114: What If Consciousness Is Everywhere? | Free Will, Universal Consciousness & The Nature of Reality

What if consciousness isn't just something happening inside our brains?

Liz Myers is back with Kilian Korth and Christie Brinker for another Philosophy Hour—and this conversation goes DEEP. 😂

After our last discussion about free will, we started asking even bigger questions: What is consciousness? Where does it come from? Are we actually separate from the world around us? And what if consciousness is something much bigger than we currently understand?

We talk about everything from free will and gratitude to meditation, flow state, panpsychism, universal consciousness, quantum mechanics, and even whether trees are communicating with each other.

Christie shares a deeply personal experience that shaped the way she thinks about universal consciousness. Liz connects the conversation back to running, meditation, and those moments when your mind finally becomes quiet. Kilian brings the science and philosophy into the conversation and challenges us to think about what we actually mean when we talk about consciousness.

We get into:

• How thinking about free will has changed the way we approach everyday life
• Why letting go of control can lead to more gratitude and empathy
• Panpsychism and the idea that consciousness could be a fundamental part of reality
• The difference between information complexity and universal consciousness
• Why running and meditation can create those powerful flow states
• Quantum mechanics and the famous double-slit experiment
• Whether trees and plants are capable of communicating and sharing information
• The ocean-wave analogy for understanding universal consciousness
• What all of this could mean for runners, athletes, and anyone trying to understand their own mind

And, as usual, we don't exactly come to a neat conclusion.

Instead, we leave with more questions than answers.

And honestly... that's kind of the point.

If you've ever finished a run and wondered why your mind suddenly feels completely different, gotten lost in meditation, or stared at a tree and thought, "Okay, but what exactly IS consciousness?"—you're going to enjoy this one.