Peter Russell - The Primacy of Conciousness (video)

person

Just came across this lecture. Peter Russell explains pretty much everything I've been trying to say about Mind and experience in a much clearer and more thorough way than I have. So if you've agreed with what I've said, disagreed or just don't know what the heck I'm talking about I recommend watching this video. At the end he makes a more Hindu mystical conclusion but otherwise I agree with pretty much everything he says.

He also touches on the current scientific paradigm and how certain quantum phenomena and the nature of light cause problems for it and how the primacy of conciousness may help explain them.

Dakini

Thank you for this, and thanks for bringing us these science vids in general. :clap:

hm..interesting. He seems to be saying jellyfish aren't sentient beings. They don't have a brain. How do we define "sentience"? Jains define plants a sentient. Buddhists don't. What is sentience?

person

Thank you for this, and thanks for bringing us these science vids in general. :clap:

hm..interesting. He seems to be saying jellyfish aren't sentient beings. They don't have a brain. How do we define "sentience"? Jains define plants a sentient. Buddhists don't. What is sentience?

He talks about everything, even dead matter as having a type of proto conciousness. I didn't think he said they weren't sentient. He made the comparison of how you would feel if you unplugged a computer and if you threw a jellyfish on a fire.

He talks about Mind as being like the light in a projector and the brain of creatures as like the film. So the more complex the brain the more detailed the experience. Not that jellyfish or even bacteria don't have experience but that it wouldn't be very complex.

Dakini

The implication I got was that they weren't sentient. I thought it raised an interesting question. I haven't watched the whole video yet, though. Looking fwd to it.

person

The implication I got was that they weren't sentient. I thought it raised an interesting question. I haven't watched the whole video yet, though. Looking fwd to it.

He did say that scientists today don't really view jellyfish as sentient because they don't have a nervous system (jellyfish not scientists ), but I think he pointed that out to say that it may not necessarily be true.

Dakini

I'm contemplating a "sentience" OP. I'll watch the whole video first, though.

person

I'm contemplating a "sentience" OP. I'll watch the whole video first, though.

What Buddhism defines as a sentient being isn't really clear to me and the video doesn't really help in that matter.

Dakini

What Buddhism defines as a sentient being isn't really clear to me and the video doesn't really help in that matter.

All the better for endless debate, then. I vaguely recall that on an old thread it was decided that consciousness or mind needed to be present. (Plants were declared not sentient due to the absence of brain/mind.) But the vid seems to say that consciousness isn't dependent on mind. I'll check it out later this evening.

Telly03

Thanks person, I really enjoyed that... I had to pause a few time to digest his train of thought, but it all contributed and led nicely to the point of who, or what, we are.

person

Since this didn't get much of a response (maybe be too long and visually boring) I'll try to sum up the essential points.

He uses an analogy for the (clear light nature of )Mind and the brain that I found really helpful. Think of them like a film projector, the brain is like the film and the Mind being like the light that shines through the film to produce experience onto the movie screen.

Raw experience is so ordinary and all pervasive that we don't even realize its anything peculiar. This though is the real magic of our existence. We aren't simply meat robots running around unconcious of what is happening. Why do we have any experience at all if the brain can simply manage everything on its own, the workings of our bodies and brain are luminated by the Mind so that we have raw experience of it.

When we hear teachers talk about realization as being ordinary or no big deal this is what they are referring to, the Mind isn't anywhere other than this ordinary experience we have right in front of us. Its there when we go to the bathroom, when we eat our dinner, when we have sex, or when we burn our hand on the stove. But it doesn't mean by taking a dump we have achieved enlightenment, merely understanding this concept doesn't do anything more than point the way. We have to actually sit down and watch ourselves until we see what's really going on.

Dakini

I didn't find it boring at all. What I got out of it was the idea of consciousness pervading everything, being part of the stuff of the universe, and the brain being a receiver for universal consciousness. We've had videos discussing that before, but this one goes into more detail, and the expertise of the speaker is undeniable.

Of course there's a lot more in it than what I just said. It's worth watching again and again.

person

@Dakini, thanks for the comment.

Also I'm sure there are those who will feel that experience arises solely from the brain. Since this is really a scientifically unresolved issue, thats ok with me lets just at least understand the question of what is raw experience?

Dakini

lets just at least understand the question of what is raw experience?

Right, I have to watch it again to get out of it what you did. It's over an hour long, there's a lot in there to process.

person

lets just at least understand the question of what is raw experience?

Right, I have to watch it again to get out of it what you did. It's over an hour long, there's a lot in there to process.

Thanks for replying, it helps me to get my meaning across better.

What I got out of it wasn't just out of the video. The video was more a clearer representation of 16 years of Buddhist study and meditation as well as other scientific and philosophical inquiry.

The part I really like from the talk was the film projector analogy. In the past the best analogy I heard was like the brain being like a radio reciever for the mind. That doesn't really seem to jive with the Buddhist notion of the brain and the mind supporting each other or recent neuroscience showing how the brain makes decisions before we're even aware of them.

Dakini

In the past the best analogy I heard was like the brain being like a radio reciever for the mind. That doesn't really seem to jive with the Buddhist notion of the brain and the mind supporting each other or recent neuroscience showing how the brain makes decisions before we're even aware of them.

Oh... :scratch: I've always liked the radio receiver analogy. How is the film projector analogy different?
"The brain makes decisions before we're aware of them." hm...gotta chew on that awhile. The brain subconsciously is always taking in stimuli, sorting them out, deciding which ones are most important, then feeding the important ones to the conscious mind. It may even make decisions (about safety vs. danger, for example) subconsciously, "before we're even aware". .... So? How does this tie into film projector vs. radio broadcaster? This is getting complex. And you're probably way ahead of me with your meditation practice, and insights derived from it. _/\_

person

In the radio reciever analogy (at least the way I concieve it) the mind does the thinking, feeling, perceiving like all the info is already in the radio waves and the brain simply picks it up so we can hear it.

In the projector analogy all the info is in the film/brain and that is what does the thinking, feeling, etc. The light then illuminates that so we have experience. If it didn't the film would still run but we'd have no movie (experience).

The latter seems to fit better with Buddhist doctrine and modern neuroscience.

twobitbob

Interesting talk. Seems to deny the existence of karma very near the end when talking about cause and effect.

person

Interesting talk. Seems to deny the existence of karma very near the end when talking about cause and effect.

Yeah, the mystical conclusions he reaches I didn't agree with. These are subtle states of mind that contemplatives have spent many years investigating, he's only using intellectual reasoning so there are likely errors in what he says too.

DaltheJigsaw

Thank you for this!

person

In the past the best analogy I heard was like the brain being like a radio reciever for the mind. That doesn't really seem to jive with the Buddhist notion of the brain and the mind supporting each other or recent neuroscience showing how the brain makes decisions before we're even aware of them.

Oh... :scratch: I've always liked the radio receiver analogy. How is the film projector analogy different?
"The brain makes decisions before we're aware of them." hm...gotta chew on that awhile. The brain subconsciously is always taking in stimuli, sorting them out, deciding which ones are most important, then feeding the important ones to the conscious mind. It may even make decisions (about safety vs. danger, for example) subconsciously, "before we're even aware". .... So? How does this tie into film projector vs. radio broadcaster? This is getting complex. And you're probably way ahead of me with your meditation practice, and insights derived from it. _/\_

I think a clearer way to say what I did earlier is that in the radio analogy the information is in the Mind/radio waves, and in the projector analogy the information is in the brain/film.

misecmisc1

@person: Thanks for sharing this link. Watched it. brilliant presentation :clap:

Dakini

I think a clearer way to say what I did earlier is that in the radio analogy the information is in the Mind/radio waves, and in the projector analogy the information is in the brain/film.

Well...if the info is in the brain (=film), how did it get there? If not via waves of some sort? Or did it get there sort of from the ether, from the universal consciousness field, of which the mind field is a part?

Ya gotta help me here, this is important.

person

I think a clearer way to say what I did earlier is that in the radio analogy the information is in the Mind/radio waves, and in the projector analogy the information is in the brain/film.

Well...if the info is in the brain (=film), how did it get there? If not via waves of some sort? Or did it get there sort of from the ether, from the universal consciousness field, of which the mind field is a part?

Ya gotta help me here, this is important.

That is what the brain does, it receives sensory data and processes it to make sense out of it. So it didn't get there from anywhere, thats just how the brain works. The mind in this analogy is what makes us aware of this happening, otherwise it would just happen in the dark and we wouldn't be conscious of it.

IMO, the brain can also recieve this awarness as information and use it in its processing. My guess is this is how we have some level of free will.

Dakini

Where I'm at is that the radio analogy makes more sense to me, because consciousness beams into the brain as radio waves. I still don't see how the film analogy is supposed to work. Sensory data from the 5 senses get to the brain from the outside world via sensory receptors, so it does get there from somewhere, we can explain these things. I'm not seeing the explanation of the mechanism for the film analogy, though.

person

The end result of the projector is the experience of a movie. What I think is missing in understanding what I'm trying to say is the fact that we are aware, that there is some way that it feels like to be us. This is so ordinary and all encompassing in our lives that we all miss it, like a fish in water.

So the film analogy isn't talking about how information gets into our brain but once into our brains why we have experience of that at all. Why aren't we just meat robots going about our lives, the brain making decisions for us. All of this doesn't happen in the dark, the Mind of the light bulb lights up our world and lets us see what is going on.

Lookingformyway

Found this very interesting. thank you for posting.