Can Brain Alone Explain Consciousness?

Support the show with a tax-deductible donation of any amount so we can continue exploring the world's biggest questions without the need for paywalls.   Can physical facts about the brain account for mental experiences of the mind? Has philosophy of mind made progress? We take a 15-year journey with John Searle and David Chalmers.    

Contribute what you can to help Closer To Truth continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls.   We like pushing boundaries, trying to discern existence, searching the foundations of reality, knowing all that can be known. Overly ambitious? Sophomoric? We don't care. We do it anyway. Here are ultimate questions.   Featuring interviews with Lawrence Krauss, John Leslie, Max Tegmark and Paul Davies

Contribute what you can to help Closer To Truth continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls. Explore diverse theories of consciousness, like materialism, dualism, panpsychism, idealism, and diverse ways of thinking about consciousness, like neuroscience, philosophy, wisdom traditions. Compare theories of consciousness on a ‘Landscape of Consciousness'.

Make a donation to Closer To Truth to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywall   What kinds of afterlives do the world’s religions offer? Soul/spirit in heaven or hell, with or apart from God? Reincarnation with innumerable rebirths, seeking liberation and nirvana? Resurrection of the body, reuniting with a soul/spirit?

Life after death is a haunting and deeply personal longing. Can we explore life after death in relation to theories of consciousness, ranging from strict materialism to imaginative philosophy to ancient wisdom traditions?

Explicitness is one of the fundamental mysteries in which our lives are wrapped. Our capacity, as conscious subjects, to make things explicit, so that what-is presents itself as “that-it-is” or “that-it-is-the-case” is at the heart of the mystery of human being. Philosopher Raymond Tallis explores how explicitness connects with fundamental ontological, metaphysical, and epistemological questions.   Tallis' latest book, Circling Round Explicitness: The Heart of the Mystery of Human Being, is available for purchase now: https://amzn.to/3MUX5Ke

What causes consciousness, our inner felt experience, like the smell of garlic cooking in olive oil? Explore diverse theories from quantum consciousness to consciousness as fundamental reality. We seek the edges of consciousness.

Almost all religions use art in their sacred spaces and many use art forms in their worship rituals. Certainly, there is powerful social cohesion at work. Can cross-religion communications in art, largely nonverbal, work to enhance similarities and mitigate differences among religions that, at least superficially, have significant differences? Can art be a much-needed unifier? Featuring interviews with Oludamini Ogunnaike, Jamal Elias, Kutter Callaway, Garrick Allen, and Anjan Chatterjee.

Oxford physicist Vlatko Vedral seeks to shatter complacency in modern physics and show why five revolutionary experiments in quantum physics promise to open the gates separating us from a true understanding of the universe. They may sound very strange—one essentially involves entangling a human with Schrödinger’s cat—but they lay bare elements of our theories that are particularly problematic, such as the widespread belief that nothing truly exists unless it is observed.   Vedral's book, Portals to a New Reality: Five Experiments to Unlock the Future of Physics, is available for purchase: https://amzn.to/3LGqd77   Vlatko Vedral is a Serbian-born British physicist. He is best known for his contributions to quantum information theory, quantum mechanics, and quantum entanglement. He earned his Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Imperial College London, where he graduated with a PhD.

Many belief systems, religions in particular, use art for promoting their messages and furthering their missions. What makes art so effective in building and solidifying religious traditions? Can art attract and motivate converts? Is affecting or changing belief systems a proper use of art?   Featuring interviews with Justin Barrett, Marlene Altenmüller, Mario Gollwitzer, Jamal Elias, Robin Jensen, and Stacie Friend.