Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
Mind,
Consciousness, Brain
Peter Russell:
From Science To
God
Peter Russell M.A., D.C.S.,
F.S.P.
Peter Russell is a fellow of the Institute of
Noetic Sciences, of The World
Business Academy and of The Findhorn
Foundation, and an Honorary Member of The Club
of Budapest.
At Cambridge University (UK), he studied mathematics and
theoretical physics. Then, as he became increasingly fascinated by
the mysteries of the human mind he changed to experimental
psychology. Pursuing this interest, he traveled to India to study
meditation and eastern philosophy, and on his return took up the
first research post ever offered in Britain on the psychology of
meditation.
He also has a post-graduate degree in computer science, and
conducted there some of the early work on 3-dimensional displays,
presaging by some twenty years the advent of virtual reality.
In the mid-seventies Peter Russell joined forces with Tony Buzan
and helped teach "Mind
Maps" and learning methods to a variety of international
organizations and educational institutions.
Since then his corporate programs have focused increasingly on
self-development, creativity, stress management, and sustainable
environmental practices. Clients have included IBM, Apple, Digital,
American Express, Barclays Bank, Swedish Telecom, ICI, Shell Oil and
British Petroleum.
His principal interest is the deeper, spiritual significance of
the times we are passing through. He has written several books in
this area -- The TM
Technique, The
Upanishads, The Brain Book, The Global Brain
Awakens, The Creative Manager, The Consciousness
Revolution, Waking Up in Time, and From Science to
God.
As one of the more revolutionary futurists Peter Russell has been
a keynote speaker at many international conferences, in Europe,
Japan and the USA. His multi-image shows and videos, The Global
Brain and The White Hole in Time have won praise and
prizes from around the world. In 1993 the environmental magazine
Buzzworm voted Peter Russell "Eco-Philosopher Extraordinaire" of the
year.
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"God of the Gaps": in the past we
brought in God when we couldn't expxlain something - the last "gap"
was the creation of the universe.
Everything we see, with the
unaided eye, on a starry night resides in our own Milky Way
galaxy.
What is consciousness?
We lack a vocabulary for this
word. Sanskrit has 12 words for it.
-
"awake": when we ae asleep,
not conscious of the external world
-
"attentive": as opposed to
driving without full concentration
-
"spiritually aware":
-
"self-awareness":
-
"awareness": living a life
open to new experiences
White light is filtered through
film in a projector creating an image, a "movie" on a screen - it's
easy to forget it's just filtered light!
Light enters the brain through
the optic nerves, the brain "filters" the light and creates an image
that is projected within ourselves.
What we see is "sculpted light,"
filtered, interpreted by our brains, not the reality itself.
David Chalmers: We know certain
things about how the brain works (as a "projector") - that's the
"easy problem." The "hard problem" is "How does something as
immaterial as consciousness arise from something as unconscious as
matter?"
paradigm: modern science has deep
unquestioned themes, such as DNA, heliocentric system
Max Planck: "A new scientific
truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them
see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die."
metaparadigm: "beyond paradigm":
science suffers under more basic paradigms, ones that hide behind
popular concepts: THE REAL WORLD IS THE MATERIAL WORLD. MATTER
IS INSENTIENT. The metaparadigm cannot be doubted and must be
defended at all costs!
Consciousness is a real anomoly
for the current metaparadigm. Russell says we are right now in the
"epi-cycling stage" of rationalization.
By this he refers to those who
once unseccessfully defended the need for perfect circles (orbits)
in the heavens; epi-cycles were thought to explain the untidy
movement of planets.
The alternative metaparadigm:
CONSCIOUSNESS IS A FUNDAMENTAL QUALITY OF THE COSMOS.
Consciousness doesn't just
suddenly appear in higher-order forms, but resides in everything,
and grows more complex as entities advance.
This does not mean that electrons
are aware as we experience - but possess a "proto-consciousness" in
that all things "know what to do" in the parade of the cosmos.
A bacterium does not think as we
do, but it has a faint glimmer of awareness, in terms of an ability
to react to light or certain chemicals.
Russell says we say that a
jellyfish has no brain - and therefore without senses - but how many
of us would easily throw one on a bonfire?
We say a dog is not conscious -
but we instruct our veternarians to anesthetize our pets before a
surgery. Why? if there is no awareness?
see
Russell's youtube lectures
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