The Self, Consciousness & Relationality with James Cooke

About this episode

The episode features a conversation with neuroscientist James Cooke about consciousness, relationality, and the intersection of science and spirituality.

This was the first real-life episode of the Anagoge Podcast, recorded in Portugal. The video of the conversation is available on YouTube. James Cooke is a neuroscientist, writer, and contemplative practitioner whose work bridges neuroscience, philosophy, and spirituality. In his recent book The Dawn of Mind, he proposes a bold reframing of consciousness—placing it not in the brain alone, but within the deeper relational dynamics of life itself. In this episode, we explore James' formative mystical experience as a teenager and how it set him on a lifelong journey to understand consciousness through science rather than in opposition to it. We unpack his core thesis of non-dual naturalism, the idea that reality is fundamentally relational, not made up of separate objects, and that consciousness itself may be best understood as an embodied epistemic relation between organism and world. We discuss the illusion of the self, the role of suffering in revealing the nature of reality, and how insights from contemplative practice intersect with recent developments in neuroscience and quantum physics. Along the way, we grapple with the philosophical implications of groundlessness, the nature…

People in this episode

Host: Tiago Vasconcelos

Guest: James Cooke

Topics covered

• consciousness
• neuroscience
• philosophy
• spirituality
• mystical experiences
• non-dual naturalism

Keywords

• consciousness
• neuroscience
• mystical experience
• non-dual naturalism
• philosophy
• spirituality
• relational dynamics

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Dawn of Mind

Places: Portugal

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