Last Session of GF 2045

Amit Goswami

Consciousness and the Quantum: Science, Psychology and Spirituality

Technology is good for allowing humans to do what?  Creating free time - what we will do with it?  How will we make a living?  Scientific materialism is a 350 year old world view - not getting us anywhere (environmental problems etc).  Have to change our science.  "Quantum physics liberates the human spirit".  The individual behavior of objects is not determined.  "You are not a machine.  You know this already.  You have been the victim of propaganda."  Quantum activism - humans are capable of change.  "If objects are possibilities, then what makes this object turn into actuality?  All objects are concrete - they don't appear in possible positions."  Reality consists of two things - the domain of wavelike possibility, and the domain of concrete actuality.  In ancient times, people had the same idea - transcendant reality and immanent reality.  Became heaven and earth due to confusion.

Now making an equation between immanent reality and Freudian/Jungian unconscious (losing me here...).  Science changed this - Newton, Darwin, we are machined.  "Very intelligent people who take pride in being Zombies."  "Look how good a zombie I am that I'm attracting your attention - I'm a famous Zombie".  ROTFL.

Now talking about Jung and synchronicity.  "Consciousness is the ground of all being in which all things - thinking, feeling, intuition, and matter are contained as possibilities".

Creativity has four stages:

• Preparation.
• Incubation (just sitting).
• Discontinuity from previous thought (ah ah moment).
• Manifestation.

Thoughts preceded by possibility waves of multiple meanings.  You experience a thought only when you choose.  That particular thought is your experience.  In between, they are possibilities of new meaning.  If you are not doing anything, the possibility waves of meaning start expanding, your scope for finding something new goes up manifold.  Argues this is a quantum account of the creative process.

Now getting into paranormal stuff - random number generators being influenced by consciousness, eeg correlation between co-meditators (Dean Radin), etc.

Psychopaths/sociopaths are people with no gap between thoughts - no scope for change in thought because no gaps.  Need to meditate to slow down, and allow the quantum thought process to give them more awareness, create possibility of change.

Now onto Rupert Sheldrake.

Getting a surprisingly warm reception from the crowd (at least surprising to me, given the pretty non-materialist perspective).

Swami Vishnudevananda Giri

Is a fan of transhumanism - in favor of trying to become god-like humans.  Transcendental humanism - the limitations of man cannot be removed on the current level.  I think the first transhumans were ancient saints.  Avatar is an ancient term - refers to ability of a god to put its consciousness into something.

Avatars will not need cars, houses, etc.  Don't need to have nearly such a large impact on nature - all we need is to change nature of man himself.

How can we help people become happy?  Can resolve my own problems with yoga but not a possibility for most people - they need something that can help them.  Already computers are becoming smarter than us.  We are never going to go beyond earth.  We have to overcome our human nature.

In my tradition (Vedanta) we want to become a god-man who can control reality with thoughts, not dependent on history or karma.  Going into a long story from his tradition about some yogi who inhabited the body of a king in order to learn about carnal relations.  LOL.  So the ability to move consciousness from one body to another has been around for a long time!

For Yogas the brain is a conductor - just a radio - doesn't create consciousness, just conducts it.  Believes consciousness survives death, astral bodies, etc.  Long explanation of different kinds of minds (thin sheaths) that I'm not following.

Describes the progression of levels of more advanced spiritual states in yoga, and wants to know can we somehow replicate this with technology and help more people advance.