The Mystery and Importance of Consciousness
The Mystery and Importance of Consciousness
So what is this mysterious thing called consciousness and why should it be important to you and me?
“What if consciousness is the ground of being? What if the possibilities discovered by quantum physics are the possibilities of consciousness itself? Remember there is already a class of people who think in this way. They are called mystics, and they say it is all God. Finally, a few scientists dared to say that some of the characteristics attributed to God are similar to what we describe as consciousness.” — Theoretical Quantum Physicist, Amit Goswami Read Dr. Goswami’s full article here.
Does our relationship with consciousness give us the answers to the age-old questions of, who am I and why am I here? Watch the following interview with Georgia Lambert.
Does Transforming Your Consciousness Matter?
Dr. Robert Lanza, whom the New York Times calls one of the 3 most important scientists alive today, proposes that the “long-sought Theory of Everything is merely missing a component that was too close for us to have noticed. …most of the comprehensive theories fail to take into account one crucial factor: We are creating them. It is the biological creature that fashions the stories, that makes the observations, and that gives names to things. And therein lies the great expanse of our oversight, that science has not confronted the one thing that is at once most familiar and most mysterious — consciousness.”
Consciousness holds the answer to the riddle of life and the universe.
“Dr. Robert Lanza’s insights into the nature of consciousness [are] original and exciting. His theory of biocentrism is consistent with the most ancient traditions of the world which say that consciousness conceives, governs, and becomes a physical world. It is the ground of our Being in which both subjective and objective reality come into existence.” —Dr. Deepak Chopra
Robert Lanza, MD “is one of the most respected scientists in the world—a U.S. News & World Report cover story called him a “genius” and “renegade thinker,” even likening him to Einstein. Lanza was recognized by Time magazine in 2014 on its list of the “100 Most Influential People in the World.”
If you want to learn more about consciousness, Lanza’s book, Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Key to Understanding the Nature of the Universe, is a must read. You might also find his website of interest.
Does the possibility that consciousness is the ground of being point to a purpose and meaning to our existence?
Theoretical Quantum Physicist, Dr. Goswami, says: “As human beings, we know spirituality and the creativity that produces great art, but have these things changed us at the most basic level? No. We remain violent, angry, and fearful. There is something important that we are not understanding. Yet, I propose that if we understand that the ground of our being is actually consciousness, this new way of looking at ourselves will bring us more purpose and meaning. Especially – and this was the big issue for me – because it is actually scientific and can be verified in the laboratory. As a result, I believe that this quantum spirituality is the breakthrough phenomenon of our age.
Watch Dr. Maryann Miller’s interview with Dr. Amit Goswami.
We Create Our Own Reality, But . . .
“It was in the nineteen seventies that the physicist Fred Alan Wolf created the evocative phrase “we create our own reality.” The images the phrase evoked, however, led to many disappointments. Some people tried to manifest personal automobiles, others vegetable gardens in desert environments, and still others at least a parking space for their cars in busy downtown areas. Everybody was inspired by the theory of quantum creation, no doubt, but the results of their efforts were a mixed bag because they were unaware of some subtleties.
We create our own reality, but there is a subtlety in consciousness. We do not create reality in our ordinary state of consciousness but in a non-ordinary state of consciousness. This becomes clear when you ponder the paradox of Eugene Wigner. Wigner was the Nobel laureate physicist who first thought of the paradox.
Imagine that Wigner is approaching a quantum traffic light with two possibilities, red and green; at the same time, his friend is approaching the same light from the perpendicular road. Being busy Americans, they both choose green. Unfortunately, their choices are contradictory; if both choices materialize at the same time, there would be pandemonium. Obviously, only one of their choices counts, but whose?
After many decades, three physicists at different places and times (Ludwig Bass in Australia, myself at Oregon, and Casey Blood at Rutgers, New Jersey), independently discovered the solution of the paradox: consciousness is one, nonlocal and cosmic, behind the two people’s local individuality. They both choose but from this nonordinary state of one consciousness (which I call the quantum self) where there is no local individuality or selfishness so contradiction can be avoided. This allows the common sense result that in many such crossings, Wigner and his friend each would get green fifty percent of the time; yet for any individual crossing, a creative opportunity for getting green is left open for each.
A key point is that quantum downward causation of choice is discontinuously exerted (if it were continuous, a mathematical model could be constructed for it and the choice would be predictable and not free), but our ordinary state of consciousness smooths out the discontinuity. To be aware that we choose is to wake up to the non-ordinary oneness taking a discontinuous leap, call it a quantum leap. In this way, the dictum of the new physics: I choose, therefore I am (my cosmic quantum self).” ~Dr. Amit Goswami
A New Paradigm of Reality Gives Back Our Free Will
So the new paradigm of reality based on the rediscovery of consciousness within science is not only giving us back our free will, but also is identifying the source of that free will as the spirit within us, the oneness that spiritual and healing traditions have always propounded. The new paradigm is showing us great promise for integrating science and spirit. It is also promising a breakthrough integral approach to medicine that integrates conventional and alternative medicine.”
Deepak Chopra M.D. says “Each level of consciousness creates its own perceptions, its own biology, cognitive abilities, creative abilities, emotional states and relationships. The body is but a field of molecules, our mind is a field of ideas.”
A free film on the connection between consciousness and reality. “The Fetzer Memorial Trust presents for FREE the feature documentary “Infinite Potential: The Life and Ideas of David Bohm“. The film tells the story of the man Einstein called his “spiritual son” and the Dalai Lama his “science guru.” A brilliant physicist and explorer of consciousness, Bohm’s profound insights into the underlying nature of reality and the profound interconnectedness of the universe and our place within it are truly far-reaching. Bohm proposed a theory unifying relativity and quantum mechanics, two seemingly-opposed explanations of observable phenomena. Why was this revolutionary thinker shunned by mainstream scientists of his day?
