Still Thinking

Tayga Vural

The most important questions rarely fit within a single discipline. Join me for conversations with thinkers, practitioners, and experts exploring the ideas, institutions, and forces shaping our world—and where they may lead next. Expect to hear conversations on politics, history, finance, law, philosophy, consciousness, technology, national security, and anything else that interests me.

Episodes

  1. Aug 7

    What Is Consciousness? — Steven Friday on Advaita Vedanta, Nonduality, and AI

    Steven Friday is a banker, longtime practitioner of Advaita Vedanta, and a musician. In this conversation, we discuss Steven’s Christian upbringing and his journey to Advaita Vedanta before exploring the Vedas, Brahman and Atman, meditation, nonduality, and several Vedantic thought experiments. From there, we turn to a deeper question: what is consciousness, and what can it tell us about the nature of reality? We discuss materialism and idealism, the hard problem of consciousness, and whether artificial intelligence could ever become conscious. Finally, Steven offers advice for young people and his perspective on the meaning of life. TIMESTAMPS: Intro (0:01)Discovering Spirituality (1:53)Exploring Eastern Philosophy (7:58)A Christian Upbringing (11:34)Discovering Advaita Vedanta (13:25)What Does Advaita Vedanta Teach? (30:54)What Is Consciousness? (32:52)Nonduality (47:14)Vedantic Thought Experiments (54:39)The Hard Problem of Consciousness (1:05:18)Dreams and Simulation Theory (1:13:35)Ethics and Vedanta (1:26:01)Can Machines Be Conscious? (1:30:24)Common Pitfalls in Nondual Practice (1:36:39)Advice for Young People (1:38:30)The Meaning of Life (1:39:57) LINKS: Medium (my blog): https://medium.com/@tayga.vural Substack: https://taygavural.substack.com CONTACT: tayga.vural148@outlook.com Music used: The Mountain Classical Piano (non-copyright per Creative Commons) ----- Steven chose to appear under a pseudonym for legal and professional reasons.

    What Is Consciousness? — Steven Friday on Advaita Vedanta, Nonduality, and AI

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

The most important questions rarely fit within a single discipline. Join me for conversations with thinkers, practitioners, and experts exploring the ideas, institutions, and forces shaping our world—and where they may lead next. Expect to hear conversations on politics, history, finance, law, philosophy, consciousness, technology, national security, and anything else that interests me.