and also an artist and writes beautifully. And I highly recommend all her books. We were talking about this different dimensions and not being able to perceive them. We were having this very conversation. And I said something again about, but we can't picture a four dimension. We can't, you know, like, doesn't it drive you crazy that you can't? And she said, well, I don't know. And she just, she said, what about love? She's like, what, how many dimensions does love have? And I realized there actually are a lot of conscious experiences we have that we don't need to fit into this external space.
1:02:29And so they don't actually have, we don't know how many dimensions, we wouldn't talk about them as having dimensions. And amazingly, I mean, this was really eye-opening to me because I hadn't really thought about that. I kind of assumed we did fit every single conscious experience we have into three dimensions, but we don't. I think the ones that we think about as being more amorphous and the ones that always actually fascinate me in meditation when I'm meditating and I get hungry and I think, what is hunger? How do I even know I'm hungry? Like, I can't find the feeling. And so I actually think we already know about a lot of felt experiences that don't necessarily have a spatial dimension to them.
1:03:10And I think that's important to recognize. Yeah, so space is not fundamental to the universe. We're not sure if consciousness is, you think it just might be. But this idea of love, Like what if love is the foundational, fabric of everything from which everything else emerges? You know what I mean? Like that is sort of interstellar, right? This is sort of the Christopher Nolan thing, you know what I mean? And every great kind of enlightened being, just basically says it's all about love, right? And so love is a weird word because we have so many attachments and associations with what we think it means.
1:03:53but if you just think of it as a certain kind of energy. Sure. Is that an emergent property of consciousness? Does it exist outside of it? Is it foundational to consciousness itself? Like these are the - I don't think I'm qualified to answer this question. I don't know, but like, you're the one asking the big questions. You know what I mean? Yeah, I just, I mean, I have no idea. Love is a very human experience and I don't know that it has meaning outside of our human experience. I don't know. I like the idea. Consciousness is a hard problem, but also like... a problem that requires, as I said earlier, like you can't think about it or try to unlock it without like casting your gaze across all these disciplines, quantum physics and the double slit problem and Schrodinger's cat.
1:04:52If you're willing to consider. Like string theory, and then you have a library of philosophy to turn to and what's going on inside our brains in terms of neurons. Like you have to look at all of those things and then figure out how to synthesize them to see what makes sense and what doesn't. Yeah. Well, and I think, I mean, to your other point of surrendering to the not knowing, which I think is important. I also think we gain more and more knowledge and there's something very exciting about that. We clearly understand things better now than we did 500 years ago. And I think humanity is truly in its infancy.
1:05:31So we have a very, very long way to go and a lot to learn and discover along the way, which I think is exciting. I can't say I think we'll ever understand all of it. But I think curiosity, love and curiosity are both really important experiences and feelings to cultivate and just in terms of human wellbeing. And so I think following these questions is not only important scientifically, but I actually think they're things that feed us emotionally.
1:06:04I own a bunch of spectacles, and I made the grave error the other day of donning a normal non-Roka pair on my indoor trainer when I was riding my bike indoors. And I got to tell you, it was a disaster. Every three to five seconds, I had to take my hands off the handlebars and push my glasses back up my nose until I got so frustrated, I just tossed them aside. This is the dilemma of every active but optically impaired person I know. And as someone who has relied upon eyewear every single day since I was five years old, it is also the source of endless aggravation. Thankfully, now eradicated thanks to Broca, the stylish performance eyewear company founded by two former Stanford swimming teammates of mine who have gifted everyone like me and quite frankly, the world with their fashionable line of super lightweight prescription glasses and sunglasses with patented no-slip nose and temple pads that are just impervious to sweat.
1:07:08And no matter what you do, remain locked on your mug, no matter how intense your workout. Without the dork factor, these things go everywhere with me from the trail to the dinner party. Put them on, feel the difference and where without limits. Unlock 20 % off your order with the code RITUAL at Roka.com. That's R-O-K-A.com.
1:07:39We do have this deeper intuition that there is something special about consciousness that is ineffable and undefinable, right? But we also have this intuition that we can solve these mysteries through scientific advances and that our human minds, if we direct them properly, will be able to make sense of something that seems like it doesn't make sense because that is the history of progress of the human race, right? And so our intuition is that, well, just as we figured out that the earth wasn't flat, we will be able to solve this. But the underlying premise that you're challenging is at the core of this perhaps false intuition, which is that consciousness is an emergent property of matter.
1:08:29And as the aggregation of matter becomes more complex, so does this emergent property of consciousness. And so that consciousness is rooted in matter itself. In other words, like it is a property of the physical world. Is that a fair estimation of kind of like the scientific traditionalist? I think that's what the sciences have assumed. I would actually, I mean, there's some of what you said that I still assume, but I think there's a good chance that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe and doesn't arise out of complexity. But even there, I would say it's still tied to the physical, what we call the physical.
1:09:09It doesn't push it into any metaphysical place where there's matter and the physical world and then consciousness. I think it is all part of one thing. It's all part of the same thing. It's different ways of experiencing or describing the same phenomena. And part of that is rooted in just our observation of nature, right? As organisms become more complex, we project this notion that they have higher levels of consciousness as you kind of go up the scale. So this connects to one thing that you said that I think is worth going back to, which is that consciousness seems kind of special and ineffable.
1:09:48And the way that it is different from everything else we can talk about, everything else we study, everything else we experience, is the fact that it can only be known from the inside. It can only be known from the experience itself. And there's nothing else like that that we can talk about, especially as far as the sciences are concerned. That's all about measuring and behavior and things that are external. It's not about the internal. You know, neuroscience and psychology cross over into relating to the internal, but we can't ever get direct evidence of any conscious experience apart from our own conscious experiences.
1:10:30And so this relates to where we expect to find it in nature and other places in the universe. And so, so far we've had to go on this assumption that where we can communicate, you know, you and I are very similar beings, right? And so we are experience of seeing and hearing and tasting and all these things. We share these felt experiences and we've developed this language so that we have enough communication between us that we can, you know, I can never know for sure whether you're conscious, right? I can't get in your conscious experience, but we can talk enough about our shared conscious experiences to feel pretty confident that you're experiencing something similar to what I am.
1:11:09And so we've done this, you know, down cats and dogs and mice. And, you know, we have enough in common with them, even though we're not able to communicate directly, that we can assume that there is a conscious experience there. And then the less a system is like us, the less we have anything to go on. But we've made this assumption, which I now refer to as the strong assumption, that only complex systems, namely systems that have brains, the most complex thing we know of in the universe, only those things are conscious because they're the only things we can communicate with. The only way we can get any type of evidence that there's consciousness present.
1:11:51But I think that that's likely a mistake and that consciousness may actually not be something that requires complexity that comes out of complex processing at all. It could be a much more fundamental aspect of the universe. And this is just our complex experience of being human beings with brains lends itself to this very complex felt experience. But there could be experiences, you know, even in non-living systems that are much less complex, much more basic, probably without memory, just, you know, experience coming in and out of the universe. But there's no reason to believe. I've come to the point in my research and my thinking and my writing that I think it's as likely, we're on the same kind of footing, assuming that consciousness arises out of complexity as we would be if we assumed consciousness was something very fundamental and basic.
1:12:47And I think we don't have any more evidence for assuming one over the other. When we first talked, you were kind of very skeptical, but open to this idea of panpsychism. I think maybe you said like, maybe it's 50-50, like this idea of what kind, and like now, what is it? Is it like 70-30, 80-20? I'm trying to think of the number I say in my documentary, because I know I answer this in the documentary, but I'm not sure, but it's gotta be around 70, 70 % weight on the side of consciousness being fundamental. I think it's definitely more likely than not. And that's just based on, you know, the intellectual logic of why we have assumed that it arises out of complexity and all the reasons, you know, that I think we actually don't have the evidence we think we have for that.
1:13:43And then as I kind of discovered through this process of creating this documentary, that in some ways it helps us understand certain things better. I also just think it makes more sense as a starting assumption because of the hard problem, because if it's not fundamental, we encounter the hard problem wherever we try to insert consciousness, because it truly is a different property than any property we can talk about externally in behavior and something that can be perceived. It truly is the thing that can only be known from the inside. and if the non-conscious universe creates things you know whatever they are brains or you know something simpler where there's no felt experience there's zero the lights are out and then they start moving in a certain way or start firing electricity in a certain way or cells start interacting in a certain way and it's no longer just about the external behavior but the lights come on from the inside, which is why it's the title of my documentary.
1:14:49That is something that cannot be explained. And it's strange. It's interesting. I've been thinking about this so long. I now actually see that as a dualist perspective, which no scientist would claim to be a dualist, right? I think if you want to be a materialist, you can't have consciousness emerge at a certain level because then a new property is coming into existence. that's not a physical property. Because if you say the system is exactly the same, but now there's an experience of green or now there's an experience of pressure or whatever the felt experience is, that's in addition to the physical properties.
1:15:28And that to me just doesn't square with my scientific way of thinking, my materialist way of thinking. And so I think that's why I've landed on 70 % after. Yeah, I mean, the closer you investigate that, the more it falls apart. Yes. Yeah. That's right. So this raises another kind of interesting question because we're in this era of the rapid advancement of AI and all these new technologies. And what you're suggesting to me sounds like we need a different way of thinking about the advancement of these artificial intelligences because the traditional notion is they will continue to mature and become more and more complex.
1:16:11And at some point the question becomes like, are they conscious or do they become conscious? Does consciousness emerge from that? And what you're suggesting is that's the wrong way to think about this. Yes. Yeah, I get asked about AI a lot and I feel like I don't have that many interesting things to say about it. And part of the reason is because I'm interested in this question about whether consciousness is fundamental. If it is fundamental, I'm as interested in the conscious experiences arising in this area of space-time that to me is just, I'm experiencing as a table, right? Yeah. Or plant life, which is obviously more complex than whatever's happening in this table.
1:16:50Like I'm so interested in all of the systems that exist, that have always existed and that we know about. What does that mean about the conscious experiences that exist there? So AI is not in its own unique, interesting category as far as my interest in consciousness. But one thing that I think is interesting that I think we will need to think about is the fact that if consciousness is fundamental, it means that everything is felt experience at bottom. It seems to be that the structure of the thing determines the types of felt experiences that arise in it. AI is built very differently from human beings.
1:17:37It's made out of different matter. And so if consciousness is fundamental, I would expect the experiences arising in those systems to be vastly different from the experiences that arise in human brains. And so, I mean, one thing that I find kind of disturbing and interesting is we may end up creating systems that behave externally very similarly to us, but that don't actually have the same internal experiences. and I mean either way we're headed toward a very weird world where we don't have intuitions that tell us what it means to be this other system if it means anything at all to be this other system and and how to relate to it it's like you and I can relate to each other because we're more or less feeling the same things if consciousness is fundamental and even if it's not but especially if it's fundamental AI is not going to be generating the same types or representing the same types of experiences that human beings have.
1:18:36And so I don't know what we do in a world where a system says, I'm hungry or I'm feeling sad. And the internal experience is nothing like what we are calling sad. Yeah. Because then we're just basically relying on our own incorrect intuitions about what these things are. Yeah. And when an intelligence that is artificial is at such an advanced stage such that it's impossible to tell the difference between how they're behaving and how a human is behaving. It leads to the assumption that they're having an interior experience that mimics our own. When in fact it could be something completely different.
1:19:16And that, there's a lot of questions that emerge from that, of course, like at some level, like, does it make a difference to them it does. But I think what I get out of that is that our relationship with consciousness is restricted to our own experience. And we have no capacity to conjure the experience of consciousness in any other form, right? Yeah. And so we have no way of trying to understand or know what that would be like. Yes. Although this is, and this is kind of very limited, the amount of time I've spent thinking about this, but this is the final chapter of my documentary is kind of devoted to this category, what I refer to as experiential science.
1:20:04And so I wonder, this is all, you know, big question marks, but I wonder if this assumption that consciousness is fundamental, if science, if, you know, significant amount of the sciences move forward with this assumption, what I imagine the future to look like is involving a lot of things like the sensory addition work we spoke about. So a few things to say about this. One is if we could experience other systems, like, I mean, we get our intuitions from, you know, Newton got his intuitions and his insights from feeling the physical law, feeling the physics at work, right? We feel them, we experience them.
1:20:44And those give us intuition. Some of them are false, but some of them help us understand the phenomena better. So if we could experience magnetic north, just being able to have it in the form of an intuition rather than intellectual knowledge, could we better understand? David Eagleman talks about, you know, plugging humans into systems that they work with. So like, could the astronauts in the International Space Station, could we, you know, design a vest or a belt or something where they could feel the system so that it was intuitive rather than, you know, keeping track of all the numbers? Could they kind of know when something's out of balance because they feel, oh, you know, we need more heat over here.
1:21:28where they could have a feel for the International Space Station or a pilot of its airplane. And so there is a way in which we could get new intuitions for physical forces that we don't normally perceive and that could advance science. So there's kind of that avenue. There's also the avenue that I've been thinking a lot about actually. you know, when Einstein had his breakthrough about gravity not being a force, but being kind of the structure of space time, that came to him as an insight, as an intuition, before he was able to write it out in language and mathematics. So it actually took over a decade for him to express that intuition to other scientists, because he had to turn the experience that that feeling he had of, wait a second, maybe gravity isn't a force like a magnetic force.
1:22:26There is, you know, time is part of space in such a way that there's the fabric of reality is space time. And when massive objects distort it, it changes the paths of other objects, right? So that was an intuition. And I've thought about this, if he could have shared that intuition with a scientist rather than taking a decade to get it all out in the form of mathematics and language and communication. And that way, if we could directly share intuitions, I mean, one, that would just advance science so quickly. Who knows what, you know, where that would lead. But I think there's something very interesting about the idea that we could experience something and have knowledge of something in an experiential form that, you know, the future of neuroscience might lead to.
1:23:15There might be some way in which we're able to capture memories and intuitions in a way that they can be shared directly rather than having to be shared indirectly through language. I also think it might help us better understand how deep in nature consciousness runs. You know, Again, this is, who knows what the future holds, but as a thought experiment. So the idea that we can communicate as much as we can convinces me that you are conscious. I can't ever have direct evidence of that. I don't know for sure. I don't know for sure that my cat is conscious, but there's enough in my intuitions and my communication that enables me to make that assumption that these other, certain other systems are conscious.
1:24:00I wonder if it's possible that at some point in the future, we could sense systems like mycorrhizal networks or trees or plants or other systems that are different enough from us that we have no way of knowing or communicating with them. but that maybe there's a direct experiential link that would give us ways to then experimentally test these questions. You know, maybe there's something it's like to be a flower blooming or, you know, whatever the phenomenon might be. the idea that there could be a way to experience it in a conscious way, in an intuitive way might actually give us more information that directs our assumptions in the same way that we're already doing that with systems that are similar to us.
1:24:49I mean, what I'm hearing you say is really a reminder to scientists to remember what science is all about, right? Like science is asking questions. There's science and then there's the institutionalization of science and all of its rules, et cetera, that perhaps has kind of put a stranglehold on asking the crazier questions. Yeah, but I think it's important. No, I think they're important. And I think the crazy questions always get answered. Yeah, like you are very much in the scientific method. I believe it's really the only thing we have. But what I'm saying is, and I know you agree with me, is that science has to make space for these deeper, more profound questions.
1:25:35This is what science was designed to kind of explore, right? And you talk about this in the documentary, like the philosophers have to have a place in the discussion around science and the questions that we're asking. And these disciplines have been kind of separated and perhaps we need to find a way for them to be more integrated. I think we're more productive when they're integrated. Because we have like, there's intuitions that lead us astray, but the deeper intuitions, the intuition that Einstein had, that Newton had, or whatever, these like, these tugs on the soul where we know something is true or there might be truth to a certain idea, we just can't shake it.
1:26:15Yeah. Rather than dismiss that, how do we find a way to give voice to that and explore it? And, you know, what you're proposing in these questions that you're asking. I mean, they are the most profound questions, you know, of what it means to, you know, be a human and what the universe is and all of that. And like any resolution or any progress in answering those questions fundamentally changes how we think about our lives and the nature of reality itself and what the universe is. Like these are the deepest questions to ask. I mean, I'm tiptoeing towards your obsession into this, But like, it's also like an invitation to madness, right?
1:26:55Like you can just twist yourself up into knots with all of these questions. I guess. I don't know. I mean, people have said that to me before. I don't know. I feel like it's the antidote to madness, but I understand that perspective. I think even the things we already know and understand, I just view our experience and the world and the universe and everything in it as so mysterious and interesting and strange that I don't know. I don't see, I just wanna go deeper into it. And I guess I'm trying to get some sanity. Like I'm trying to understand better, right? I do like sitting in the not knowing and that's where I spend a lot of my time.
1:27:40But I think, I guess, you know, maybe it's more obvious to me and to people like me how bizarre the world already is that paying more attention to it and trying to understand it better doesn't make things more mysterious to me. It makes things. But it's beautiful to hold onto that. Like we walk around with these blinders on and we think we are making sense of everything. Do you know who the comedian Pete Holmes is? He has like a really - Oh, I think I have seen him. He has a great joke. He's like somebody's, I can't even remember the setup and I'll butcher this, but basically he's like, I'm sorry, like we're on this rock, like careening through space however fast we are and like into this vast emptiness.
1:28:26And like, it's just like, it's so much crazier than you can possibly imagine. And we just walk around thinking everything's normal and like we get it and we don't get anything. Walking around feeling like everything is normal makes me uncomfortable, makes me less comfortable than facing the mysteries. Yeah. Science fiction, you know, sometimes does a good job in helping us kind of ground ourselves in these ideas. And I think one of the best science fiction films that I've seen that tiptoes into your terrain is Arrival. Did you see that movie, Arrival? I probably have. If you haven't seen it, we can't talk about it.
1:29:05No, I probably have. Tell me a little bit. I'm so bad with names and titles. It's basically this like circular story in which this ship arrives and the humans start to interface with this alien form that has a whole different language. And it takes a long time for them to realize like their circular kind of way of using communication in written form has everything to do with a completely different like relationship with time, right? Because we think time is linear. It's certainly not. We know that for a fact and yet we can't escape our experience. like experiencing it only in that way. Yes, true.
1:29:43This is true. We have one window. But that movie gives you kind of a, it gives you kind of an experience of what that would be like in a way that's very tactile and I thought extremely effective. Very well done. I agree, yes. That perhaps gives you a glimpse into some of these ideas that you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. And I hope there are more films like this to come. Yeah, like that one, yeah. I guess the, you know, kind of where I wanna land this is with some sense making around like what the average person is supposed to take from your exploration that they can then translate into, you know, a better lived experience.
1:30:20Like how do we, like it's so hard to grasp these ideas, but there are truths within this that can improve the quality of our lives. Yeah, I think about this in a couple of ways. One is more just my homework assignment for the next generation, which is I want the next generation of scientists to be interested and inspired by these ideas and get excited about the next paradigm shift because I think the next paradigm shift will include really rattling and shaking up our intuitions. And I think it's an exercise that is useful for people to start doing at a young age and especially those who are science-minded who might go into the sciences.
1:30:59I think my hope is that this reaches some of those scientists of the future. I think, you know, for our everyday experience, one thing that all of this work, you know, all these arrows kind of point in the same direction, including I think most of where science has led us, which is that it truly is one thing, that the universe is one thing, that we don't, we're not in the universe. We are part of the universe. And I think there's something on many levels that's useful psychologically for being aware of that and to keep being pointed back to that fact, because one of the false intuitions we have is that we are these separate things and that we are these selves that are even, I mean, the interesting thing about the idea of a self is that it seems to be separate from the material world altogether, separate from my brains that, you know, I often will say, we say my brain, my body, you know, as if the me is somewhere else.
1:31:59And to recognize that these are all processes in nature, that we're processes in nature, that we are nature, that we're embedded in a world that we're in constant communication with. I have been recently conjuring up for myself, but also just talking about this idea that if all of the forces that we already know about, all of the things that we know about that exist, the sound waves that are coming out of my mouth and bouncing off your eardrum, the air we breathe, the water that I need to continually consume. I mean, it's amazing. It's such a simple fact, but if I stop drinking water, like this system will shut down, right?
1:32:38There is so much interaction that if we could see all these things, if we could see the sound waves, you know, penetrating through the air between us and changing the chemistry of your brain. And we would be much more aware of this fact. It's a fact that we are just kind of intertwined and we're all part of this bigger thing. And being part of something bigger is, I think, an intrinsically spiritual and positive experience that's very conducive to well-being. And I think it's important for us to constantly be reminded of the fact that we're not these separate selves, you know, living in the world, that we're a part of whatever this thing is.
1:33:18this is like this, the universe is unfolding in whatever way it's unfolding. And we're just, we're just part of that unfolding. There seems to be a Darwinian imperative to, you know, cultivating a deeper sense of that. Like this idea of the self ultimately, you know, kind of pits us against each other and gives rise to the systems that now, you know, lead to wars and the destruction of the planet and all of that. And had we developed that ability to really grok, you know, the oneness of everything, maybe, you know, maybe the planet would be very different. Yeah. Actually, can I say one more thing about that?
1:33:56That reminds me of something else that I touch on sometimes that I talk about in the documentary. This idea, the way that memory plays a role in the experience of self, I think is very interesting. I've been thinking a lot about that in the way that, you know, my three-year-old self, I have memories of being three, You know, they're very limited, but it gives me this sense of there being some kind of concrete self that traveled from that period of time to this period of time. Whereas it's really a memory of another conscious experience that is able to arise in this time and place. and that the truth is that conscious experience that arose at that point in time is as different from the conscious experiences that are arising now here where I am than the ones you're having over there.
1:34:48And there's some sense in which, you know, I shouldn't be happier for my five-year-old self who experienced something wonderful than something wonderful happening to you. That the sense of self that we have, I think, gives us a false idea of where compassion should naturally arise. And so I think that's one of the reasons why in meditation, compassion usually becomes something that's much more accessible to us. Because this dropping of self and other goes away and there's no difference between something happening to you and something happening to me. It's just another conscious experience arising in the universe, something that we're all a part of.
1:35:31And obviously memory serves us well in terms of survival. There's reasons, you know, positive reasons why we have memory. But if we didn't have any memory at all, we would still have consciousness, but it would look and feel very different. Yes. Yeah. And I think that sense of separateness would really fall away. How are your peers and the scientific community at large, people who think about consciousness receiving this? I mean, the documentary when we're talking is not out yet, but I'm sure you've published a paper on this. You have this article in Nautilus Magazine, like you're out in the world posing this question.
1:36:06They will listen like you have, yeah.
1:36:09Surprisingly well, I'm always surprised. I was surprised with my book also. I actually, when I wrote my book before it was published, I gave it to a lot of scientists. The scientists I thought would be the most critical of it. And I think because it's done in the spirit of scientific investigation, I think that gives me a pass or it's becoming less taboo. But no, even the scientists who disagree with my ultimate conclusion seem to be very supportive of having this conversation, supportive of the endeavor, the questions, the exploring, because I also, you know, because for me, the question about consciousness is related to so many scientific fields.
1:36:55I have the opportunity to cover, you know, plant behavior and physics and neuroscience and all of these different areas. And so, no, I've been, I'm lucky and surprised, I would say that it's been, people have been very, very supportive. Well, because I'm not a scientist, I can say what you can't, which is that I want it to be true, you know? And I can just choose to believe that it is true because I like thinking about life and pursuing life as if it were true, even if perhaps someday we'll realize. Yeah, exactly, yeah. You know, it's interesting. I don't necessarily find it better or worse. And actually when I first started truly believing this might be the way the universe is structured, I found it very disconcerting actually.
1:37:42And that was part of the reason why I thought I was doing a good job as a scientist, because I didn't like the outcome actually. Because if consciousness is fundamental and pervasive, my guess is the level of suffering in the universe is much more vast than we realize. And that I find hard to digest. Explain that. I'm not sure I understand. Well, assuming that, you know, suffering is the type, you know, the various forms of suffering, but that arise out of either the goal of kind of fighting entropy. I mean, we're kind of human beings are kind of these entropy fighting machines. All the things that we suffer from are because it takes energy to keep the system going.
1:38:30So we inevitably enter into competition and hunger and injury and death and all the things that cause suffering, the things that obviously we want less of, those of us who care about conscious experiences in the world. And so I imagine, and I could be wrong about this, but I imagine that, especially in all the life forms that we see around us, that there would be, if they all entail a conscious experience, there would be a lot more suffering. Yeah, but maybe you're anthropomorphizing too much. Maybe. That is an interesting thought. See, I look at it like, basically, like if everything is consciousness or conscious, you know, it's like then, and we could move towards really embracing that and understanding it, that could be a seismic shift in how we just think about life and other people.
1:39:19I am hopeful that that's true. I am hopeful that if it's true and if we're able to absorb that fact, it will actually lead to less suffering, at least in human beings. Yeah, well, I think that's a good place to end it. You did an amazing job on this documentary. I mean, it's like 10 hours long, like it's so 11. It's very comprehensive. As I said, I'm still working my way through it, but it is, and you cannot listen to this like at any speed. You might even have to like slow it down to 0.8 because I keep rewinding. I'm like, wait, let me make sure I understand what you're saying. But I think that you have such a great way of talking about these incredibly challenging and difficult ideas.
1:39:59Cause you have this welcome energy. Like it's an encouraging, it's like, I'm gonna test you. Like these ideas are hard, but like, I believe, I trust you and I believe that you can understand. And it's like, it's this comforting hand, like walk with me and we're gonna like ask these questions and explore. That's wonderful. And if you're paying attention, like you really can get it. That's great to hear. That was my intention. I think you nailed it. Yeah, so it's exciting. Anyway, thank you for the work that you do. I think it's really important and it was great to talk to you. Yeah, always great to talk to you.
1:40:31Thanks, Annika. Cheers. Peace.
1:40:44That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and or comment.
1:41:23This show just wouldn't be possible without the help of our amazing sponsors who keep this podcast running wild and free. To check out all their amazing offers, head to richroll.com slash sponsors. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake.
1:42:04Portraits by Davey Greenberg, graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel Solis. And thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love. Love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants. Namaste.
1:42:48You
From the publisher
Annaka Harris is a New York Times bestselling author and creator of the groundbreaking audio documentary series “Lights On.”
This conversation explores the profound question of whether consciousness is fundamental to the universe rather than merely an emergent property of complex matter. We discuss the ineffable nature of felt experience, the illusion of self, and how our perceptual limitations restrict our understanding of the world around us.
Also, I share a very personal and meaningful experience that changed how I think about the nature of reality.
Annaka is an insightful guide whose perspectives may shift your thinking about the substrate of existence. Enjoy!
Show notes + MORE
Watch on YouTube
Newsletter Sign-Up
Today’s Sponsors:
iFit: Use the code RICHROLL to get 10% off any purchase of $999+ 👉 nordictrack.com/RICHROLL
Squarespace: Use the offer code RichRoll to save 10% off your first purchase 👉Squarespace.com/RichRoll
AG1: Get a FREE bottle of Vitamin D3+K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs 👉drinkAG1.com/richroll
Calm: Get 40% off a Calm Premium subscription 👉 calm.com/richroll
On Running: High-performance shoes & apparel crafted for comfort and style 👉on.com/richroll
OneSkin: Get 15% off with the code RICHROLL👉 oneskin.co
Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors 👉 richroll.com/sponsors
Find out more about Voicing Change Media at voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange
