Deepak Chopra & Michael Shermer - In Conversation

well welcome everybody Michael Shermer here talking to Deepak Chopra this is for skeptic and a skeptic and our science elan series in which we interview prominent scientists and thinkers on the great subjects of today which you have often covered in your new book you are the universe discovering your cosmic self and why it matters covers well the great the greatest questions there are which you and I've been dancing around since the early 90s really since we put you on the cover group I didn't realise it's 25 yes yes it's it's coming at you borders wouldn't be on the cover cover you do it thick magazine we might have to do a Redux deep block redux well basically because in part even though our relationship has been up and down in debates and TV shows and so on you were kind enough to invite my wife and I to your your Center in Carlsbad and you know it and part of the reason I wanted to do that was because we seem to be at loggerheads with language optic I'm talking busty talking past each other and so I thought maybe experiencing well this is really my wife's idea you know the experience of being in your worldview might help me understand the language that you use and in terms of how you mean those words so you know the meditation the yoga you know just the peaceful retreat and everything else that goes with being at your Center I think does I have given a mic there's a new foot yes well because without a mediation yes if I may use that word we wouldn't be having that I think it's probably more women in politics might might also be a good idea in in the log so that for that same reason but so in part I think the worldview differences that we often talk about depend on how we use words and language and so when you say the universe is conscious or you are the universe you you know in your head what what this means and I often know I'm thinking something different or maybe maybe not and this is where we can find agreement or disagreement as you know people have made fun of your tweets and there's even a website about this and I think even though they're fun because you can't tell the difference between your real tweets and the made-up ones and I think that is hit by DS the best for that yes I'm glad you're flattered by that because you know they didn't mean it flatteringly you know as you know but but again the problem is is because you're using these words in one way or quantum physics uses and it may be a slightly different way and the general public just intuitively uses words in a completely different way then we're often talking at cross-purposes so I thought one thing we could do today is just talk about some of those big terms like what do you mean by consciousness when you say you know consciousness is primary or consciousness is the ground of being or you are the universe title of your book because consciousness brings the universe into existence what do you mean by consciousness so consciousness is that which makes experience possible we are right now having an experience of each other of this environment of our own body of that tree of the Buddha behind us of our thoughts of our feelings emotions so it's only possible because there's awareness or consciousness or being these are synonymous terms I've been to conferences where they might talk for a week about what is consciousness and disagree because you don't consciousness as defined by an anesthesiologist might mean totally something divided right so what we are having now is an experience the best definition I've come across of consciousness is in eastern wisdom traditions which is also agreed upon by those who practice meditation and have an experience of consciousness and what we refer to as the modifications of consciousness so since we have the luxury of time let me define that in the way it's usually defined and you know there's a great teacher Rupert Spira from England meditation teacher he summarized it in the following phrase consciousness is that in which experience occurs is that in which experience is known and this is the third part is little difficult to understand and out of which experience is made so consciousness is that in which experience occurs is known and out of which it is made so right now I'm aware of this experience right so where is this experience happening well some people would say in the brain right I would publish it yeah but if that's what is called the hard problem of consciousness you know when you look in the brain there is no table there there's electrochemical activity which presumably it represents the experience of this table presumably we presume there really is a table here let's wait welcome back to that one come back to that one in a moment okay all right so the experience of this whatever this we are calling it a table right but that's a human construct we could call it a piece of wood we could call it derived from a tree we could call it the ecosystem of the tree the bugs and all the insects and the birds and the flora and fauna including the rain and the sunshine and the infinite void so this is a human construct tree but whatever this experience sound yeah this experience texture yeah this experience seeing dix experience if I wanted to smelling and tasting is happening for lack of a better word in consciousness well in your brain now the brain has a representation presumably which is an electro Chemical phenomenon and that too is an experience in consciousness right if I if I look at the electro magnetic electrochemical representation where is that experience happening because all I have access to is experience and the knowing of experience so where is that happening you can't actually say it's in the brain you can say there's a there's what people call NCC a neural correlate of consciousness in the brain right everybody would agree to that that's not controversial you can say in the brain see on the brain it light up when you do this yeah so that's called an NCC and neural correlate but even that seeing is an experience in consciousness so the brain is a perceptual object is it experience in consciousness so as you say where is that consciousness and nobody can find it well we can find it the visual cortex back here in the occipital lobe though we get it back to the same thing so when we say find aero gear entirely like the correlation okay so maybe you want to say correlation is not causation I'm not sure but it's certainly a strong indicator that that's that the brain is involved yeah inside experience right right but the brain itself is also perceptual object right I'm not sure what you mean by that you mean well the brain doesn't really perceive itself operating yeah but the brain as how do we know there's a brain well you can take it out of somebody's skull and see they got one and iPod you see experience it in the same way as this table right so where is that experience happening how does this huge expanse of experience that tree that window the sound of that airplane how does this whole thing fit inside my brain where is the location of an experience it's represented by the neural impulse that much we can say yes but where is the experience happening with this is the essence of the hard problem maybe nobody disagrees on this ok so this is when we are referring to perceptual experiences right but there are another kind of experience called mental experience so if I ask you to imagine just now the face of your little Vincent you have an experience right yeah you see yeah a picture I can see his little face yeah but there's no picture in the brain yes well also if I ask you to imagine a beautiful sunset John there's no picture in the brain but there's neurons fire we would read today we would read I'm not arguing right but the essence of the hard problem is still that I mean how Syrians yeah where is the experiment maybe we should for the audiences define qualia because that's what you're talking about right the qualitative experience that's qualitative not where red is because you can see the neurons associated with the red firing but the experience of redness the experience of redness the expense that's the heart the face of your little child Vincent's sure the experience of the beautiful sunset or I would ask you to experience just through intention right now the love that you feel for Vincent but visibly so like our friend Christophe Kok would say oh but I can scan tremors brain and I can see where he's imaging his own son's face it's backward problem or he experiences love and we can do a blood draw and see oxytocin pumping through there okay so we'll address that but this is the heart problem yeah otherwise there's no conversation this is the hard problem that we cannot describe how that experience occurs we cannot explain how that experience occurs if we could that there would be no heart problem right okay okay so notwithstanding whatever Christoph Cox says or you know your friend Carroll says or anything so where I'm coming from is that the experience is happening in consciousness and we can't locate that consciousness in the brain or in space-time because even space time is an experience in consciousness yeah so if we can't locate it then it is probably doesn't have a form its formless okay that means it doesn't have any dimensionality okay this back let's back up for just a second and use that simple thought experiment we've we've heard since philosophy 101 does if a tree falls in a forest and there's no one around to hear it does it make a sound okay so if you define sound as airwaves bouncing off of an ear and transducing into neural impulses that register is sound and there's nobody there of course it makes no sound but if we just define sound as air vibrations it doesn't matter if there's anybody there or not if there's air and a tree falls and it's going to compress the air than that sound so it might maybe this comes down to just how you define the specific thing you're talking about there's no sound in the absence of hearing again what the head what do you mean by a sound yeah if you mean by sound just vibration of air then of course you know I just have been designed I mean the experience of sound that's all I'm saying you have access to the experience of sound is different than sound no sound is an experience before it's an experience it's the vibration of air molecules yes the vibration of air molecules is not sound yeah I think here we're getting right to our differences between Eastern traditions and maybe Western scientific traditions allowed me to explain these in tradition yeah and then I'll allow you to come up with your version all I'm saying is you asked me a question what is consciousness right and I said consciousness is that in which experience occurs that in which experience is known and how do which experience is made so when I said think of your of your baby you had a thought that thought was a modified form of consciousness a modification of consciousness when I said picture red sunset on the ocean that was a modificator do is have the intention writers and then your consciousness modified itself to produce that picture yes let me finish this so I say look at this the looking at this modifies your consciousness into the experience of that not what something out there okay so consciousness modifies itself into experience of sensations feel the sensations in your body images emotions and what we call sense perceptions seeing hearing touching tasting these are the excitations of consciousness including the experience of a body because how do you expense your body is you can touch it smell it taste it if you want see it is the act of seeing touching tasting smelling that gives you the experience of a body and then what is a body it's a human construct based on those qualia experiences you know even a dog has no concept that it's a dog well right it has an experience it has maps of its body in its head yeah but the concept and it can distinguish between its body and the in some other object and move around it yes so it has expended all self awareness less than us okay but a gradation yeah yeah no but it has experience and it knowing of experience but you know it's it doesn't even know that it's referred to as a dog that's a human concept construct right the dog in the white house doesn't know that Obama is the president of the United States right well he knows he's the boss well he doesn't the boss as a human can do yeah it's a construct so everything that you described scientifically is a human construct okay by definition I would agree okay let me finish this up okay all right there's no such thing as a body that's a human concept there's no such thing as a human mind that's a human construct it's a construct because we have the ability to conceptualize describe things with words we created these words we agreed upon the definition of these words well all we had is experience including the stars in the galaxies in the Big Bang and including the concept of birth death God these are human constructs based on interpretation of experience that's it and then knowing of experience that's it that's what the Eastern world view is okay therefore consciousness isn't is the ontological primitive there's no such thing as matter either that's a human construct for an experience but how is not all of this also a human construct it is everything just it is it is so that's what I'm saying there are only constructs there so even the idea that there's only constructs is itself a construct because we have language right yes because we have leg but if you don't trust the language over here because it's distorted or illusory why would you not trust it why would you trust it for describing your own world all I'm saying is that all systems of thought are constructs because they're systems of thought now the hard problem is we don't know what thought comes from we we don't know a thought comes from we don't know how a thought is produced because you're not a solipsistic no I'm not it's all obsessed ellipsis refers to to the individual I'm saying there's no individual that's also called right the the individual Michael see here's your bonds Vincent is born right and here he comes into the world and he's experiencing sensations in the body he's experiencing colors he's experiencing tastes smells now I'm using words to use that yeah there's some experience happening right right then we come along when we say your name is Vincent your father's death east or could be religious or whatever you're American you're male you're Caucasian now the poor kid is screwed for the rest of his life because he has started what started as just awareness and experiences awareness now takes on a conditioning in your case this will be a scientific conditioning if it was a Catholic priest it would be a Catholic decision for all of us so we have all of us a conditioned mind which says you know it's began with a mythological conditioning then religious conditioning theological conditioning now a scientific conditioning and the scientific conditioning is the best because you know help you drive your car here I trust it every time you take an airplane and I trust that right so the rhythm of thought so there is a correspondence to truth that we can get closer to or away from with our constructs some constructs are really better than other constructs yeah but the constructs themselves come out of experience so that but it works yes a lot no question but you know it doesn't matter if it works it matters in that I trust my life when every time I step on a jet plane but I'm looking for a deeper question what is it that gives rise to these very successful constructs okay what is it is there something more fundamental than my experience of this perceptual reality because this experience is a human experience right you would agree that an insect with 100 eyes yes this experience the bat has an experience through the echo Valtra sound chameleons eyeball swivel on two different axes presumably a different experience so what is reality is reality a given this well or is reality a a more fundamental something that gives rise to this experience is during this experience this is an experience right so yeah you and I on the bat have a different experience of this table so it has no concept of a table little bit it so the bat flies along but it's sonar still hits this and it flies up and over it without hitting it yeah so because because there really is a table whatever it looks like or feels like it tastes like speed Ian's that is in XP but it's a real it's an atomic structure that really exists atoms are human constructs well early there was certainly there back constructs to say that again apparently they're also back construe yes but not but yes you're right they're bad constructs in sake constructs real constructs you have dolphin construct right it's retro so everyday reality that you and I experience is a human construct all right let me let me come at this another way with an analogy so you're familiar with the the anthropic principle there's the we can throw pick principle and the strong anthropic principle and the weekend throw pick principle says if the universe didn't have the laws of nature and configurations that it has we wouldn't be here because you have to have all these fine-tuned members and so on so if they were slightly different and there were no planets or stars it would be no people to experience planets and stars and so forth and that's pretty much everyone agrees well that's obviously true by definite and the strong anthropoid principle is that the universe had to be this way because we are here or we brought the universe into existence in this way that's the kind of strong or participatory anthro people and as you know that's much more controversial not all physicists accept that so when I was reading your book and studying your various other books and lectures and and so forth I got to thinking about this is sort of the weak consciousness principle and the strong consciousness principle so we're in agreement that with the weak it consciousness principle if to my brain if my brain is not perceiving the table the table doesn't really exist if my brain is if I'm not alive if I'm not conscious there is no experience of any of this in from to my mind it doesn't exist but you go further than that you mean that if I'm if I can state it correctly if I'm stating this correctly you mean strong consciousness principle that consciousness itself brings the matter into existence it makes the universe the way it is would that be in a correct analogy both the weak and the strong anthropic principle our ideas conceived in consciousness you can't conceive an idea without a without consciousness so all scientific theories are conceived in consciousness all observations are made in consciousness all experiments are designed in consciousness you can't get behind consciousness no matter what so consciousness I go back to the definition is what makes experience possible it's that in which experience occurs in that which is experience is known out of which experience is made and out of which experience is interpreted now the interpretation the scientific interpretation it works for human beings and we've created technologies but but even if there were no humans no dos conscious Homo sapiens anywhere we let's say we went extinct fifty thousand years ago and the inner tall's evolve or take it back five hundred thousand years ago as Homo erectus or back three and a half million years ago and it's just Lucy in red when we proposed that there really was a Lucy we have her bones there really were trees so there was no constructs there was no language we construct that now in terms of human experience we say Lucy that's a name we give to that experience we're about to we have to use language yeah so we're back to the same problem right right that when we imagine the Big Bang where do you imagine you know how evolution worked when we imagine Lucy when we look at those bones and we construct a story back going back 13.8 billion years ago we do it because we have consciousness and then we interpret that expense in terms of human experience not in terms of a bad experience not in terms of any other experience in terms of a human expense so you know deny that that past exists before we even came on board recorded that pass exists but our experience of how we construct that bust is in totally human terms yes but all cultures have say origin myths and stories about where it all came from oh and and ours the one you retell in this book from your perspective you presume I mean you speak with confidence you cite science is is better than say the Native American origin myth or the Hebrew origin myth or the person embedded in the construct there's no better because of the correspondence theory of truth that there is some correspondence between the theory we have and the reality that we think is that we presume is that we can't get behind the fact that we are coming up with the theory because there's consciousness well so max bang said there's no getting behind country okay so there's no getting behind cut but I'm but I'm not sure with that silver what that means is what is the fundamental nature of existence which is very difficult to define existence right we define in existence as this as this as this as that thought but what it without the awareness of that there would be no experience of that right for for me and for you yes that all for the entire human race so take the human race out for their gun now when you reconstruct the planet is still here the Sun is still here and the planet is a collection a conglomeration of sensations images feelings thoughts and sense perceptions which we are yet trying to explain as the hard problem right again I think we're talking at two different levels we are but let's try not do that because I'm far not you know because you know it's the conditioning right if I get rid of all conditioning then I will and I'm coming from an experiential point of view is when I get rid of oil conditioning what servers including scientific conditioning because science is a system of thought and I don't know where thought comes from then what I'm left to it is just awareness and it's excitations that I then interpret as mind body universe when in fact the whole thing might be a human concert now the whole thing there is no Michael Shermer that's a name given to an experience there's no Deepak Chopra there is no tree there is no earth planet there's no Mars there's no Rover there's no men walking on the bars they're all fundamentally consciousness when it's excitations that human beings which is another construct Homo sapiens you know we said the wise ones who gave that name we gave that name to it and what did we give that name to to an experience and then we came up with a story around it okay so - all constructs what's left let's take every construct out what's left what's left is awareness where this is a instruct I'm using a word right right so you can't you have to take that out too so what's left nothing and and and then Sorrell we are coming to something no I think we're at the end of an delay no no no under the epistemological line no we end of the ontological line the epistemological is a different how you could get Pat I don't know how you can separate the ontology from this okay let's see agree with your own but but but this is your argument no it's not yet I like it where you're going we're left with nothing yeah right that nothing is the experience of everything I don't know what that means yeah in that who's what's - is he even even even I think Leonard we lost him but I think you know your friends like Lawrence Krauss everybody they say that the universal comes from nothing yes right yes okay so what what word huh but the word as you describe in here nothing is teeming with quantum foam and nothing is and churchill's are those those that those are all human constructs yes but nothing is teeming with possibility according to your description of quantum physics in here it's pretty damn accurate constructs of quantum physics that whoop yeah they work but I don't want to stop there I want to know a very fundamental reality which is nothing that nothing is not in space-time but gives us the experience of space and that nothing is not a human body but gives us the experience of the human body that nothing is not the human mind but gives us the experience of thoughts sensations images feelings and thoughts in fact that nothing is not even in infinite consciousness because that's a construct nothing cannot be conceptualized because all all our imagination is based on experience in space-time now even our best physicists will say the space-time emerged from the construct that we call the Big Bang what was there before the Big Bang nothing right it's like asking what's north of the North Pole yeah that's right so if what time was it before time you can just agree on one thing yeah nothing is the basis of everything then we have one little step to go further what is the nature of that nothingness I don't know how you conceive of it because without a conscious on conceived of it because nothing can we can see right right but nothing can be experienced it's like asking where were you before you were born I did exist well you can probably say you would never born that's a construct but is it based on experience now maybe this is Albert and data constructs God is a constructs matter is a construct mind is it was time time is it all constructs so what is left is nothing let's not call it awareness right but in what how do you build from there you build from there is to experience yourself as nothing and you do that through meditation or meditation is a weight where you stand get here right now this is an epistemological difference you're saying introspection or meditation or just going in inward is a source of knowledge question is is it a reliable source and how do you know that it's true the way I define meditation is to actually experience the progressive widening of thought till there's no thought left and then there is no subject object split right now there's a subject object slip I'm the subject of experience you're the object of experience that trees the object of experience all science is based on subject object split yeah but that's how it official right well isn't it yes it is artificial like this is this is one but as you know it's the other side works right we make jet planes but like a quantum physics it doesn't have to be a human observer could be a camera could be a particle accelerator detecting not the observation is not a the extension of human observation nothing else the camera is an extension of human observation it's a it's basically or when we say you know I'm looking at background radiation it's the extension of my senses one or another even the Hadron Collider was an extension of my senses but even if we go that way we end up with nothing you know if we go away yes particles and waves you say particles are things you have units of mass and energy waves if you ask them ask anyone I in fact ask Leonard the other day so where are waves and we can ask him again the same mathematical space great hilbert space or whatever so waves are basically mathematical imagination how does that mathematical imagination become the experience of a particle it's a conundrum what I'm saying is reality is much more mysterious than we can ever not only then we can think then we can possibly imagine imagine I agree that I do not know the basis of imaginations we don't know the basis of imagination we don't know if the basis of thought we don't know the basis of any of this other than we know there are correlates in something that we call a brain which is another human construct the brain is a human construct for an experience of sensations images feelings thoughts sense perceptions in consciousness I think maybe again we're talking two different levels let's go back I tell you why this is important right all right people feel dead well some people do say okay they fear dead if you are sickness they fear old age and then they buy into a construct guard whatever and then they of course think their construct is better than the others they go to war but what if we realized that the whole thing is and illusion the whole thing is a revolution and whatever we could actually transcend and it's actually an experience that people have had for thousands of years if I could think of the religious or spiritual experience not as some dead white male in the sky but as I look at the experience you know religion is cultural mythology I agree okay science is today's mythology which is very successful and get better it's a story of how we interpret experience but what if we could actually transcend to an experience where as I see the different spiritual traditions even the religious traditions I see three very very fundamental experiences one is transcendence subject/object distinction disappeared the beauty of the mountain was breathtaking time Stood Still or I was listening to this beautiful symphony and I in the music became one or we're on an everyday experience so sometimes you can experience a transcendence okay ii was out of that experience of the unity between subject and object emerge spontaneously values like truth goodness beauty harmony love compassion joy equanimity and the third thing that I find in with all the other trappings is the loss of the fear of death because the transcendent is not in time well okay I think it's because time is also an experience so when I grasp those three things and I you know which is part of the whole thing the ego is also a construct the individual is a concept did I am more likely to be peaceful to be compassionate to be joyful and not identified the eye of experience is not a human the is not nobody here right so you're what you're getting at is the practical applicable aspects of this theory that is if I were to say available if I was to say so what what difference does any of this make other than we're having a fun conversation you would say well to bring world peace or peace to you personally me personally this guy personally because if you feel like I'm going to transcend my death and exist somewhere else in a conscious state I mean that feels dead I was here I won't fear that okay I sort of get that and when you had Eckhart Tolle you know at the shrine and Leonard and I went there I get it you know it's the now it by definition now is all there is see me the past has already happened three seconds ago and Beyond is the past from in three seconds from now is the future that hasn't had a sentence ago is gone yeah that's right so it's really it really is just the now okay so I mean this would be like the week consciousness principle he's right we would all agree that's true but as I like to say I wrote in my book you know and I but but my mortgage is due tomorrow and so I can't call my bank and go let's just all live in the now they're going to go yeah well next Friday your mortgage is due so you better start living in the future and now we're back to reality what Ekta code that we practice as long as you as long as you know it's an illusion you can play in the illusion because this is an illusion no right call it a little but a different kind of illusion and say the magic trick you know that then we're back to reality the reality is everything that the illusion the fun illusion is just sort of a temporary talking about fundamental reality I want to know who's the I they're just curious about all this all right let me come out it'll say lately the guy that once to say let's take this table for a second yeah so we know that the atoms here are mostly empty space that it's made Adam took on stroke yes okay that's fine but but but but you like to talk about quantum physics a lot and that's a good metaphor and atoms are mostly empty space but but I can't pass my hand through the atoms because at the at the level we're talking at here is essentially a solid even though at the atomic scale it's mostly empty space at the macro level it's mostly solid ab nothing doesn't radical I'm going to take a plane tonight we're talking about two different levels we're talking about two to seven years so reality's right talking about what is fundamental and what is what is everyday reality and all I'm saying is everyday reality is not fundamental okay perhaps can you answer back to the epistemological question how do you know the eastern wisdom tradition perspective on reality is the right one versus the one your end of the usin wisdom edition all right okay get rid of that ask yourself that's a control okay ask yourself what is reality when you take everything away well nothing we're back to nothing it's like who's on third for third base okay we're it's a sort of cycling around that's Statue day okay yeah yeah that is presumably although it's not the exact that's a Far Eastern representation of the Buddha yeah so he's sitting under a tree okay and what his experiencing is what you and I call a tree but you know as he experiences sensations images feelings thoughts he recognizes that they arise and the subside even as they arise and that actually in my language he would say that there are no nouns in the universe there's only an activity of consciousness that gives that experience and it arises subsides you can't catch it okay so the first thing is everything we call an object is a process okay because it has no inherent permanence right in time it's it's a process the second thing is where is that process occurring it's occurring for lack of a better word in that which I call me yes where is that me can't be found in the body because the body is also an experience in me can't be found in the mind because the mind also an experience in me well where is me can't be found so it has it's nothing but nothing is not an empty void he suddenly realizes that that tree is sunshine rainbows the infinite void the the earth the water the rivers the oceans and he has the experience of one wholeness in which subject object are both an activity of that nothingness which he calls fundamental reality and that's you know if you can experience that on a daily basis then you can be very practical you can still do all the things necessary to make pay pay your mortgage but you don't get bamboozled into the melodrama of everyday existence which is around constructs right now you know we have a buffoon who's going to become the president of the United States in another month because people bought into his construct right and all of us who prefer the scientific construct are basically screwed because Maisie okay we'll see I mean that's a construct yeah it's all of its so but again I think you know so you're talking at this level and then we're back to the root you know well I got to pay my mortgage mortgage at this level but you're what you're after when you but you're after is that you can improve the world by reducing to the fact that anyway distress I get rid of constructs I have access to what we did to construct the destructive constructs like race isn't big enough but yeah and worry about mortgages anxiety about love and worries or done lots of things if I get bigger secrets of contracts all these boxes which are constructs yeah I have access to you do agree there's something called creativity right well Leonard just wrote a book about that oh wait I did oh so then I have access to creativity because I got rid of your instructions well access to new imagination I have access to a new kind of intuition I have access I would say to more possibilities because when you take away everything all is left is possibility even when items disappear all they are is possibility waves so I think that's an interesting adventure to go to the realm of possibility and maybe replace all gone which is the history by the way of human thought is getting rid of all constructs and coming up with new so this is this is what is this which are after and sort of your your applicable programs at the Chopra Center you can change people's constructs and therefore change their lives their their physiology what happens their stress yes what happens is when you get rid of all the constructs and you get to what I call baseline I have to use word awareness without constructs then what we find is because you know there are now I'm going to propose what the worldview says about that construct which we are talking of as consciousness or awareness or being or existence whatever you want to call it his self regulating itself correcting itself organizing it is evolving and as it was it creates new experiences this is a human experience not a snail experience right yes so what we call evolution of species then becomes evolution of species of consciousness evolution of this self regulating self organizing self correcting self and even biologists they use these words self-organizing self-organizing merging property emergent properties they use this without ever defining the self and I'm one saying all I'm saying is when I use the word self and the word I I don't mean the park because the park is just impermanent experience in the eye being formless being non-local not in space and time it's not subject to birth and death which are human constructs but they still happen they happen because they be have bought into the convent but even if you don't buy in the construct of death you're going to die all of this are that which you think you are is basically died because you were born well we have the assumption that you were born if if you don't buy into the concept of but birth and death then there is no such thing well but but death has not an experience not as birth an experience it's what happens in between that experience well that's everything mmm that's everything but that's an experience in what get in there in the real world in the real world undressing experience in conscious hundred billion people came before us they're all dead they were all perceptual phenomena in the one consciousness which what one consciousness the one fundamental nothing ontological primitive okay which even that's a construct this ontological primitive the you can't get behind Congress as long as I said before roomies yam is good you know but but how did he get that I mean meditation in transcendence through transcend which you can do through meditation well if I can meditation is I'll tell you home again meditation is getting rid of all constructs going to the source of thought but whatever the source of thought is but no no the self reflection you know there's something called the wheel of awareness so the wheel of awareness is five put five senses sound touch scientists and smell the physical body the interior of the body mental space and the web of relationship when you meditate on all these different aspects of experience you realize they're all modifications of thought but you're choosing constructs that are healthier or less destructive you're not getting rid of constructs your field and you're also waiting like when you meditate you get all that thought flooding right so you work with your paid clients there you go okay here's what you do to get rid of the thought flooding alone you can't get rid of a thought because getting rid of a thought is also a thought what you do is if you just allow things to happen thoughts settle down and there is transcendence of subject-object split but then you realize intuitively that it's one wholeness in which all this experience is happening and that one wholeness is none it has no dimensionality now we can give it a name if you want to give it a name and some people would they'd say that's the divine or God but you know again that then becomes an image so what you mean by God is rather different from what most of what I mean by God is my eyes instinct to know myself my highest instinct instinct to know the nature of existence my highest instinct to know why this is happening as so what's his name the guy who verified the general theory of gravity Oh Harrington Eddington is it something unknown is doing we don't know what right because you know it's easy very complacent for me to say the science can explain this when as you know science cannot explain any of these nine questions but we have the other but there's not total agreement on them there's different materials I say it in theories what came before the Big Bang yeah it's all in mathematical imagination right and imagination is a is a activity of that nothingness why does the universe fit together so perfectly why is it mathematically precise so we can have this experience I don't know strongman throw peg where we can throw big ideas where the time come from it's a interesting question because the fundamental nature of time is that there is no time this is a human experience it's again you know an experience it's a construct right what is the universe made of I think even your friend John your friend Lawrence Krauss would say nothing is their design comes from it's made of all sorts of stuff but it comes Renault it's not made of you to sin 70% is dark energy we don't know what it is 26% is dark matter we don't know that is 4% is atomic items a possibility waves so we don't know what it is it's really we had these are words we use so when cosmology is talking about dark energy and dark matter they don't mean that as an explanation it's just a linguistic placeholder until we figure out what it is okay in fact there's no explanation for anything because it's all words it's all it's all kind of drugs yes no it but you can say that about gravity well we don't you know what is gravity is the tendency for objects to attract no explanation why do objects attract they is doing in the nation for why you and I here but but after we finished talking then if you and I were physicists and we went back to finish these yes yes is the quantum will link to everyday life if you say yes you have a problem how ok how do atoms and particles create this experience if you say no then why is it important do we live there you taught you in that chapter you talk about this cell phone GPS technology depends on quantum physics yeah is that not a correspondence theory of truth that ok it must really work because it's really there but it doesn't explain why we have that expense well so what those are just that's just kind of a different question no no the point is to what is truth see yes I think of scientists on on a vertical on a journey or a quest for truth I see artists on a quest for beauty I see philosophers on a quest for meaning and purpose yeah I see religious people on a quest if they're authentically religious and spiritual for goodness morality ethics so we are all in a quest without having the faintest idea what this is about right and that you're pronouncing likes on the beer for nothing else it gives me deep humility if nothing else it gives me a sense of the sacred if that's not a good word at least reverence for this spirituality spirituality and it gives me a it gives me a feeling that you know I have as this construct a very little time why am I wasting it arguing with anybody or but because it's it so I show you why are you talking cuz it's part of the journey okay and I'm all I'm saying is skepticism is very healthy but then you have to be skeptical about the nature of this yes yes III agree that's okay that's all good well I'm very you know I'm very grateful that we're having this conversation I'm be honest with you because we've had this adversarial relationship and I no longer feel that by the way I no longer feel adversarial to Dawkins I met Lawrence through another mutual friend and you know I realized that we all are tied to our constructs because we're so embedded in them and it's okay they work for us right now including those guys you know who have mythical constructs and for them it's okay yeah that's right yeah yeah for them it worked yeah yeah and so I'm glad that we can expand this conversation for one thing I think we can both agree on I hope is we don't know what the heck is going on well as I like to say it's always okay to say I don't know and most of us had that's a construct it's hard to give up the idea that we got to know so I'll end this conversation with the quote from the great baklava well we said seek the company of those who are looking for the truth then run away from those who have found it we haven't found it job Michael thank you for joining find some truths but there's plenty of mysteries to let me think that too it is yes yeah that's right thank you

Channel: Jiyo4life

Views: 44,385

Keywords: Consciousness, Quantum Physics, You Are The Universe, Human Universe, Wellbeing, wellness, spirituality, belief, truth, awareness, Deepak Chopra, deepak, nature, inspiration, motivation, modern, new age, guru, wisdom

Id: hbWnbgfXRsQ

Length: 55min 22sec (3322 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 14 2016