Category: Neuro-Science

Being You: A New Science of Consciousness with Anil Seth

Being You is not as simple as it sounds. Somehow, within each of our brains, billions of neurons work to create our conscious experience. How does this happen? Why do we experience life in the first person?

After over twenty years researching the brain, world-renowned neuroscientist Professor Anil Seth puts forward a radical new theory of consciousness and self. His unique theory of what it means to ‘be you’ challenges our understanding of perception and reality and it turns what you thought you knew about yourself on its head.

About

Anil Seth is a leading British researcher in the field of consciousness science. He is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience and Co-Director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science at the University of Sussex. He writes regularly for New Scientist, Guardian and the BBC, and has been interviewed on Radio 4’s The Life Scientific. His TED talk on consciousness has been viewed nearly 8 million times; he is currently a Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow and he tweets at @anilkseth.

The Wisdom of Trauma (2021)

One in five Americans are diagnosed with mental illness every year. Suicide is the second most common cause of death in the US for youth aged 15-24, and kills over 48,300 in the US and 800,000 people globally per year. Drug overdose kills 81,000 in the US annually. The auto-immune disorder epidemic affects 24 million people in the US alone. What is going on? The interconnected epidemics of anxiety, chronic illness and substance abuse are, according to Dr Gabor Maté, normal – but not in the way you might think.

Dr. Ruth Kastner and the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics

In this episode I am looking forward to exploring more about alternate interpretations of Quantum Mechanics. In previous episodes exploring consciousness, I’ve encountered several people who believe that Quantum Mechanics is at the root of consciousness. My current thinking is that it replaces one mystery with another one without really providing an explanation for consciousness. We are still stuck with the options of consciousness being a pre-existing property of the universe or some aspect of it, vs. it being an emergent feature of a processing network. Either way, quantum mechanics is an often misunderstood brilliant theory at the root of physics. It tells us that basic particles don’t exist at a specific position and momentum—they are, however, represented very accurately as a smooth wavefunction that can be used to calculate the distribution of a set of measurements on identical particles. The process of observation seems to cause the wavefunction to randomly collapse to a localized spot. Nobody knows for certain what causes this collapse. This is known as the measurement problem. The many worlds theorem says the wavefunction doesn’t collapse. It claims that the wavefunction describes all the possible universes that exist and the process of measurement just tells us which universe we are living in.

My guest is a leading proponent of transactional quantum mechanics.

TDr. Ruth E. Kastner earned her M.S. in Physics and Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Maryland. Since that time, she has taught widely and conducted research in Foundations of Physics, particularly in interpretations of quantum theory. She was one of three winners of the 2021 Alumni Research Award at the University of Maryland, College Park (https://tinyurl.com/2t56yrp2). She is the author of 3 books: The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Theory: The Reality of Possibility (Cambridge University Press, 2012; 2nd edition just published, 2022), Understanding Our Unseen Reality: Solving Quantum Riddles (Imperial College Press, 2015); and Adventures In Quantumland: Exploring Our Unseen Reality (World Scientific, 2019). She has presented talks and interviews throughout the world and in video recordings on the interpretational challenges of quantum theory, and has a blog at transactionalinterpretation.org. She is also a dedicated yoga practitioner and received her 200-Hour Yoga Alliance Instructor Certification in February, 2020.

Imagination as the ground of reality, with Patrick Harpur

In this wide-ranging interview, one of our favorite scholars, Patrick Harpur, discusses the fundamental role of the imagination in human history, the human mind, and reality at large. He also discusses the daimons, those elusive, contradictory figures who inhabit minds and the world, but who appear only to those with the eyes to see. Harpur’s extensive, extraordinary, life-transforming body of work is one of the most criminally underrated in modern scholarship.

This video has human-created English subtitles, so don’t forget to click on the ‘CC’ button below the video to enable them.

Books by Patrick Harpur:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=patrick+harpur&i=stripbooks-intl-ship&crid=189YQ79HZX76L&sprefix=patrick+harpur%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C352&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

Iain McGilchrist: The Coincidence of Opposites

Ralston College presents a lecture by Dr Iain McGilchrist followed by a discussion with Dr Stephen Blackwood and questions from the audience. In his lecture Dr McGilchrist deals with certain themes that are treated at greater length in his recent book The Matter With Things. He focuses especially upon the coincidence of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum), which he explores (providing an extraordinary range of illustrative examples) in such a way as to make manifest both its universality and its particular relevance to our present historical moment.

The Afterlife and the Unconscious Mind with Betty Kovács: New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove

Betty J. Kovács, PhD, taught symbolic/mythic language for twenty-five years. She has served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Jung Society of Claremont, California, and sits on the Academic Advisory Board of Forever Family Foundation. Dr. Kovacs is author of Merchants of Light: The Consciousness That Is Changing the World, winner of The Scientific and Medical Network 2019 Book Prize and a Nautilus Silver Award. She has also written The Miracle of Death: There Is Nothing But Life. Her website is www.kamlak.com.

Here she explains that consciousness is infinite and that, ultimately, there is no real separation between our waking consciousness, our subconscious mind, and the afterlife. It is all one. However, that realization is difficult to maintain in the face of daily life’s necessities. She describes several powerful examples of both archetypal, visionary experiences and after-death communications. They blend into each other. She closes with a riveting prophetic vision.

Beyond Belief: Considering Evidence for Life After Life- Dr. Eben Alexander, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD.

Believing in the afterlife is one thing… proving it is another.

This year, people from around the world competed in an essay contest providing their rationale for life after death. Nearly $2 million in prize money was awarded with Las Vegas entrepreneur Robert Bigelow putting up the prize money. Jeffrey Mishlove took home half a million dollars for the winning essay.

Dr. Eben Alexander, author of “Proof of Heaven,” does not need to be convinced–he lived it. A highly trained neurosurgeon, Alexander was taught that although NDEs feel real, they are nothing more than fantasies produced by brains under extreme stress.

Then, Alexander’s own brain was attacked by a rare illness and shut down completely. Alexander spent a week in a coma. As his doctors considered stopping treatment, Alexander’s eyes popped open. He had come back. Alexander is a doctor who believes that true health can be achieved only when we realize that God and the soul are real and that death is not the end of personal existence but only a transition.

Mishlove and Alexander come together to tackle big questions such as, what is the best evidence for postmortem survival of human consciousness? How can we accommodate this evidence within a contemporary scientific and philosophical framework? Where is research on postmortem survival leading? Join the Vail Symposium for a program that will plumb the depths of belief on this consequential topic.

The Primacy of consciousness – Interview with Brenda Dunne

Brenda Dunne explains how she began to work at the PEAR Lab (Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research). This institute was conducting formal research in psychokinesis (the effect of the mind over matter), and in remote viewing. It was founded Robert Jahn, former dean of the school of Engineering at Princeton University. She presents the results of their studies, and how it implies that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of the reality we experience.

The Cosmic Giggle from: Michael Armstrong

Synopsis: DOC: “The Cosmic Giggle” is an experimental documentary film that explores the human energy field’s dynamic relationship with our environment. Naturally as human beings, we are connected to a vast network of fluid information inherent to the world around us. When we are children, we are open to this field through simple innocent observance, but because of our collective evolution towards a dominating and fixated worldview, this perception becomes veiled. This film reveals how this process takes place and provides keys for returning to a more primal and authentic experience of our reality.

Watch The Cosmic Giggle on CultureUnplugged.com