Varieties of Consciousness Theories with Robert Lawrence Kuhn

Robert Lawrence Kuhn received his academic training in brain research. He is best known for creating and hosting the PBS television series Closer to Truth. His books include, Closer to Truth: Challenging Current Belief, How China's Leaders Think, The Mystery of Existence: Why Is There Anything At All? (with John Leslie), and Closer to Truth: Science, Meaning, and the Future. Kuhn is also the creator of the Landscape of Consciousness framework, an ambitious effort to organize and classify over 400 competing theories of consciousness. His website is https://closertotruth.com/about-closer-to-truth/

Robert discusses his lifelong quest to understand why anything exists at all and the nature of consciousness, culminating in his ambitious Landscape of Consciousness framework that organizes and classifies over 400 competing theories. He traces his path from early interest in parapsychology and brain research to creating a taxonomy spanning materialism, quantum approaches, panpsychism, dualism, idealism, and more, while examining implications for free will, life after death, AI consciousness, and virtual immortality. Kuhn emphasizes that no theory is final and that anomalous experiences, phenomenology, and challenges to human understanding further constrain any coherent account of mind.

00:00:00 Introduction
00:08:30 Early interest in parapsychology and brain research
00:16:45 Why is there anything at all
00:24:00 Creating the landscape of consciousness
00:32:15 Expanding the collection of theories
00:40:30 Organizing categories from materialism to idealism
00:49:00 Anomalous events, challenges, and phenomenology
00:58:15 Implications for free will and life after death
01:08:00 Personal view of consciousness
01:16:00 Conclusion

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in "parapsychology" ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science.

(Recorded on Saturday, July 18, 2026)

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