#326 – Annaka Harris: Free Will, Consciousness, and the Nature of Reality
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What is the fundamental mystery of consciousness?
The following is a conversation with Annika Harris, author of Conscious, a brief guide to the fundamental mystery of the mind, and is someone who writes and thinks a lot about the nature of consciousness and of reality, especially from the perspectives of physics and neuroscience. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We've got Wealthfront for investing, BetterHelp for mental health, Blinkist for nonfiction, Onnit for supplements, and Indeed for hiring. Choose wisely, my friends. And now onto the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make this interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors.
I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This show is brought to you by Wealthfront, savings and automated investing accounts to help you build wealth and save for the future. I'm a sucker for good design, and so one of the things that make me love Wealthfront is that they have a beautifully designed and streamlined interface for the investing process. As a quick side note, there's a very loud lawnmower outside of where I'm recording, and that lawnmower It's not only outside, but it's also inside my mind. And it's playing all kinds of games with my mind. And I wonder if you hear it at all. And I wonder if it's even real. I just wanted to acknowledge the obvious in case you do hear it. And also acknowledge the obvious psychological complexity of talking into a microphone while you're sitting alone with all the world boiling up all around you in this beautiful chaotic turmoil that defines our reality.
How do sponsors support this podcast?
given that turmoil, you may want to invest in your future. And that's what Wealthfront is good at. Nearly half a million people are using it. I should mention in a feigned attempt at expertise that federal interest rates have been going up this year. So the 2.55% API savings account is quite an impressive feat, which is exactly what Wealthfront offers. You can check them out by going to wealthfront.com slash legs. you'll get a $50 bonus with a $500 deposit. This episode is also brought to you by BetterHelp, spelled H-E-L-P, help. Speaking of the lawnmower that's outside of my house, clearly the problem is not with the lawnmower. The problem is with my mind. And that problem can be solved through many methods.
But one of the most powerful is talk therapy. And if you care to try that kind of thing, you should make it super easy. You should make it private, obviously. And it should be affordable and available to you wherever you are. So it should be remote. And that's exactly what BetterHelp does. offers an exploration of the demons that live inside your mind, all of our minds, inside the shadow, in the Junging shadow of our mind. You should explore them with a licensed professional at BetterHelp, betterhelp.com. And if you go there to that specific website, you will save on your first month. This show is also brought to you by Blinkist, my favorite app for learning new things. Blinkist takes key ideas from thousands of non-fiction books and condenses them down into 15 minutes that you can read or listen to.
I am going on a run now because I'm doing a long 12 plus hour run. On that run, I will be listening to a non-fiction book. In fact, the book I will be listening to was picked by me by first checking out the summary of that book on Blinkist. And again, it's not just a summary, you know, like a cliff note summary. It's a condensation of the key ideas, which is fundamentally different to me than a shallow summary. It somehow feels deep, even though it takes a very short amount of time to consume it. Like I said, 15 minutes. It's an excellent way to choose a book that you want to read in full. First, get the key insights, read in full, and again, return to the insights time and time again to remind yourself to refresh the lessons that you learned from the book when you first read it.
You can claim a special offer for savings by going to Blinkist.com slash Lex.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the fundamental mystery of consciousness?
0:00–1:48
2
How do sponsors support this podcast?
1:48–36:58
3
What are the implications of free will being an illusion?
36:58–40:24
4
How does consciousness relate to decision-making?
40:24–1:24:22
5
What role does the sense of self play in human suffering?
1:24:22–1:26:14
6
How can meditation and psychedelics influence our perception of reality?
1:26:14–1:28:23
7
What insights can we gain from understanding consciousness?
1:28:23–1:30:12
8
How does Annaka Harris define the meaning of life?
1:30:12–2:46:08
Speakers
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