A Conscious Universe?
Presenter:
Dr Rupert Sheldrake
Time:
1:22:46
Summary
The sciences are pointing toward a new sense of a living world. The cosmos is like a developing organism, and so is our planet, Gaia. The laws of Nature may be more like habits. Partly as a result of the ‘hard problem’ of finding space for human consciousness in the materialist worldview, there is a renewed interest in panpsychist philosophies, according to which some form of mind, experience or consciousness is associated with all self-organizing systems, including atoms, molecules and plants. Maybe the sun is conscious, and so are other stars, and entire galaxies. If so, what about the mind of the universe as a whole? Rupert Sheldrake will explore some of the implications of this idea.
Transcript
I'm going to speak about consciousness starting from a completely different point of view. I'm not starting with the brain. I'm not starting with a cerebrocentric view of consciousness, but with the bigger picture, it's been taken for granted by almost every civilization and traditional society that there are many forms of Consciousness in the Universe, not just ours, and not just those of animals other animals.
So it's been often assumed that the entire universe is conscious, and this these this view of consciousness doesn't try and tie it all down to particular regions of the brain or interactions or electrical impulses going from one bit to another. It sees consciousness in a completely different way. And the reason why people in all these cultures think that there are many forms of consciousness beyond our own, is because they experience them through mystical experiences, through altered states of consciousness, through spiritual practices, through psychedelics, traditionally taken in a number of cultures around the world, people have the experience of being in contact with a greater consciousness than their own.