Consciousness

A collection of TED Talks (and more) on the topic of Consciousness.

Video playlists about Consciousness

How does my brain work?

How exactly does the brain -- a 3-pound snarl of nervous tissue -- create inspired inventions, the feeling of hunger, the experience of beauty, the sense of self? Researchers at the edge of science explain ...

4 talks

What is consciousness?

Fascinating talks that explore one of the most mysterious phenomenons in the universe: the "self" (and why it exists).

Talks about Consciousness

Hrund Gunnsteinsdóttir

Listen to your intuition — it can help you navigate the future

Yara Shahidi and Anil Seth

What makes you “you”? An actor and a neuroscientist answer

TED-Ed

How to enter flow state

Anil Ananthaswamy

Where does your sense of self come from? A scientific look

Anil Seth

How your brain invents your "self"

The TED Interview

Donald Hoffman has a radical new theory on how we experience reality

The TED Interview

Anil Seth explores the mystery of consciousness

Michael S. A. Graziano

What is consciousness?

Katherine Hampsten

How miscommunication happens (and how to avoid it)

Noah Zandan

The language of lying

Robyn J. Crook

How do animals experience pain?

Andrey Vyshedskiy

The neuroscience of imagination

Clay Routledge

Why do we feel nostalgia?

Steven Zheng

How does anesthesia work?

Alex Gendler

The Turing test: Can a computer pass for a human?

Nathan S. Jacobs

How do schools of fish swim in harmony?

See all talks on Consciousness

Exclusive articles about Consciousness

Where does consciousness come from? And how do our brains create it? A look at one of life’s biggest mysteries

Within each of our minds, the activity of billions of neurons gives rise to a conscious experience -- and not just any experience, yours, right here, right now. How does this happen? There's still so much we don't know ... and that's an amazing thing, says cognitive neuroscientist Anil Seth PhD.

Posted Dec 2021

How one scientist is working to reach people in vegetative states

How many unresponsive patients actually have some consciousness of what’s occurring around them? Possibly up to 20 percent, according to neuroscientist Adrian Owen, who is determined to give them a voice.

Posted Sep 2017

If you want to know what aliens will be like, just look at an octopus

By examining the eight-armed marine creature and the peculiar way it engages with the world, we can get a glimpse into different ways of existing and being, says cognitive neuroscientist Anil Seth.

Posted Jul 2017