Four Simple Questions
A series of dialogues between scientists studying consciousness and those that might be called ‘1st person scientists’. People who have gone so deeply and objectively into the subjective experience of consciousness that they are liberated from the illusion of separation.
In this our first episode Prof Karl Friston FRS, FMedSci, FRSB, Science Director of the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging at University College London meets Lisa Cairns , a non-duality teacher.
Their conversation ranges across awakening experiences, dyslexia, autism, hallucinogens, free energy principle, big and little consciousness, the mathematics of the unknowable, sense making, belief updating, alternative hypothesis, expansion of knowledge, scale free principles, cancer delusion, buddhist romantic notions, the beauty of symmetry, the hard problem and the meta-problem of mind, the nature of experiencing, Artificial Intelligence, the ratio club, consciousness as an illusion.
Prof Paul Gilbert of Derby University, author of The Compassionate Mind and Compassion Focused Therapy takes the 4sq challenge with non duality teacher, Kelly Spencer. Their christmas conversation ranges over topics such as identities, values, suffering, compassion, experience vs belief, psilocybin, slow dissolving of the self, what it means to be of service and lots more.
Biologist and Christian Rupert Sheldrake has been making the case for the spiritual dimension of science his whole career. With non-duality speaker Ragi Kadirgamar they explore themes of consciousness; Jesus, God , the Godhead and beyond; the peace beyond intellectual understanding; science and nature; understanding beyond words; Newton and Leibniz; the Big Bang; the memory within nature; St. Augustin; the self; divine presence and sat chit ananda; the dropping away of psychological and emotional suffering; lila as brahman playing hide and seek; Hindu and Christian cosmology; Father Bede; Kali Yuga; the paradox; Ramana Maharshi; divine desire; Happiness Index; the grip of mechanistic materialism; gratitude as a spiritual practice.
Professor Susan Blackmore, Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth and author of several books on Consciousness, Parapsychology and Memes meets non-duality teacher Jim Newman. This playful, feisty dialogue explores the value of suffering; spirituality; retreats; the illusion of a self; nothing happening here; false reality; ridding oneself of spirituality; seeking; that which can't be known; form and emptiness; intellectual understanding; suffering is seeking; separating the two kinds of seeking; favourite colour; is 'what is it like to be you?' a meaningful question; Nagel's famous paper; Chalmers' hard problem; how does the brain construct this illusion?and more…
Max Velmans, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London meets Catherine Noyce. In their dialogue they broach topics such as - Emptiness and fullness; trying to belong to a ground of being; the feeling of being disconnected and alienated; making eye contact; loneliness; ego; on being seen; what is being me?; psychological health; childhood,; boundarylessness; we are electric; from a physics perspectives; the fundamental stuff of things; how can we be separate?; iceberg metaphor; experience is rubbish; how reality is fashioned from the senses; the scientific enterprise doesn’t explain how we experience it all; mind blowing emptiness of this moment; entanglement; talking a different language; the Jimmy Hendrix of psychology; and more...
Neuroscientist and Stage Director Anjali Bhat and Richard Lang of The Headless Way take the Four Simple Questions challenge.
Their dialogue explores the headless way; Douglas Harding; the outside and inside; the inside as space for everything; the easy answer and the hard answer; inferring the essence of me; views out overlap; psychotherapy; Carl Rogers; nothing at the centre; defining psychosis; empathy; who you are for society and how you are for yourself; what if I were blind?; theory of mind and theory of no mind; ownership, agency and control; where does my responsibility stop?