Chasing Consciousness

In this episode we have the challenging job of getting our head around the psychology of altered states of consciousness or ‘exceptional human experiences’ as today’s specialist calls them. Are they mere illusions of the mind? Does their ability to radically change our world view and sense of meaning in the world give them a special status in psychology and mental health? And how do we talk scientifically about significant similarities between such experiences across different times and cultures that appear to imply the existence of an alternative kind of ‘reality’ what ever ‘reality’ is. Fortunately, to navigate this bag of worms, we have a researcher who has devoted his career to the study of these experiences both psychedelic and other, Dr. David Luke. David Luke is currently a module leader of the Psychology of Exceptional Human Experience in Greenwich Universities Psychology and Counselling Department, a course he has been running since 2009. He is also currently an Honorary Senior Lecturer for the Centre for Psychedelic Research, Division of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London. He was President of the Parapsychological Association between 2009 and 2011, and received the Faculty's first Inspirational Teaching Award (2016) from the University of Greenwich. He is a prolific author and editor of books, and today we’ll be discussing his 2017 book ‘Otherworlds: Psychedelics and exceptional human experiences’ and his new book, a collections of essays he has edited called ‘DMT Entity Encounters: Dialogues on the Spirit Molecule’ He is also the co-founder of the Breaking Convention Conference on Psychedelics. What we discuss in this episode:  00:00 Intro 04:20 Measuring subjective qualitative experiences 11:45 The different types of altered states of consciousness 18:00 Reduced activity in the DMN (Default Mode Network) during alternate states of consciousness, but increased brain region connectivity 21:30 Evaluating mystical experiences psychologically 33:00 The connection between psychedelics and telepathy 57:00 Psychonautics - trying to map psychedelic realms and types of beings encountered and much much more (full show notes here) References: William James - Radical Empiricism During Altered states there is a reduced activity in the DMN but increased brain region connectivity Johns Hopkins and NYU studies - Intensity of mystical experience correlation with positive clinical outcomes. %50 drop in atheism among DMT experiencers Stephen Szára - first DMT experiments in 1950’s Charles Laughlin - Polyphasic culture and transpersonal anthropology Medicalisation and Reciprocity Specialists Symposium

In this episode we have the extraordinary theory of Biocentrism to consider: the hypothesis that the space, time and matter arose from life, and not the other way around. This theory obviously flies completely in the face of material science’s Darwinian view that life and consciousness evolved slowly out of ever more complex systems of matter. Now we’ve heard in multiple interviews on the show so far that similar theories like Panpsychism, the hypothesis that consciousness is fundamental to the physical world, are hugely increasing in popularity and not only among philosophers but also among physicists, perhaps because many of the anomalies coming out of quantum experiments can be explained in a panpsychist model. But this is the first time as far as I know that a scientist has argued that life itself is fundamental to the physical world. Perhaps to many scientists it would sound absurd, but as the theory has been popularised by award winning Stem Cell biologist Robert Lanza, it seems important that we give this theory a closer look. Given our physics slant on Chasing Consciousness, we are extremely lucky to be speaking today with Robert Lanza’s co-author on the new book about the theory “The Grand Biocentric Design, How life creates reality”, physicist and author Matej Pavšič Matej Pavšič has been a theoretical physicist at the Jožef Stefan Institute in Slovenia for over 40 years, working on Mirror Particles, Brane Spaces, and Clifford algebra and spaces among other areas. He’s published more than hundred scientific papers and 3 books including "The Landscape of Theoretical Physics: A Global View" (Kluwer Academic, 2001) and "Stumbling Blocks Against Unification" (World Scientific, 2020). And the Biocentrism book mentioned above. 00:00 Intro 06:00 Niels Bohr - Measurement ‘creates ‘ the world quote 10:00 The wave particle duality - real vs perceived 15:10 The Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics 18:00 Hugh Everett - The wave function is relative to the observer 20:00 The risk of Woo when talking about Quantum Entanglement 25:30 A universe fine tuned for life - Hierarchical levels of representation and the hard problem 37:00 Mystical experiences may connect to wave function of the universe 38:31 Hawking and Wheeler - The past is not fixed until measurement 39:45 Matej’s theory: The Big Bang could have been caused by a vacuum instability in the quantum field 40:30 The book has been criticised by scientists for being over-simplified for the general public 44:30 Testability of Biocentrism via Quantum Mechanics 46:00 Weak Biocentrism paper, accounting for the observer effect while keeping the physical world 49:00 Quantum Suicide and the impossibility of being dead from the first person point of view 53:00 Why is consciousness so controversial in modern physics? 55:12 Difficulty of applying different laws at the classical and quantum level References: Rupert Everett - The Many Worlds from interpretation of quantum mechanics Robert Lanza, Dmitriy Podolskiy and Andrei Barvinsky paper - reduction of quantum gravity in the presence of observers: Intro article and Paper

In this episode we look at an alternative child psychology approach to parenting and care-giving, than perhaps the one we’re used to from our own childhoods: one based on connection rather than threat based motivations. This episode is a little closer to home than usual, as a few years ago we hit the wall with our eldest boy, who after the birth of our second child when he was 6, became extremely aggressive and uncontrollable. This led us to try Hand in Hand parenting, and we got an improvement of wellbeing and behaviour within just 2 weeks! We were scheduled to be speaking with the founder, child psychologist Patty Wipfler. Patty sent her apologies as sadly her health had taken a turn, but what a silver lining as Patty sent us Hand in Hand’s program director and Clinical psychologist Dr. Maya Coleman Ph.D. Since 2007 she has been providing trauma treatment for children and support for parents. She spent 3 years at the Children’s National Medical Center giving behavioural and developmental consultancy, and last year joined Hand in Hand as program director. Please donate to help me keep the content flowing  00:00 Short intro 13:36 Parent-child mutual connectedness for healthy emotional development 18:50 Learning and healing only possible in a state of safety 19:30 Traumatic experiences block learning both physically and mentally. 27:00 Release of emotion only when connected, emotionally regulated care is present 27:00 Crying is an opportunity to clear and reset their emergency/threat system 31:00 Offloading often happens later when the parent takes back the child 32:40 Children’s fear of care givers themselves 38:25 THE 5 HAND IN HAND PARENTING TOOLS EXPLAINED 39:20 SPECIAL TIME EXPLAINED - building connection 43:45 STAY LISTENING EXPLAINED - holding a regulated space for big emotions 55:00 SETTING LIMITS EXPLAINED - Listen, limit, listen 01:05:00 Regulation and body language, instead of tagging and shaming 01:09:40 PLAY LISTENING EXPLAINED 01:13:45 Laughter as an inbuilt releasing mechanism 01:18:00 LISTENING PARTNERSHIPS EXPLAINED 01:21:00 Parents too get triggered and go off track 01:28:35 You can heal betrayed trust with kids 01:35:30 Memories and a corrective associative adjustment 01:38:15 Heal parenting, heal the world References: Attachment theory Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Study  5 Listening tools for parents introduced Hand in Hand you tube channel More videos with Patty introducing the tools Patty Wipfler and Tosha Schore Book “Listen: Five simple tools to meet your Everyday Parenting Challenges” Listening partnership instructions video ‘The neuroscience of enduring change’ Richard D. Lane and Lynn Nadel ‘Birthing a new world’ parenting blog, Roma Norris

In this episode, we have the tough task of examining the evidence that our society is losing its ability for prolonged attention, focus and concentration. We talk about what are the main factors leading to this, and what we can do to mediate it individually, but also collectively through regulation if necessary, before it becomes intergenerational. Is this also another symptom, like depression and addiction, of growing up with less and less face to face social connection and non-focused attention? Fortunately today’s guest, the New York Times bestselling author Johann Hari, has written about Depression and Addiction, and his new book “Stolen Focus: What you can’t pay attention and how to think deeply again”, focuses on this very issue of Attention. Johann is a British award winning author and journalist. His book on Addiction ‘Chasing the Scream: the First and Last Days of the War on Drugs’, has been adapted into the Oscar-nominated film ‘The United States Vs Billie Holiday’. And his second book, ‘Lost Connections: Uncovering The Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions’ was shortlisted for an award by the British Medical Association. His TED talks have been viewed more than 80 million times. Over the past decade he has written for some of the world’s leading newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, and the Spectator. And he has appeared on NPR, HBO, The Joe Rogan Podcast, and the BBC. What we discuss: 00:00 Short Intro 050:0 Rumi’s quote, ’The wound is where the light enters you’ 09:42 The 12 reasons for our shrinking attention 11.10 Task switching and the illusion of multitasking 14.27 Higher stress from faster lives 17:00 Deep concentration only when feeling safety 18:41 Technologies that monitor us and manipulate our attention 20:00 Precedents in history for laws to ban certain elements that were harmful 22:00 The social media business model and the alternative 45:16 Gabor Mate, trauma and the rise of ADHD 48:45 Lowering of length of sleep and bad diet 50:00 The loss of exercise, sedentary schooling 53:00 www.letgrow.org, free social play without supervision 01:04:00 Flow states: Meaningful goals at the edge of your ability References: Leonard Cohen quote: ‘There’s a crack in everything, that’s where the light gets in’ Earl Millar at MIT - Task Switching and the Switch- Cost effect Nadine Burke-Harris - Ex-Surgeon general of California, adverse childhood experience survey Tristan Harris - Social Dilemma documentary Gabor Mate book on addiction - In the realm of Hungry ghosts Johann Hari book on addiction - Lost Connections www.letgrow.org, free social play without supervision David Hume quote - ‘reason is the slave of the passions’ The Corporation, documentary about the history of corporations Paul Graham - the world will become more addictive Krisna Murti quote- ‘it’s no sign of good health to be adjusted to a profoundly sick society’

How likely is it that we live in a simulations? Are virtual worlds real? In this first episode of the 2nd Series we delve into the fascinating topic of virtual reality simulations and the extraordinary possibility that our universe is itself a simulation. For thousands of years some mystical traditions have maintained that the physical world and our separated ‘selves’ are an illusion, and now, only with the development of our own computer simulations and virtual worlds have scientists and philosophers begun to assess the statistical probabilities that our shared reality could in fact be some kind of representation rather than a physical place. As we become more open to these possibilities, other difficult questions start to come into focus. How can we create a common language to talk about matter and energy, that bridges the simulated and simulating worlds. Who could have created such a simulation? Could it be an artificial intelligence rather than a biological or conscious being? Do we have ethical obligations to the virtual beings we interact with in our virtual worlds and to what extent are those beings and worlds ‘real’? The list is long and mind bending. Fortunately, to untangle our thoughts on this, we have one of the best known philosophers of all things mind bending in the world, Dr. David Chalmers; who has just released a book ‘Reality+: virtual worlds and the problems of philosophy’ about this very topic. Dr. Chalmers is an Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist specialising in the areas of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is a Professor of Philosophy and Neuroscience at New York University, as well as co-director of NYU's Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness. He’s the founder of the ‘Towards a Science of Consciousness Conference’ at which he coined the term in 1994 The Hard Problem of Consciousness, kicking off a renaissance in consciousness studies, which has been increasing in popularity and research output ever since. Donate here: https://www.chasingconsciousness.net/episodes What we discuss in this episode: 00:00 Short Intro 06:00 Synesthesia 08:27 The science of knowing the nature of reality 11:02 The Simulation Hypothesis explained 15:25 The statistical probability evaluation 18:00 Knowing for sure is beyond the reaches of science 19:00 You’d only have to render the part you’re interacting with 20:00 Clues from physics 22:00 John Wheeler - ‘It from bit’ 23:32 Eugene Wigner: measurement as a conscious observation 27:00 Information theory as a useful but risky hold-all language tool 34:30 Virtual realities are real and virtual interactions are meaningful 37:00 Ethical approaches to Non-player Characters (NPC’s) and their rights 38:45 Will advanced AI be conscious? 42:45 Is god a hacker in the universe up? Simulation Theology 44:30 Simulation theory meets the argument for the existence of God from design 51:00 The Hard problem of consciousness applies to AI too 55:00 Testing AI’s consciousness with the Turing test 59:30 Ethical value applied to immoral actions in virtual worlds The difficulty of simulations within simulations References: Hans Moravec - Pigs in cyber space 1992 Eugene Wigner ‘Remarks on the mind and body question’ 1961 David Chalmers and Kelvin McQueen ‘Consciousness and the Collapse of the Wave Function’ NPC becomes conscious in ‘Free Guy’ movie dir. Shawn Levy, with Ryan Reynolds NPC torture in ‘USS Callister’ Black Mirrors 4th series, Episode 1 The Turing test for subjective conscious experience Robert Nozic’s ‘the experience machine’ thought experiment Future of Life: Max Tegmark's Organisation to reduce existential risk from new technology

Psychiatrist and author Dr. Iain McGilchrist discusses a post physicalist world and a broader understanding of mind and reality. He explores the limitations of reductionist materialism, the relationship between consciousness and matter, and the complexity of evolution. He also argues against the reductive materialist mindset and explores the relationship between the sacred and scientific reasoning.

Christoph Le Mouel, a PhD holder, delves into the intriguing concept of synchronicity, exploring its connections with physics and psychology. He shares personal anecdotes that illustrate meaningful coincidences in life. The conversation traverses from comic books to quantum mechanics, linking Jung's ideas with concepts like entanglement and the implicate order. They discuss how time, consciousness, and new societal paradigms interrelate, advocating for a fresh scientific approach that appreciates both subjective experiences and objective truths.

Are our scientific assumptions justified? In this episode we’re going to be examining the assumptions of Western Science. All science is based on assumptions. In order to isolate systems in experiments and standardise measurements of the target data, other variables need to be pinned down so scientists can form precise mathematical models, that can then be repeated accurately in the peer review process. Today we’re going to look at these assumptions, and establish if they indeed have become standard, fixed and unquestioned as some critics claim.   One of those critics is Cambridge educated biologist Rupert Sheldrake, who gave a TED talk in 2013 about the assumptions of western science, which was banned by TED’s anonymous board of scientific advisors for not being a ‘fair description of scientific assumptions’. Far from quieting the controversy, the ban caused outcries of censorship, and the ripped video was seen many millions of times on You Tube, probably many times more than had it been left to stand as one scientists opinion. Today I want to examine just how fair his description was.   To help us examine his claims is one of Rupert’s old friends and supporters, a specialist in the history and philosophy of science, an author and the program director of the Scientific and Medical Network, David Lorimer. He is also President of Wrekin Trust and Chief Consultant of Character Education Scotland.  He is also a former President of the Swedenborg Society, and Vice-President of the International Association for Near-Death Studies. Originally a merchant banker then a teacher of philosophy and modern languages at Winchester College, he is the author and editor of over a dozen books, most recently ‘The Protein Crunch’ (with Jason Drew) and ‘A New Renaissance’, and out this year his new book ‘a quest for wisdom’. He is the originator of the Inspire-Aspire Values Poster Programmes, which this year involved over 25,000 young people.    What we discuss in this episode: 00:00 Compulsory philosophy and death  07:32 Examining Rupert Sheldrake’s 10 claimed assumptions of western science   09:10 The ‘Life and nature are mechanistic’ assumption  19:30 The ‘Matter is unconscious’ assumption  29:40 ‘The laws of nature are constant’ assumption  38:26 The Galileo Commission - get everyone to look though the telescope  43:00 Reality is relational not relative - Apilla Colorado and Leroy Little bear  44:45 The ‘Nature is Purposeless’ assumption - teleology  52:30 ‘Biological heredity is only physical’ and ‘memory is in your Brain’ assumptions  55:00 Morphogenetic fields and memories of previous lives and birthmarks  1:01:45 ‘Your mind is in your head, your consciousness is correlated to your brain activity’ assumption  1:05:30 ‘Psychic phenomena and telepathy are impossible’ assumption  FOR PART 2 TIME CODES AND THE MANY MORE REFERENCES FROM THIS EPISODE PLEASE VISIT: https://www.chasingconsciousness.net/episode-13-assumptions-of-science-david-lorimer References: Rupert Sheldrake ‘Science set free’  David Lorimer ‘A Quest for Wisdom’  David Lorimer ‘Thinking Beyond the Brain’  The Galileo Commission - get everyone to look though the telescope  The Scientific and Medical Network 

Can intention, attention or expectation affect random physical events? In this episode we’re going to be exploring the subtleties of an odd phenomenon: the Experimenter Effect, where the expectations of the scientist doing an experiment appear to affect the results measured. This is hugely important for the right practice of science, and for understanding why some experiments that seem watertight methodologically can only be reproduced by scientists who expect the same results and not by sceptics of the hypothesis. Who better to discuss this with than a scientist who ran into this while trying to disprove the the influence of consciousness in a physical system, Professor Garret Moddel; Dr. Moddel is Professor of Electrical and Quantum engineering at Colorado University, specialising in Solar cells, metal-insulator technology and geometric diodes, and optoelectronics among other extraordinary technologies. He also runs a separate psi phenomena lab. He is also one of the former presidents of the groundbreaking research organisation the Society of Scientific Exploration. PART 1 01:04 The Experimenter effect explained 01:06 The difference between the effect in Psychology and in Physics 19:00 RNGs: Helmut Schmitt and atomic decay Random Number Generator experiments 25:00 1000’s of scientists in a data driven, peer reviewed field of science, in underground labs at top universities; totally unacknowledged by the rest of science 27:30 Garrett didn’t believe it till he read the literature 55:55 Standford Research Institute’s 1970’s-1990’s military psychic spy Remote Viewing experiments 01:03:30 Jessica Utts: The statistical analysis of SRI’s remote viewing research PART 2 01:08:00 The Observer Effect: simply observing interacts with quantum systems 01:11:00 Wigner Von Neumann and the ‘collapse of the wave function’ 01:15:00 Our intention does affect random phenomena, incontrovertibly in the literature References: (please note the reported bias towards criticism over support on the wiki entries; the supporters of this science try constantly to re-edit these entries to represent credible support as well as criticism, only for moderators to edit back. Why the need for such disproportional criticism?) Schmidt, Helmut. Paper "Collapse of the state vector and psychokinetic effect." Foundations of Physics 12.6 (1982): 565-581.  The Society for Scientific Exploration Dean Radin at IONS Radin, Dean, et al. paper "Psychophysical interactions with a double-slit interference pattern: Exploratory evidence of a causal influence." Physics Essays 34.1 (2021): 79-88. Robert Jahn, Dean of Engineering at Princeton and founder of PEAR Labs Princeton Robert Jahn, Brenda Dunne paper, ”On the quantum mechanics of consciousness, with application to anomalous phenomena." Foundations of Physics 16.8 (1986): 721-772. Roger Nelson, Director of PEAR Labs Princeton Bernie Haisch’s and Garret Moddel’s Zero point energy patent Garret Moddel et al, paper on Zero-point research

In episode #11 we explore the way emotions work, and particularly fear - the way it’s triggered, what happens in the brain and how much we are conscious of what’s going on. I think this is really relevant as we appear to be an extremely fearful, defensive and argumentative society in general, and perhaps if we understood what was happening inside us we might be able to limit some of the damage these kind of encounters produce. We also look at the the Limbic System and Triune Brain theories of emotions and the evolution of the brain, and find out why these hugely popular theories in Psychology are no longer really considered true by neuroscientists. Perhaps we can salvage something useful from these theories for psychology, as some really effective therapies have been based on them in the past. So who better to help us clarify all this than emotion and fear specialist, neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux. Dr Le Doux is the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science at NYU in New York in the Center for Neural Science, and he directs the Emotional Brain Institute of NYU and the Nathan Kline Institute. He is also a Professor of Psychiatry and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical School. His work is focused on the brain mechanisms of memory and emotion and he is the author of The Emotional Brain, Synaptic Self, and Anxious and his most recent book that we’ll be talking mostly about today “Deep History of Ourselves and the evolution of consciousness”. He has received loads of awards, including prizes from the Association for Psychological Science, the American Philosophical Society, the IPSEN Foundation and the American Psychological Association. His book Anxious received the 2016 William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association. Awesomely, he is also the lead singer and songwriter in the rock band, The Amygdaloids and performs with Colin Dempsey as the acoustic duo So We Are. Jo’s new book “The Deep History of Ourselves: the 4 billion year sorry of how we got conscious brains”  What we discuss in this episode: PART 1 05:16 Jo joined Mike Gazzaniga’s lab in the late 60’s 07:00 The neuroscience of being afraid and under threat 09:00 Left Brain Interpreter: Consciousness is a narration making sense of our behaviour (See Episode #3) 16:45 The Amygdala: Raised heart rate and sweaty palms are not the emotion of fear 33:00 A criticism of Paul MacLean’s Limbic system and Triune Brain theories 40:00 The Amygdala is misunderstood when associated with fear rather than threat stimuli processing 45:45 We should keep mental state terms and behaviour terms separate 47:00 Threat hormones like cortisol can affect rational thinking in the frontal cortex PART 2: 52:00 The conscious experience of anxiety and fear is often where the problem lies, not the physiological mechanisms the medication is treating 59:30 3 types of noetic consciousness: breaking it down to try and learn more 1:14:00 Contrary to darwinism, cognition came before emotions 1:15:30 Reconciling the disconnect between experiences and brain activity 1:24:00 W.H.Auden "The age of anxiety" poem 1:27:00 Focussing on improving how we feel over how we behave References: Leon Festinger’s theory of Cognitive Dissonance  Endel Tulving - 3 types of noetic consciousness Steve Flemming UCL - subjective self awareness in the frontal pole area