Brenda Dunne served for 28 years as laboratory manager of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) program. With Robert G. Jahn, she is coauthor of Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World, Consciousness and the Source of Reality: The PEAR Odyssey, Quirks of the Quantum Mind, and Molecular Memories. She also served as coeditor of Filters and Reflections: Perspectives on Reality and Being and Biology: Is Consciousness the Life-Force. She currently serves as president of the International Consciousness Research Lab (ICRL). Her website is http://icrl.org/
Here she suggests that the complementarity and uncertainty principles of quantum physics can be thought of as metaphors for the operation of the human mind. The term “metaphor” should not be thought of as trivial — as metaphors are always necessary when endeavoring to describe direct internal experience. All of the observations and thoughts that created quantum physics as we know it today are, in fact, products of the human psyche. The discussion focuses additionally on the experimenter effect in parapsychology.
Although consciousness-correlated physical phenomena are widely and credibly documented, their appearance and behavior display substantial departures from conventional scientific criteria. Under even the most rigorous protocols, they are only irregularly replicable, and they appear to be insensitive to most basic physical coordinates, including distance and time. Rather, their strongest correlations are with various subjective parameters, such as intention, emotional resonance, uncertainty, attitude, and meaning, and information processing at an unconscious level appears to be involved. If science, by its most basic definition, is to pursue understanding and utilization of these extraordinary processes, it will need to expand its current paradigm to acknowledge and codify a proactive role for the mind in the establishment of physical events, and to accommodate the spectrum of empirically indicated subjective correlates. The challenges of quantitative measurement and theoretical conceptualization within such a ‘‘Science of the Subjective’’ are formidable, but its potential intellectual and cultural benefits could be immense, not least of all in improving the reach, the utility, the attitude, and the image of science itself.
Professor Tallis—a philosopher, poet, novelist, cultural critic, retired medical physician and clinical neuroscientist—discusses the relationship between mind and brain, as well as the big questions about the nature of reality.
Is consciousness a fundamental aspect of reality? This documentary follows and the recent return of “panpsychism” as a respectable theory in philosophy and science. Part of the Waking Cosmos series.
Why is love the answer? Watch Tom give a logical explanation on why love is the best solution to our evolution. Consciousness is a social system, and the best way for a social system to interact is through caring about other.
I had the honor of speaking to renowned and New York Times best-selling author Whitley Strieber. He began his writing career with a pair of modern-Gothic horror novels, The Wolfen (1981) and The Hunger (1983), which was turned into a feature film by the late great filmmaker Tony Scott.
He is perhaps best known for the third phase of his career, which began with Communion (1989), an autobiographical account of his experiences with strange alien “visitors” who he says came to his cabin in the New York countryside. This #1 New York Times Non-Fiction Bestseller (on the list for 15 weeks) was also turned into a film starring Christopher Walken.
Whitley has written several other thrillers, and two novels about environmental apocalypse, Nature’s End and The Coming Global Superstorm. Superstorm served as an inspiration for Fox’s The Day After Tomorrow (2004), and Strieber later penned the novelization of that film.
“Hate is like coal, it burns out. Love is like heat, it doesn’t.” – The Master of the Key
In this episode, we will be discussing one of Whitley’s most profound books, The Key: A True Encounter.
At two-thirty in the morning of June 6, 1998, Whitley Streiber was awakened by somebody knocking on his hotel room door. A man came in, and everything he said was life-altering.
This is the unsettling and ultimately enlightening narrative of what happened that night. Strieber was never really sure who this strange and knowing visitor was–a “Master of Wisdom”? A figure from a different realm of consciousness? A preternaturally intelligent being? He called him the Master of the Key. The one thing of which Strieber was certain is that both the man and the encounter were real.
The main concern of the Master of the Key is to save each of us from self-imprisonment. “Mankind is trapped,” the stranger tells Strieber. “I want to help you spring the trap.” In a sweeping exchange between Strieber and the stranger–which takes the form of a classical student- teacher dialogue in pursuit of inner understanding–the unknown man presents a lesson in human potential, esoteric psychology, and man’s fate. He illuminates why man has been caught in a cycle of repeat violence and self-destruction–and the slender, but very real, possibility for release.
In its breadth and intimacy, The Key is on par with contemporary metaphysical traditions, such as A Course in Miracles, or even with the dialogues of modern wisdom teachers, such as D.T. Suzuki and Carl Jung.
Rude Awakening is a documentary about self discovery. It combines personal interviews with fictional cinematic elements to create a beautiful immersive experience for its viewers. This is a story about the hardships of embarking on the journey within. A road filled with trials and tribulations, from awakening to the dark night of the human, to finally emerging into true freedom. Follow Jonathan as he embarks on an epic and once in a lifetime adventure back to his true self, meeting and interviewing kindred spirits along the way. As he travels around the world, he interviews six dear friends and random strangers on the street to discover the red thread connecting all our journeys: The passionate and longing desire to find answers to the questions: “Why am I here?” and “What’s life all about?” If this story resonates with you, just know that you are not crazy and certainly not alone!
This is a heady one. We sit down with super scientist Dr. Wolfgang Smith who went to Cornell at the age of 15, taught at MIT, studied with Sadhus in the Himalayas, published the first theoretical solution NASA’s re-entry problem and he’s here to say… physics is wrong.
