Evidence That Your Mind is NOT Just In Your Brain - Rupert Sheldrake

[Music] I think that the idea that it's all in  the brain is an unnecessary limitation materialist   thinking about the brain is extraordinarily  local it localizes all these things actually   inside the head but within the Sciences since the  19th century we now have a much broader view of M   and the way that nature is organized and  this is broadened through the concept of   fields first introduced into science by Michael  Faraday uh in relation to electric and magnetic   fields then through Einstein's general theory  of relativity taken to include the gravitational   field and there are many fields in in science now  fields are defined as regions of influence they're   usually invisible the gravitational field of the  earth is in the Earth but EX extends far beyond   it the reason we're not floating in the air at  the moment is because it's holding us down to the   ground it's invisible this room is full of it but  we can't see it it holds the moon in its orbit it   stretches far beyond the Earth the gravitational  field of the Moon affects the tides on the earth   so these are invisible Fields with enormous  effects at a distance even though you can't   see them uh electrical and magnetic fields also  stretch out Beyond physical objects a magnetic   field stretches out far beyond the magnet you  can reveal its lines of force through sprinkling   iron filings around it but the field itself is  invisible and the electromagnetic fields of your   mobile telephone uh within the mobile telephone  but stretch invisibly Beyond it this room is full   of radio Transmissions from mobile phones from  radio and television programs the the world is   full of invisible Fields this is a revelation of  19th and 20th Century science which I don't think   has been taken on board by people thinking about  materialist theories of the brain and what I'd   like to suggest is that our fields of our mind  stretch out far beyond our bodies they stretch   out invisibly and our Consciousness is related to  and based on these fields that if we're going to   solve the heart problem taking into account fields  of the Mind may be a very important in ingredient   as well as studying processes within the brain  the easiest way to see what I'm talking about   is indeed through vision what's going on when you  see something um well everybody knows that light   comes into the eyes ever since Johan Kepler in  16004 worked out that there were inverted images   on the retina we know that the lens focuses the  light in each eye you have a small inverted image   on your retina changes happen in the Cod cells and  the rod cells impulses travel up the optic nerve   changes happen in various regions of the brain  all this has been mapped and scanned in Greater   detail than ever before but the mysterious part  is then what happens next how do you create images   three-dimensional full color images they're all  supposed to be inside your head representations of   the outer world so I can see you sitting there you  can see me here but all of you are supposed to be   inside my head as lots of faces and and the whole  of this room is meant to be and inside your head   is supposed to be a little ret um somewhere inside  your brain that's not what we actually experience   what we actually experience is that our images  are out there your image of me I'm imagining is   where I'm actually standing right now and my  image of you is where you are so this oneway   theory of Vision which we've all grown up with and  which comes from Kepler the intromission theory of   vision sending in intromission is taken to be the  standard scientific view but there's another and   older theory of vision the extramission theory  that says not only does light come in but the   images we see are projected out so my images  of you are where they seem to be they're in   my mind they're in my Consciousness but they're  not inside my head they're where you're sitting   now this idea is familiar to the ancient Greeks  it's familiar to people all over the world the   developmental psychologist Jean P showed that  young European children in his book the child's   conception of the world think that they're  projecting out images that they take it for   granted so this is in fact a very deep-seated  way of thinking about vision and uid the great   geometer used it to explain in the first a really  clear way how mirrors work what happens when you   look at something in a mirror is the light is  reflected from the mirror the angle of incidence   the angle of reflection are the same but what  happens then is you project out the images uh   which go straight through the mirror being virtual  mental projections and you see virtual images   behind the mirror and ID's theory is still there  in school textbooks to explain mirrors all of you   no doubt have seen these diagrams they involve  little dotted lines behind the mirror that go   to What's called a virtual image behind the mirror  a projection of the Mind behind the mirror and so   this extra mission a sending out theory of vision  is actually taught to all school children even   though within most of science it's regarded as a  total heresy intromission is the only permissible   theory in biology and psychology whereas in  Optics which comes under physics extra is the   standard Theory and no wonder it's confusing  people are taught two completely different   theories of vision at Ohio State University  Gerald Wier who's a professor of Psychology   was shocked to find that most adults and children  he interviewed believed in visual extramission   something going out of the eyes even his own  psychology undergraduates believed it so heall   this a fundamental misunderstanding of visual  perception and he decided to re-educate them and   he and his colleagues told them forcefully over  and over again nothing goes out of the eyes when   you look at something and after repeated drilling  with this into the students when they were tested   immediately after this denial of extramission  uh teaching they gave the correct answers but   when they tested them 3 to 5 months later almost  all of them had reverted to their previous views   they were dismayed at this failure of scientific  education much more recently in fact just in the   last few years arid gutam uh at working first at  Princeton University now at the kinska institute   in Stockholm has shown that uh by some very  ingenious experiments that people attribute   a gental force to the Gaze as it goes out of  the eyes and they've even shown using fmri that   regions of the brain involved in tracking movement  are activated and as he puts it the results   this is a quote strongly suggests that when people  view a face looking at an object the brain treats   that gaze as if a movement were present passing  from the face to the object and they found that   this occurred even in people who didn't believe  in visual extramission it's deep hardwired in the   way we see and they tried to explain this  by saying there must be an evolutionary   reason for it that in uh it's important to  track people's gaze in social situations   and this leads to the illusion that something's  going out of the eyes when you look at things it   it make much better sense in evolutionary terms  if it's not an illusion but if it's real and so   is it real well you're not meant to think it's  real because that goes against the Dogma that   the mind is nothing but the activity of the brain  and the perceptions are inside the head but is it   testable well I think it is if when I look at you  a projection from my mind that touches you my mind   in a sense reaches out to touch you if I look at  you from behind and you don't know I'm there could   you feel that I'm looking at you well as soon as  you ask that question you realize that the sense   of being stared at is very common it's now called  scop athesia the scientific name for it scop as   in microscope seeing aesthesia feeling as in  synesthesia anesthesia scop athesia is extremely   common most people have experence experienced it  I'm sure most people in this room have experienced   it you turn around you find someone's looking at  you or you stare at someone and they turn around   and look back doesn't happen all the time but  it's very common most people have experienced it   including most children it's usually directional  you turn and look straight at the person you don't   just feel uneasy and search around I I have  a recent paper on directional scof athesia   showing that on the basis of 960 case studies the  directionality is just a basic feature of this and   the way people experience it I've investigated the  Natural History we've interviewed uh We've dealt   with through questionnaires we found it typically  happens uh most powerfully with strangers often   with male strangers in situations that could  be vaguely threatening we've done interviews   with more than 50 surveillance officers celebrity  photographers and private detectives practically   all of whom just take this for granted if you've  ever trained to be a private detective and I'm   guessing that most of you haven't uh you you will  have learned that um when you're following someone   shadowing somebody you don't stare at their back  cuz if you do they'll turn around catch your eyes   and your cover's blown you have to look at them a  little bit otherwise you lose them but you look at   their feet so among practical people these things  are completely taken for granted in the martial   arts it's taken for granted and they have methods  of training people to become more sensitive   because if you can feel when someone's approaching  from behind who might attack you you'll survive   better than if you didn't feel it they train  this ability people get better at it well many   experiments have already been done on the  sense of being stared at they've been done   in at least 37 different schools and colleges  have been replicated in many parts of the world   the statistical significance is astronomical the  Nemo science museum in Amsterdam an experiment on   the sense of being stared at was running for more  than 20 years more than 20,000 people took part   it was called have you got eyes in the back  of your head and people had to guess whether   they were being looked at or not in a randomized  sequence of Trials the results were astronomically   significant statistically I mean I didn't run this  experiment myself it was run by the Dutch Museum   the results were analyzed by Dutch statisticians  and it showed a massively significant effect the   most sensitive subjects in incidentally were  children under the Agee of nine so here we have   something which is extremely well known it's  well known all over the world the scientific   evidence suggests it really happens the scientific  teaching of how mirror's work assumes that there's   an extem mission of influences it seems to be  deep receit in biology it happens with animals   animals can tell when they're being looked at and  people can tell when animals are looking at them   so here we have a very very well-known phenomenon  very deep-seated biologically many different   species of animals have shown this ability I  think it's evolved in the context of Predator prey   relationships a prey animal that could tell when  a predator was looking at it a hidden Predator was   looking at it would survive better than one that  didn't and I think it has enormous implications   for our understanding of the mind because if our  minds are not just about what happens in brains   and if our conscious experience is extended  through electromagnetic fields which is what   light is it suggests that Minds have an interface  with electromagnetism we know they do in the brain   a lot of brain activity that correlates with  Consciousness is electromagnetic activity there   seems to be an interface between electromagnetism  and Consciousness and why it should be confined   to the inside of the head is a purely arbitrary  assumption it comes from Ren deart originally I   suppose um or from the ancient Greek materialists  but deart made a division between extended things   rise extensor matter is extended in space  whereas mind re cutans was not extended in   space it was defined by being unextended so the  idea was the mind was unextended but interacted   with the brain somewhere inside the head so I'm  suggesting that actually when we let go of that   assumption which has been so limiting for for so  long we can broaden our view of the mind and uh   go further than we've gone so far in a way that  will help solve the real problems leading towards   the hard problem finally I just want to say that  I think the extended mind doesn't just extend out   into the world it extends throughout the body when  someone has say a phantom limb after an amputation   I think that that Phantom limb is part of the  extended mind and that people feel the limb uh to   be really there and I think what they're ex doing  is projecting that image of the limb and feeling   it from within as to where the limb actually is  the official view is it's all inside the brain   but I don't think it is and so I think once we  Liberate the Mind from the brain more generally   and Consciousness from the brain more more  particularly we have a much wider context for   discussing this naughty problem the hard problem  of the relation between mind and brain when we   take into account the extended mind instead of  just arbitrarily confining to the inside of the   head we're much more likely to make progress in  understanding how minds are related to our bodies   and to the physical Fields through which we see  and through which we have our experiences thank you thank you for watching this video produced  by after skool I'm Rupert sheldrake if you want   to learn more about my work you can can go to my  website sheldrake.org or my YouTube channel the   links are below I'm also continuing this research  on the feeling of being stared at I now have an   app that works on cell phones where you can train  yourself to get better at it I don't know how   easy it is to train yourself to get better at it  because this is a new project but please do have   a go if you can if you can get better at it and if  you have any suggestions as to how others might be   able to to become more sensitive do please email  me and let me know how you've been getting on   thank you for watching and I hope you're watch  the next production that I do with after skool

Channel: After Skool

Views: 237,507

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Length: 16min 1sec (961 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 11 2024