A groundbreaking DVD series featuring Rupert Sheldrake, Deepak Chopra, David Chalmers, Susan Blackmore, Stuart Hameroff, Marilyn Schlitz, Robert J. Sawyer and many more.
CONSCIOUSNESS: THE GREATEST MYSTERY!
As you read this, just allow yourself to focus some attention to your own awareness, regardless of any thoughts, memories, associations or sensations that are also arising.
You may find yourself noticing something that has always been there, that deeply experienced something that is uniquely you. You might call it the life within you. Your being. Your existence.
You have consciousness. Or perhaps more precisely, you are consciousness.
But what is it? What is this phenomenon we call consciousness?
Does it emerge from our brain, a vastly complex arrangement of billions of neurons and trillions of synapses, our mind somehow emerging from the pinkish grey lump of matter inside our skull?
Or perhaps consciousness is a field of potential embedded at the fundamental level of the universe, with our brain acting as a kind of sophisticated quantum receiver...
So how do we begin to explore our own experience of being?
What can we learn by studying altered states of consciousness such as meditation, dreams, hypnosis, or psychedelic experiences?
Where does our creativity come from?
How do we transform or "raise" our consciousness?
Is a body essential for consciousness or could highly complex computers eventually become self-aware?
What happens to our consciousness at the end of life? Do we ever really "die"?
Are we seeing a convergence taking place between the unified theory of quantum physics and the Eastern metaphysical sciences such as Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism?
What, then, is reality?
In this groundbreaking series, award-winning filmmaker Nick Day goes in search of answers to these compelling questions.
HOW DO WE STUDY CONSCIOUSNESS? David Chalmers, Philosopher, author
Susan Blackmore, Psychologist, author
TIME AND SPACE
Rupert Sheldrake, Biologist, author
Dick Bierman, Physicist
John Jacobson, Philosopher
Harald Atmanspacher, Physicist
ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS Marilyn Schlitz, Psychologist, Director IONS
Zoran Josipovic, Neuroscientist
Frank Echenhofer, Psychologist, ayahuasca researcher
Thomas Ray, Zoologist
QUANTUM PHYSICS AND CONSCIOUSNESS
Stuart Hameroff, Anaesthesiologist, consciousness theorist
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE SINGULARITY David Chalmers, Philosopher, author
Anirban Bandyopadhay, Nanotechnology pioneer
Harmut Neven, Neurobiologist
Ben Goertzel, Artificial Intelligence pioneer
CONSCIOUSNESS AND CREATIVITY
Robert J. Sawyer, Sci-fi author
Robert Pepperell, Professor of fine art
James Kerwin, Film and theatre director
SEX AND CONSCIOUSNESS Jenny Wade, Psychologist
Torsten Passie, Professor of consciousness studies
Kleopatra Ormos, Psychiatrist
Barry Komarisuk, Neuroscientist
EMBODIMENT Henrik Ehrrson, Neuroscientist
Frédérique de Vignemont, Philosopher
TRANSFORMATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS Cassandra Vieten, IONS director of research
Tza Choeje Rinpoche, Tibetan Buddhist teacher
SYNESTHESIA Maureen Seaberg, Journalist, author
Berit Brogaard, Neuroscientist
Jason Padgett, Synesthete and savant
CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE END OF LIFE Pim van Lommel, Cardiologist, author
Rudolph Tanzi, Neuroscientist, Alzheimer's researcher
Peter Fenwick, Neuropsychiatrist, author
WE THANK ALL OUR PARTICIPANTS FOR SHARING THEIR KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCE AND INSIGHTS.
ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS! by Fred Davis "Director Nick Day has caught some of the finest, most thoughtful minds on the planet on camera and asked them to talk about their work. From physicist to psychologist, from physician to philosopher, every guest trots up to the plate and casually hits a home run. This is the best of science and science fiction, sex and death, creative intelligence and artificial intelligence. This is psychedelics and chemistry; screen writing and spirituality; medicine and meditation; neurology and nanotechnology. The breadth and depth of these interviews is astounding -- and thoroughly entertaining."
The phenomenon of consciousness is fundamental to our existence, yet it remains the most profound mystery we can imagine.
Down through the ages, generations of scientists, philosophers, mystics and poets have gone in search for a deeper understanding of consciousness and the true nature of reality, whether through scientific research, reasoning or introspection.
Western biologists and neuroscientists have studied brains down to the atomic level, but so far an enduring theory of consciousness that combines the physical with the phenomenological remains tantalizingly elusive. Philosopher David Chalmers has called this the "hard problem" of consciousness.
The ancient Eastern contemplative traditions utilized the mind itself as an instrument of exploration, perfecting methods such as meditation to reveal what has been called our true inner nature.
Some theorists even speculate that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, that consciousness may be all there is, and the mind/matter divide is an illusion - albeit a compelling one - something that Einstein alluded to.
It may be that we will never fully comprehend what consciousness is beyond our subjective experience of it. But the quest to know itself remains irresistible to the inquiring human mind!
