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Topic
Consciousness
Episodes · 12 months
401
Nov 2025–Oct 2026peak share, Oct 2026
Share of analysed episodes per month, Nov 2025 to Oct 2026: 19 of 3,584, 17 of 3,862, 25 of 4,115, 30 of 4,226, 28 of 4,731, 35 of 4,438, 37 of 4,230, 40 of 4,319, 40 of 4,515, 45 of 4,419, 38 of 4,624, 47 of 4,594.
All time
1,095
+81 via 57 narrower
On record
411
took a position
Where they standLast discussed
2d ago
Nov 12, 2026
Who's talking
Top voices on this topicThe eight guests on the most episodes about this topic in the last 13 weeks, not counting their own shows or clips they were only heard in, most episodes first. VoiceRank (their score across the whole corpus) is shown for context and only breaks a tie. Each strip is that guest's episodes week by week, and the newest week is still in progress.
#Guest · last 13 weeksEpisodes, sorted, most firstVoiceRank
1
TC
RG
RV
DG
Episodes on this topic, by weekEvery analysed episode tagged with this topic in each of the last 13 weeks, across all shows and whoever was on them. The newest week is still in progress, and recent weeks fill in as transcripts are analysed. Point at a name, or tab to it, to highlight the weeks that guest was on an episode.
All shows
Episodes on this topic per week, weeks starting Aug 17 to Nov 9 (the last still in progress): 9, 14, 7, 12, 6, 10, 10, 11, 15, 9, 8, 14, 7.
Where they stand
Camps of opinion · 2Positions people took on this topic in transcripts, grouped by school of thought. The bar shows each camp's share of the people sorted into a camp. It is not a poll and not a share of any audience, and people whose position fit no camp are left out of it. Within a camp, people with demonstrated expertise on the topic come first, then those who reached the most listeners on it. Positions are extracted from transcripts by a model and may misattribute who said what. Every quote links to the episode it came from.
Share of people placed in a camp253 people
78%
22%
- Consciousness as fundamental reality197 people · 78%
- Physicalist and functionalist accounts56 people · 22%
Consciousness as fundamental reality
Consciousness is the primary, fundamental building block of the universe, rather than a byproduct of physical or biological processes.
197 people · 194 episodes
Consciousness is the fundamental nature of reality and it creates our brains, not the other way around.
“The brain does not create your consciousness. Consciousness creates the brain.”
Lewis Howes · Jun 2026 · 19 episodes · 26.9M views on this topic
Consciousness is likely a fundamental property of the universe rather than just a product of complex biological processes.
“is it possible that consciousness is a much more basic phenomenon in nature and is essentially pervading everything, so is much more like gravity and so not that it's less special than we assumed because gravity is something that's obviously very special in our universe, but it affects everything.”
Big Think · Jan 2026 · 10 episodes · 2.7M views on this topic
Consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe rather than a result of physical processes.
“if you don't know what pansychism is, it's the view that the universe is is made up fundamentally of conscious material or that matter itself is consciousness or has conscious properties.”
Alex O'Connor · Nov 2025 · 14 episodes · 988K views on this topicPhysicalist and functionalist accounts
Consciousness is best explained or managed through its relationship to the brain, physical processes, or computational functional roles.
56 people · 56 episodes
He asserts that consciousness is inextricably linked to the body, and that the brain functions to serve the body rather than existing as a self-contained processor of reality.
“We have to remember this very simple fact, which is the brain exists to keep the body alive, not the other way around. We're not just a support system for this amazing 3 lb of tofu in our heads.”
New York Times Podcasts · May 2026 · 13 episodes · 5.6M views on this topic
He defines consciousness as the state of there being something it is like to be a particular organism.
“For a conscious organism there is something it is like to be that organism.”
Big Think · Nov 2025 · 9 episodes · 1.9M views on this topicDG
He claims that consciousness is fundamentally computational and that human experience is a rendered simulation.
“You are computationally rendered. This is a simulation 100%. That's again this is my impression right. Uh it's not what you think it is. So like it's not a fake world versus some real world that we're in. All of it is computational across all the levels.”
Camp Gagnon · Oct 2026 · 5 episodes · 2.3M views on this topicExtracted by a model; may misattribute who said what.
In the transcripts
Episodes discussing this topic
80%
80%
Showing 10 of 30
Over time
Share of episodesThis topic's episodes as a share of every episode we analysed, in each complete month. We analyse more episodes every month, so a raw count would mostly show that growth. Recent months fill in as transcripts are analysed.
Complete months · first on record May 2015