#374 — Consciousness and the Physical World

Sam Harris speaks with economist and Substack writer Noah Smith about the U.S. national debt, wealth inequality, and the economic consequences of AI. They discuss the mechanics of debt and inflation, the case for fiscal austerity, why the U.S. squandered low interest rates, moder ...  Show more

Sam Harris speaks with Vinod Khosla about AI, economic disruption, and political risk. They discuss the prospect of mass job displacement, a trillion-dollar policy framework to redistribute AI's gains, the failure of the California wealth tax, the corporate capitulation to Trump, ...  Show more

Annaka Harris dives deep into some of the most profound and perplexing questions about the nature of consciousness, perception, free will, AI, and the underlying meaning of love and existence.

Annaka begins by defining consciousness and exploring the "hard problem& ...

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"The good thing about this universe is consciousness. Your life is your consciousness in each moment." - Sam Harris

In this mind-bendin ...

My guest is Dr. Christof Koch, PhD, a pioneering researcher on the topic of consciousness, an investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science and the chief scientist at the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation. We discuss the neuroscience of consciousness—how it arises in our brain, ho ...  Show more

Will we ever reach a conclusive, agreed-upon theory of consciousness?

Over the millennia of recorded history, countless stories, theories, and arguments have emerged to explain the origins of consciousness. And yet, here we are in 2025 - post-Plato, post-Descartes, post- ...