Waking Up is Not Enough Episode 31 - Human Consciousness is Self-Consciousness: A Conversation with an Authority on Human Consciousness: Dr. Michael Lewis (Part 2)

About this episode

The episode features a conversation with Dr. Michael Lewis about the unique aspects of human consciousness and its relation to self-conscious emotions.

You may be confused about the word “consciousness” because it is used broadly to mean anything that has awareness of any kind — from a fungus to a dolphin to a human being. Unfortunately, this has been the way that we speak with each other about consciousness since Darwin came onto the scene. Consequently, as humans we do not know what our unique features of consciousness are nor how they are related to our emotional development and life. You may know the word “ego,” but you probably do not know how it relates to your self-conscious emotions, like shame or guilt, or even that you have self-conscious emotions. In this podcast, you will find out precisely the meaning of how humans are conscious because you will hear a conversation with Dr. Michael Lewis, an expert on human consciousness. The psychologist Dr. Michael Lewis from Rutgers University is famous for providing the exact test and the precise investigation of the birth of self-consciousness in humans. We are the only organism here on earth that is aware of its awareness in such a way that we abstract and theorize our own identities. Then, of course, we fight about them and get polarized. In this informative conversation, Dr…

People in this episode

Host: Polly Young-Eisendrath

Guest: Dr. Michael Lewis

Topics covered

• human consciousness
• self-consciousness
• emotional development
• ego
• social emotions

Keywords

• consciousness
• self-consciousness
• emotions
• ego
• psychology
• human identity
• polarization

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Rutgers University

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