Consciousness

AGM 2016 Abstracts Conscious Evolution: from the Esoteric to the Exoteric Dr Chris Thomson There is no reason to suppose that human evolution has stopped. Indeed, our evolution seems to be continuing in at least four respects – physically, in consciousness and understanding, in character and behaviour, and in ability and capacity. Leaving aside the physical for the ...

The debate on the nature and origin of consciousness has lately taken an unexpected turn. Rather than restricting consciousness to the human species, the new theories such as Integrated Information Consciousness (IIC) are expanding the notion of consciousness to many material entities, non-biological included. After a long detour into the material and away from anything ...

By Paul Kieniewicz So, we may one day all be replaced by intelligent machines. One day, given enough computational power, machines will become self-aware. According to some AI researchers, some machines already have a measure of self-awareness. Of consciousness. And then, there’s the fabled Singularity, when the machine surpasses the human being and becomes a truly ...

What is the relationship of consciousness to the neurological activity of the brain? Does the brain behave differently when a person is fully conscious, when they are asleep, or when they are undergoing an epileptic seizure? A recent study by R. Guevara Erra, D. M. Mateos, R. Wennberg, J.L. Perez Velazquez of the University of Toronto, suggests that ...

At the recent  Science of Consciousness conference held in Tucson, Arizona, Dean Radin delivered a talk that summarized more than ten years of research on the influence of the mind on a quantum level. He explained that not only are his positive results with the double-slit experiment statistically robust, but they have been replicated by ...

Even at the stage of the retina, a division arises between the dorsal and the ventral stream. The dorsal stream is responsible for movements in relations to objects, and is unconscious. The ventral stream has specialised modules for different aspects of vision. This processing happens at a still unconscious stage, with consciousness only found at ...

Consciousness, Changing Paradigms and World Views

A philosophical discussion on the nature of consciousness and world views, and how the commonly held world views are not necessarily fully representative of reality.

Clash of Beliefs: Culture, Spirituality and Health Week by Week Course Synopsis Presented by Dr Natalie Tobert this comprehensive course Clash of Beliefs: Culture, Spirituality and Health:  offers seminars that explore new spiritual and cultural frameworks for understanding unusual experiences. It explores what it means to be human in today’s world. The case studies provided in the training hint at radical challenges ...

In a recent talk to IONS, just posted on youtube, Dean Radin, a researcher known best for his work in parapsychology speculates on the future of consciousness research. Today new techniques are available for expanding our consciousness, not only new drugs but electromagnetic devices that affect the brain’s activity; enhance a person’s paranormal abilities. Are ...

How can we interrelate the insights from the mystical traditions with our knowledge of neuroscience in understandings how the brain works, to uncover the nature of the mind and consciousness. 

“Consciousness is More than a Product of Brain Activity”- a lecture presented by Dr. Edward F. Kelly author/editor of ‘Irreducible Mind’ and ‘Beyond Physicalism’, and director of the Ray Westphal neuro-imaging lab at UVA DOPS. In this video, Dr. Kelly presents his research and ideas regarding the nature of mind and brain, as well as ...

Rudolph Tanzi discusses the evolution of the brain and consciousness, his research on the genetics of neurological disease aided by meditation and lucid dreaming. This interview is featured in the upcoming “Science and Nonduality Anthology Vol.5”. http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/p… Dr. Rudolph Tanzi is the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard University, and Vice-Chair of ...

Our minds seem to extend far beyond our brains. Many experiments have now shown that people can influence others at a distance just by looking at them, even when all normal sensory clues are eliminated. The sense of being stared at also occurs among non-human animals and may have evolved in the context of predator ...

Chris Thomson has worked as an economist, a researcher in Chinese, a lawyer, and in think-tanks in Scotland and the USA. He now lives in the Catalan Pyrenees, and devotes himself to writing, mentoring and trying to make the esoteric exoteric. The following article argues for a new extended approach to science to improve our ...

‘And the demonstration* of all these things is so certain that, though experience apparently contradicts them we will have more faith in our reason than in our senses.’ René Descartes, Principles of Philosophy *(springing from the mind, inspired by God) The principal mission of DigiBio is to bring a clear and irrefutable answer to the controversy ...

By Paul Kieniewicz The slime mold Physarum polycephalum (diameter: around 10 centimeters), made up of a single cell, was here cultivated in the laboratory on agar gel. It’s a fair assumption. If we’re looking for intelligent behavior in an animal, it had better have a brain, or at the very least a neural system of some kind. ...

The place of consciousness and its role in the universe remain unknown and controversial. Western philosophy and mainstream science consider consciousness to be computational, epiphenomenal, acausal and illusory, whereas Eastern philosophical and quantum physical approaches consider consciousness to be an intrinsic feature of the universe, playing an active role. But which specific intrinsic feature of ...

We started the year on a high, with a full house and 35 people on the waiting list to hear Rupert Sheldrake. The question posed invites reflection that goes beyond the sun, galaxies and encompasses the whole universe. Rupert started by reminding us that many traditions and mythologies consider the sun as conscious even sacred, and salutations to the ...

Our speaker for this meeting, DR. JUDE CURRIVAN is a cosmologist, as well as a mystic. She has a Masters Degree in Physics from Oxford University specialising in quantum physics and cosmology, and a PhD in Archaeology researching ancient cosmologies. She had mystical experiences from a very young age and worked with the wisdom teachers of many traditions furthering over ...

15 – 17 April 2016 – Horsley Park Speakers Dr Larry Dossey Dr Helen Ford Vera Hellemann Prof Tom Mcleish Marja de Vries

Charles T. Tart, PhD, is an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, as well as the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. He is a past-president of the Parapsychological Association. Books that he has authored include Psi: Scientific Studies in the Psychic Realm, States of Consciousness, The End of Materialism, Learning to Use ...

Prof Keith Ward, FBA: The Philosophy of Idealism in India and the West One of the first religious books I read was by Radhakrishnan, who expounds an Indian version of Idealism. Later I came across Hegel, a German Idealist who seemed to have no idea of the depth of Indian thought. I shall discuss two versions ...

Have you ever had a dream that was particularly memorable — one that shook you to the core; perhaps it marked a significant change in your life? Carl Gustav Jung referred to such dreams, that normally occur 2-3 times in a person’s life  as Big Dreams. Recently Kelley Bulkeley, dream researcher, theologian  and Visiting Scholar ...

Full Spectrum Intelligence: A Practical Course on Behaving Wisely and Well By Chris Thomson Changemaker Books, 2014, 194 pp., £8.99, p/b – ISBN 978-1-78279-693-0 Reviewed by David Lorimer When Chris was working in Edinburgh as a lawyer, he was in the Court of Session in Edinburgh one day when Lord Stott was speaking, an occasion that made a great ...

Dr. Bhaktivijnana Muni: Towards a more Harmonious Concept through the Synthesis of Vedanta and Science  Although Science and Technology have made great advances, we still lack comprehensive concepts about life. Biology has not been able to explain the concept of life. The frontiers of Science in the 21st century are open to its own internal critique. ...

Max Velmans is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London. He co-founded the Consciousness and Experiential Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society in 1994, and served as its chair from 2003 to 2006. He was appointed National Visiting Professor for 2010–2011 by the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, and in 2011 was elected ...

 By Kathleen M. Stranks Paper presented to the Scientific and Medical Network Continental Meeting 2016 – Convergent Evolution, Attractors and Love, October 2016, Casa San Bernado, Rome 1/10/16 Synopsis This paper is concerned with attempting to offer some insight into how psychic processes occur. To do this properly we need to examine the idea that consciousness is the primary source of our ...