
Lights On
How Understanding Consciousness Helps Us Understand the Universe
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Narrated by:
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Annaka Harris
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By:
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Annaka Harris
About this listen
“Consciousness might be the greatest mystery of the universe, and Annaka Harris is our best detective… You’ll never think about what happens between your ears in the same way again.” —Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again
“Follow along as Annaka Harris interviews (and graciously challenges) the world’s leading scientists on the nature of consciousness… Magnificent.” —Susan Cain, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Quiet
As accessible as it is awe-inspiring, this exclusive audio documentary by New York Times bestselling author Annaka Harris explores the unknown corners of consciousness and the cosmos.
Is consciousness a fundamental building block of the universe, like gravity? Can humans develop new senses through neuroscience? And can artificial intelligence ever truly replicate the subjective experience of being conscious?
Join Annaka Harris as she calls on distinguished experts in science and philosophy to find answers to today’s most perplexing questions about our minds and the universe at large. Through interviews with thinkers such as Brian Greene, David Eagleman, Anil Seth, Carlo Rovelli, and more, Harris presents diverse perspectives on whether consciousness could be considered a fundamental aspect of the universe.
This revolutionary idea challenges traditional neuroscience and quantum physics, shattering what we think we know about ourselves and scientific phenomena as foundational as space and time. Lights On also questions how a new understanding of consciousness might affect our perception of existence, our notions of free will, the development of technology, and the future of scientific discovery. In a follow-up to her seminal book, Conscious, this audio-original documentary offers beginners and experts alike a chance to unravel some of humankind’s most enduring puzzles. Where Conscious presents new questions about felt experience, Lights On seeks to find the answers.
“Only Annaka Harris could take one of the greatest mysteries of science and make it not only an adventure but also deeply relevant to everyday human flourishing.” —Dan Harris, author of the New York Times bestseller 10% Happier and host of the 10% Percent Happier podcast
Narrated by Annaka Harris; featuring Jay Shapiro, Susan Blackmore, Sean Carroll, Daniel Chamovitz, David Eagleman, Sascha Fink, Adam Frank, Philip Goff, Joseph Goldstein, Brian Greene, Donald Hoffman, Patrick House, Christof Koch, Janna Levin, George Musser, Zoë Schlanger, Anil Seth, Lee Smolin, Sara Imari Walker
Produced and directed by Jay Shapiro and Annaka Harris
An audio original from Macmillan Audio.
Interview: In "Lights On", Annaka Harris tackles one of the universe’s great mysteries: consciousness
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Story
Understanding how brains produce consciousness is one of the great scientific challenges of our age. Some philosophers argue that consciousness is something "extra", beyond the physical workings of the brain. Others think that if we persist in our standard scientific methods, our questions about consciousness will eventually be answered. And some suggest that the mystery is so deep, it will never be solved.
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Good but basic
- By ginger on 01-23-20
By: Philip Goff
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Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell
- A Straightforward Summary of the 21st Century's only Plausible Metaphysics
- By: Bernardo Kastrup
- Narrated by: Christian Leatherman
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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As the failures of physicalism begin to shake the confidence of even the most biased of its supporters, a new view on the nature of reality is establishing itself as the only tenable alternative: Analytic Idealism. According to it, there is a world out there independent of our individual minds, but such world is—just like ourselves—also mental or experiential. While being a realist, naturalist, rationalist, and even reductionist view, Analytic Idealism flips our culture-bound intuitions on their head.
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Underrated Insight
- By Lissa on 03-20-25
By: Bernardo Kastrup
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The Feeling of Life Itself
- Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
- By: Christof Koch
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Psychologists study which cognitive operations underpin a given conscious perception. Neuroscientists track the neural correlates of consciousness in the brain, the organ of the mind. But why the brain and not, say, the liver? How can the brain, three pounds of highly excitable matter, a piece of furniture in the universe, subject to the same laws of physics as any other piece, give rise to subjective experience? Koch argues that what is needed to answer these questions is a quantitative theory that starts with experience and proceeds to the brain.
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Constant references to illustrations
- By Mark on 11-03-21
By: Christof Koch
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The Case Against Reality
- Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes
- By: Donald Hoffman
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Challenging leading scientific theories that claim that our senses report back objective reality, cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman argues that while we should take our perceptions seriously, we should not take them literally. How can it be possible that the world we see is not objective reality? And how can our senses be useful if they are not communicating the truth? Hoffman grapples with these questions and more over the course of this eye-opening work.
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Don't buy - visual examples missing, no pdf
- By Richard Pickett on 08-26-19
By: Donald Hoffman
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What Is It Like to Be a Bat?
- By: Thomas Nagel
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 1 hr and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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"Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable." So begins Thomas Nagel's classic 1974 essay "What is it Like to be a Bat?" Nagel's essay initiated the now widespread attention to consciousness as a central problem for philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience; it also influenced the recognition of the consciousness of nonhuman creatures as an important subject of study.
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I Must Be Incomplet
- By Amazon Customer on 04-12-25
By: Thomas Nagel
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Lying
- By: Sam Harris
- Narrated by: Sam Harris
- Length: 1 hr and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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As it was in Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, and Othello, so it is in life. Most forms of private vice and public evil are kindled and sustained by lies. Acts of adultery and other personal betrayals, financial fraud, government corruption - even murder and genocide - generally require an additional moral defect: a willingness to lie. In Lying, bestselling author and neuroscientist Sam Harris argues that we can radically simplify our lives and improve society by merely telling the truth in situations where others often lie.
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"Telling The Truth...
- By Douglas on 11-29-13
By: Sam Harris
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Consciousness, 2nd Edition
- A Very Short Introduction
- By: Susan Blackmore
- Narrated by: Zehra Jane Naqvi
- Length: 4 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Exciting new developments in brain science are continuing the debates on these issues, and the field has now expanded to include biologists, neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers. This controversial book clarifies the potentially confusing arguments, and the major theories, while also outlining the amazing pace of discoveries in neuroscience. Covering areas such as the construction of self in the brain, mechanisms of attention, the neural correlates of consciousness, and the physiology of altered states of consciousness, Susan Blackmore highlights our latest findings.
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Biased in its conclusions, judgemental of conflicting opinions while still having a lot of science in there
- By Robert B Hayes on 10-30-24
By: Susan Blackmore
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The Expanding Circle
- Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress
- By: Peter Singer
- Narrated by: Dennis Kleinman
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In his classic study The Expanding Circle, Peter Singer argues that altruism began as a genetically based drive to protect one's kin and community members but has developed into a consciously chosen ethic with an expanding circle of moral concern. Drawing on philosophy and evolutionary psychology, he demonstrates that human ethics cannot be explained by biology alone.
By: Peter Singer
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The Science of the First Person
- By: Douglas Harding
- Narrated by: Richard Lang
- Length: 3 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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This book is about the heart of religious experience, namely Enlightenment (which is finding the truth concerning oneself), and about science (which is finding the truth concerning other things), and about the relationship between them. It claims that Enlightenment is more truly scientific than science itself; and that, without Enlightenment, science is only half the story and therefore full of contradictions, of insoluble problems both theoretical and practical.
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Apples and oranges, Hammer and nails
- By Litbovely on 01-21-19
By: Douglas Harding
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The Man Who Mapped Consciousness
- The Life and Legacy of Dr. David R. Hawkins: The Authorized Biography
- By: Susan Hawkins
- Narrated by: Amy Jensen
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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From his discoveries as a science-based psychiatrist to the confirmed reality of his own unique spiritual experiences, David R. Hawkins has gifted us with a treasure trove of insights into the human psyche and consciousness itself, that are as mind-blowing as they are soul-nourishing. He handed us a road map to Truth with his visionary Map of Consciousness®, an extremely useful guide in gaining profound insights into the nature or our existence and purpose on earth.
By: Susan Hawkins
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Ways of Attending
- How Our Divided Brain Constructs the World
- By: Iain McGilchrist
- Narrated by: Mike Fraser
- Length: 1 hr
- Unabridged
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Attention is not just receptive, but actively creative of the world we inhabit. How we attend makes all the difference to the world we experience. And nowadays in the West we generally attend in a rather unusual way: governed by the narrowly focused, target-driven left hemisphere of the brain.
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K.I.S.S.
- By Anonymous User on 03-27-25
By: Iain McGilchrist
What listeners say about Lights On
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- koren salajka
- 03-24-25
Absolutely delighted
I loved this. I just felt it out and had to get the gist of a lot of it because I don’t have a strong science or math mind - but I absolutely love the questions and curiosity that Annnika is working with, “obsessed” with and sharing here! I am fascinated by the “fact” that we are even here and don’t take it for granted - I love hearing the wonders and questions that she brings up and the conversations included. I am delighted that people are out there working seriously on these questions!
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- Oliver
- 03-19-25
Truly Excellent Work
Anaka Harris brings the tone, narrative style and disposition of a reporter. Do not be misled. She is the most coherent philosopher of consciousness who is currently publishing. She clarifies arguments that leaders in the field struggle to express while maintaining a level of humility and detached objectivity that, frankly speaking, puts her counterparts in academia to shame.
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- Loren B. Zitomersky
- 04-15-25
SO GOOD!
I enjoyed this audio documentary from beginning to end. I plan to listen again. Annaka is so clear in her thinking, and it's a joy to hear her ideas about consciousness evolve throughout the documentary. DEFINITELY RECOMMEND!! Five gold stars.
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- Mack McDonald
- 03-24-25
Deep Thoughts on Consciousness
The author presents her views that consciousness is fundamental, along with supporting and oppositional views. The book is engaging and very thought provoking.
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- David K.
- 04-16-25
Frustrating
I'm only 1/3 through and will probably stop. Annika is a delightfully curious thinker, but time after time she interviews deeply thoughtful people who are praised for their skills as communicators only to hear a few snippets from them because she repeatedly interrupts, rehashing her own muddled confusion.
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- Chris P.
- 04-01-25
Casual stroll toward Idealism
This project is a little shaggy, but it is a great intro for the consciousness curious. Great fly overs of intriguing concepts that are not intuitive for the science minded. And methinks the lady doth protest too much! The repeated declarations of her materialist status led me to believe she is in fact an idealist, even if she doesn’t know it yet!
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- Angie Currie
- 03-26-25
Exceptional!
I know I will listen to this multiple times and learn more with each listen! Really thorough and put together beautifully. I hope Annaka releases this content in other formats.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Garrett Elwood
- 03-22-25
Cool listen
I enjoyed this. I might even listen again. Like 5 grams of psilocybin alone in the dark but less destabilizing.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Mike F
- 04-15-25
What could be more interesting?
Consciousness and our perception of it in relation to “reality”, is an area our language is, at least currently, ill equipped to handle.
That said, Annaka Harris and the other distinguished participants have made a noble and entertaining effort here. The answers to the questions asked and those yet to be asked, could well be the key to understanding our place in the universe.
One minor criticism. Lose the distracting background sounds.
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- Matt baker
- 04-10-25
Travelogue into science and consciousness
Excellent description into the science, biology and philosophy of consciousness. I came away understanding the basic concepts and with a new perspective. Recommend!
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