The Primacy of Consciousness

Peter Russell explores the problems science has explaining consciousness and proposes that consciousness is not created by the brain, but is inherent in all beings.

He shows why mind is more fundamental than matter, and the the key to this shift is the revolution in our understanding of the light.

Many have made such claims from metaphysical perspectives, but the possibility has always been ignored by the scientific community.

In this talk, he discusses the problems the materialist scientific worldview has with consciousness and proposes an alternative worldview which, rather than contradicting science, makes new sense of much of modern physics.

He presents a reasoned argument that shows how they are pointing towards the one thing science has always avoided considering – the primary nature of consciousness.

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http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ES5YFURR5VOTKTGHD4PIVYXPVI John
Consciousness is nothing more than our five senses coming together in our brains and how we perceive, interpret, judge, evaluate, and react to this coming together of the senses. This film makes claims that simply are not valid. The filmmakers claim that science has largely ignored the possibility of consciousness outside the brain. Not true. While you don’t find large numbers of scientists today focused on this issue — or ‘non-issue’ rather — armies of scientists and philosophers deeply examined this issue for literally thousands of years up until very recent times. And there are a few still doing so. However, as of yet, not a shred of evidence, neither a single whit nor tiny iota of any reason whatsoever to even imagine that there is some kind of consciousness outside of normal brain activity has ever been discovered. The idea that there is ‘consciousness’ outside of brain activity is every bit as irrelevant and nonsensical as astrology, belief in the supernatural, magic, and religion. These consciousness people have carved a little niche of belief in our society, but, in time, society will rightfully laugh at these people every bit as much as we now laugh at the ancient Greeks for believing in the gods of Mt. Olympus. Only Greek mythology will continue to be far more interesting — and far more useful.
Mattias Johansson
In Reply to ‘John’: So if I had no senses I wouldn’t be conscious?
mokker
In Reply to ‘John’: so it would follow then, that people that have ‘less than five senses’ (born deaf, mute, depressed olfactory or tactile sense, etc) would also have ‘less’ consciousness than those born with 5 fully functioning senses? Additionally, what of a person that suffers an accident that strips them of some, or one, of their senses? Do they also lose a comparable quantity of consciousness?
Interesting that you mention our (science’s) ability to observe/detect the heretofore unexplainable/unobservable – I read an article recently that detailed exactly the opposite of your assertion, or in other words: the increasing number of incidents whereby a person’s vitals have ‘flatlined’ (no neural activity), yet are able to describe their environment (while flatlined) after having been reanimated.
Over to you…
Mark
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ES5YFURR5VOTKTGHD4PIVYXPVI John
Anyone can write an “article” — anyone at all. You can find ‘articles’ about ghosts, alien abduction, magic powers of all sorts, even articles about the tooth fairy. The fact that someone can write an article doesn’t lend the subject any credibility whatsoever. A child born without the ability to either see, hear, smell, speak, and without tactile sensory ability would indeed lack the ability of consciousness. Without our physical senses stimulating our brain, there is nothing for our brain to perceive, nothing to react to, nothing to form any ideas about one way or another. Such a human being would be, without anything to activate their otherwise healthy brain, a ‘mindless’, wholly inept animal, not ‘aware’ of anything — not even its own existence. Helen Keller was not born deaf and blind, she became so later, though very early in her childhood. Because she had, so to speak, activated her brain with certain stimuli before losing her sight and ability to hear, she could use her remaining senses to imagine and develop a reasonable facsimile which enabled her to maintain a certain level of consciousness. To imagine we could have awareness, or consciousness, without our senses is to imagine that there is a magic genie automatically born in every human being that somehow powers a quite silly and imaginative concept of “consciousness”. There are no genies about, but there are plenty of people who, faced with something they don’t understand, resort to magical thinking.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ES5YFURR5VOTKTGHD4PIVYXPVI John
Many matters that were completely unexplainable centuries ago, or even last week in some cases, are now a simple matter of routine understanding. Science routinely deals with the unexplained every single day. And every year there are fewer and fewer “unexplainable” things. That which is unobservable, however, is left entirely to our imaginations — and some imaginations are more “active” than others. Your “flatliners” described things they had been previously aware of, combined with imagination drawn on what they already knew, or could reasonably expect something to look/sound like. When one of “your” flatliners” can accurately describe something completely foreign to their previous experience — including stories, movies, etc., that will indeed be impressive.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ES5YFURR5VOTKTGHD4PIVYXPVI John
Consciousness is nothing more than our five senses coming together in our brains and how we perceive, interpret, judge, evaluate, and react to this coming together of the senses. This film makes claims that simply are not valid. The filmmakers claim that science has largely ignored the possibility of consciousness outside the brain. Not true. While you don’t find large numbers of scientists today focused on this issue — or ‘non-issue’ rather — armies of scientists and philosophers deeply examined this issue for literally thousands of years up until very recent times. And there are a few still doing so. However, as of yet, not a shred of evidence, neither a single whit nor tiny iota of any reason whatsoever to even imagine that there is some kind of consciousness outside of normal brain activity has ever been discovered. The idea that there is ‘consciousness’ outside of brain activity is every bit as irrelevant and nonsensical as astrology, belief in the supernatural, magic, and religion. These consciousness people have carved a little niche of belief in our society, but, in time, society will rightfully laugh at these people every bit as much as we now laugh at the ancient Greeks for believing in the gods of Mt. Olympus. Only Greek mythology will continue to be far more interesting — and far more useful.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ES5YFURR5VOTKTGHD4PIVYXPVI John
Science has no problem explaining “consciousness”. But some people have been conditioned all their life to believe in some religion or some other form of magical thinking, and they simply just WANT there to be more to consciousness than there really is. These are usually the same people who have great difficulty in accepting the reality of death.
http://twitter.com/rvbunea Raresh Vlad Bunea
This talk is full of hogwash. Peter Russell is all but scientific in his approach and is obviously faith-biased. There is absolutely no proof that consciousness is NOT a material process, a product of the physical brain.
http://www.facebook.com/SimseNamNam Simon Gramstrup
2. Physics: Yes, our perception of reality IS wrong. We are struggling with imagining concepts like spacetime, quantum entanglement etc. that does not fit into what we normally perceive as reality. This however does not mean that matter does not exist. Matter is a word for a collection of forces that has some common properties like mass, volume and reactions to other forces like photons and pressure.
All in all. Consciousness is a natural consequence of the layout and functionality of our brains, and is not mysterious. Physics at the level we have reached are intriguing (and annoying) and will at some point make sense to us, just not combined with philosophy. I wonder if it is time to lay philosophy to rest? It seems to me that normal scientific work has superseded this VERY old way of thinking.
Peter Russell! You’r OFF the island! ;-)
http://www.facebook.com/SimseNamNam Simon Gramstrup
I’m always amazed how we all are capable of stringing together various believes into a complete load of crap – without even noticing it.
This is a strange mix of old philosophy and new science in a – at best – funny perspective.
(Disclaimer: From memory:)
1. consciousness: John (below) explains it fine, but i would like to add a few comments. The input from our senses enters the old (in evolutionary term) parts of our brain, and propagates through several newer parts (via various paths) to our latest addition – the prefrontal cortex. For vision, It takes 0.4 sec. Every part receives input, reacts automatically and propagates a new set of output to the next part. All input are received and propagated from/to all surrounding parts in a feedback loop. The prefrontal cortex sits right beside our language center and also receives output from this center, and voila – thoughts are registered. Combined with mirror-neurons, this is enough to create a feeling of ‘I’ and consciousness.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LAMJZJ3CD4VAC4ERLZ5OALPWPM Michael
Enjoyed this very much. The slide show was entirely unnecessary (repetitive and mostly useless imagery) but the subject matter was very interesting. (Actually, the audience was the worst part. How is everything so funny?) I suggest the vid to anyone who studies the mind/ego. I get a little turned off when people drag the word “God” into these subjects, but as the understanding of “Being” was a likely source of the “God” parable, I suppose it’s unavoidable for some people.
It’s unfortunate that folks can ignore the whole argument regarding dogma/paradigms and jump right to mudslinging, but that’s the way of things, I suppose. I think we forget that one can be “aware” without participating in the outside world. (I immediately think of sensory deprivation chambers, though even that is not accurate because that involves having senses but not using them/having nothing to use them on.) One needn’t have senses to be aware, because one needn’t be aware of specific “things.” Awareness can be very very simple and very still. That is, after all, samadhi (or zen.) If people are comfortable in their minds and with their definition of the mind, must we be angry with them because we define things differently? We can be absolutely sure of nothing, because we form these conclusions and perceptions in the mind, and then we defend our perceptions. In fact, as the speaker says, the only thing we’re sure of, is the fact that we are conscious. :) You’re more than welcome to disagree, and others are more than welcome to agree. The disgust does nothing but rile and irritate *you.* And what good is that?
Peace!
Marcus
Our modern science is very igonrant indeed. Like a fish that swims, desperately trying to find the ocean.
“A fool who persists in his folly will become wise.” William Blake
Will Tellit
@John The box you want to live in is small. I hope you are not claustrophobic.
Some people also just want to make things as simple as possible because they can’t handle it being more complex than they want it to be. I bet that’s hard to imagine, considering science doesn’t allow you to think beyond its own present level of evolution.