Chasing Consciousness

Where is nature’s memory of its evolution encoded? Is there evidence for extended mind occurring beyond individual brains? How possible is it that the sun is conscious? In this episode we’re going to get up to date on Rupert Sheldrake’s extraordinary theory of Morphic resonance: so Morphic fields, the unfolding of nature’s ‘habits’ and the ‘memory of nature’. We’ll examine the possibility of levels of consciousness larger than our own brains - scaling up in a hierarchy from cellular consciousness right up to planetary and perhaps even stellar consciousness! We’re also going to get into examples of consciousness beyond the brain like ‘the sensation of being stared at’ (clearly a useful skill to evolve) and other phenomena Rupert has reported in his experiments.  Rupert Sheldrake is a Cambridge PHD developmental Biologist whose published over 100 papers on topics as wide as Cellular Biology, telepathy, Pets who know when their owners are coming home, and after-death communications. He is also the author of many books like “A new science of life”, “Science set free”, and “Ways of going Beyond”, among many others. What were discuss: 00:00 Intro. 06:10 Morphic resonance explained. 08:15 Polar Auxin - death in the midst of life. 09:15 Genes make proteins, morphogenetic fields determine form. 11:30 Nature’s “memory” spread across time. 13:25 Something that has happened before is more likely to happen again. 14:15 Collective memory, like Jung’s collective unconscious. 17:15 His scientific education engrained materialism and atheism in him.. 18:15 Asian philosophy, psychedelics, Neo-platonism and Christianity. 20:30 Questioning of scientific dogma came before his faith. 22:00 Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm change, an analogy for him breaking with science. 23:50 Rupert’s work denounced as ‘Heresy’ by the editor of Nature in 1981.  26:30 Measuring Morphic fields in experiments. 28:30 IQ tests have got easier for people over time, The Flynn Effect 30:00 Video games have to make new versions harder each time.  32:10 Is subtle energy field research beyond science? 37:00 Bioelectric morphogenetic fields & Michael Levin.  41:20 Bioelectric fields are the interface not the explanation. 42:30 Where are morphic fields recorded in nature? 44:50 Platonism doesn’t explain evolution and change over time. 47:00 Different levels of collective consciousness, up to planetary, stellar and even cosmic consciousness. 56:40 The feeling of being stared at: examples of extended mind. 01:02:55 Mystical experience - being part of a greater consciousness. 01:09:40 Are spiritual & scientific insight compatible? References: Rupert Sheldrake, “A New Science of life”. Michael Levin - Bio-electric morphogenetic fields CC interview The Sheldrake.org Staring App. Polar Auxin  QUOTE: “Morphic resonance leaps across time and space, It’s not stored anywhere it’s a direct connection with the past.”

Why is our subjective experiences and cultural context inseparable from our scientific theories and attempts to be objective? Why is it that the more we know, the more we know we don’t know? What does reductionist materialism miss out from the scientific picture and what does a post-reductionist science look like? How can understanding some of materialism’s incompleteness help us face humanity's greatest problems? In this episode we have the blind spots of enlightenment science to assess; we’re going to be investigating the common belief that science can provide a universal, objective, God-like perspective of the truth of things, independent from our human experience. We’re also going to look at the implications of the consensus in science that all phenomena can be reduced to solely material causes, and what that may be missing out. To assess this we’re going to be looking at data from cosmology, biology, cognitive science and quantum physics and thinking about the assumptions that are so baked in to our western scientific approaches, that we may have forgotten they’re assumptions at all.  In order to do this we’re going to be speaking to Brazilian professor of theoretical physics at Dartmouth College, Marcelo Gleiser. Marcelo works on a range of topics from Cosmology and information theory, to the history and philosophy of science, and how science and culture interact. He’s also the author of many popular science books including most recently, “the Dawn of Mindful Universe: A manifesto for humanities future” and his new 2024 book which we’ll be focusing on today, “The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience”, Co-authored with astronomer Adam Frank and philosopher Evan Thompson, who will be not he show in the next series. Gleiser’s also the first South American recipient of the prestigious Templeton Science prize for his standpoint that science, philosophy and spirituality are complementary expressions of humanities deep need to explore the unknown. I have wanted to speak to Marcelo about the limits of science and a post-reductionist approach to science since he was recommended by my previous guest psychiatrist and brain-hemisphere researcher Dr. Iain McGilchrist in the series one episode “Navigating beyond Materialism”, and I’m extremely glad I followed him up on it. What we discuss: 00:00 Intro 06:14 Asymmetry is also beautiful.  11:40 The more you know, the more you know you don’t know. 18:00 ‘Interbeing’ - buddhism and the philosophy of science. 22:00 Bacteria are our ancestors. 23:00 Sacred ancestral knowledge - belonging & gratitude for nature. 30:00 Extremely unlikely chemical steps and extinction events required for life to develop. 35:00 The chances of intelligent technological life on other planets. 37:00 Fine-tuned for life VS the anthropic principle. 50:30 Post-enlightenment sacredness. 52:00 The rise of reductionism.  01:03:30 Newton was troubled by his theory. 01:08:37 Strongly and weakly emergent phenomena. 01:12:00 Downward or upward causation? Dualism or monism? 01:17:50 Scientific concepts are stories, and stories are simplifications too. 01:21:20 “The Blind Spot: Why science cannot ignore human experience”. 01:26:31 “Sureptitious substitution” of concepts for experiences. 01:28:45 Is consciousness fundamental? 01:42:45 Blindspots in the hard sciences - jumps that are too big. 01:53:30 Marcelo’’s new “The Island of Knowledge’ centre in Tuscany. Quote: “Gravity must be caused by an agent, acting constantly according to certain laws; but whether this agent be material or immaterial, I have left to the consideration of my readers.” — Sir Isaac Newton (Third letter to Bentley, 25 Feb 1693) References: Marcelo Gleiser, “The Blind Spot: How science must take include human experience”. Marcelo Glesier, “The Dawn of a Mindful Universe” Aristarchus of Samos - The greek Copernicus ‘The Island of Knowledge’ Centre in Tuscany, Italy

Why are we seeing such a rise in youth mental health diagnosis? How do we relativise this against the rise in mental health awareness? What’s the best approach for parents seeking solutions? How can social-connection and loneliness completely change trauma integration? What role does the recent explosion of persuasive technologies in young peoples lives play in the changing situation? In this episode we have the important topic of Youth Mental Health to get ourselves up to date on. Today we’re going to try and unravel these often divisary issues in a balanced way; we’re going to be discussing the importance of threat and safety to a child’s state of mind as they develop; the power of the parent or carer’s own unresolved issues to transmit to young people, creating symptoms in the child; the importance of going to the root of the problem rather than just treating symptoms; the role of escapism as an emotional avoidance strategy, and how digital platforms and device providers have taken advantage of that tendency, and the parenting strategies to guide this; and we’re going to discuss the role of shame in us avoiding facing these issues. Fortunately, considering the nuanced and potentially triggering topic of the mental well being of the children we parent and teach, today’s guest has just released the paper back version of his new book on exactly this topic, “How the world is making our children mad and what to do about it”. As a hugely experienced child psychotherapist and founder of the charity “Apart of Me” that supports children to transform their loss into compassion, he is perfectly placed to give us un update on this, and is filled with excellent stories and advice to help us face it. He is of course Louis Weinstock, a transpersonal psychotherapist and mindfulness specialist, who has worked with a wide range of sufferers from the criminal justice system, to drug addicts, to homeless people, to troubled teens and their parents. What we discuss: 00:00 Intro. 09:00 Our mental life is inseparable from our environment. 11:45 ‘Fetal programming’ is applied in utero by the mother’s environment. 14:10 Improvements in kid’s mental health, simply from parents doing the work. 18:45 Children having behaviour issues at the same age as their parent’s had trauma. 21:20 The evolutionary history of shame. 25:40 The difference between shame and guilt. 28:00 Rupture & repair: conflict in relationships is bearable and repairable. 29:25 Is psychotherapy worth it for kids, considering the stigma? 34:15 Mental health awareness can exaggerate our negative view of ourselves. 38:30 Massive jump in recent stats on youth mental health. 41:00 ‘Roots’ of mental health issues and ‘fruits’ we can learn from them. 45:20 Suffering and transformation: post-traumatic growth. 49:50 Escaping into virtual realities: Dissociation. 53:00 The ‘freeze’ response - shutting the body down. 01:00:40 Resilience explained - fragile vs anti fragile. 01:04:00 The connection between loneliness and trauma. 01:05:25 Youth mental health and device/internet addiction. 01:07:25 ‘Variable reward’ strategy taken from gambling slot machines. 01:12:30 Clear differences in kid’s moods and sleep after too long on devices. 01:14:20 Parenting solutions to regulating screen time peacefully. 01:16:40 No devices in the bedroom, particularly in the evenings before bed. 01:20:30 Awareness: they’re capable of reflecting on their behaviour. 01:24:20 Unsupervised play outside and in nature. 01:25:40 The world is safer rather than less safe than in the past. References: Louis Weinstock, “How the world is driving our kids mad” https://louisweinstock.com/ Apart of Me mental health charity (please donate) Jonathan Haidt - “The Anxious Generation” Let Grow movement for childhood independence

How and why did human’s develop self-awareness of what we know and don’t know? How does it develop in relation to how we evaluate what other people know? What are the risks of cognitive bias tainting our ability to learn and self correct? In this episode, we have the interesting question of our own self-awareness, or Meta-cognition, to understand. For centuries philosophers have called on us to “know thyself”, but only now with the tools of modern neuroscience have we been able to scientifically quantify the way we consciously track our behaviour, performance, thoughts and knowledge. So today we’ll be getting into why this is important for learning and error correction; we’re going to talk about meta-cognition’s use for “mind reading” I.e. tracking our confidence in others in their own knowledge, both friends and foes, fundamental for the evolution of our collaborative groups; the implications of cognitive bias blind spots in metacognition for updating our collective beliefs over time; also whether metacognition is proportionally correlated to intelligence; and how technology and AI has and will influence the future of our self-awareness, and whether it’s convenient to try programming AI to be metacognitive too, or if that would invite disaster. For these matters there can be no better guest than University College London Cognitive neuroscience Professor, Stephen Fleming. He’s the author of the 2021 book “Know Thyself, the science of self awareness”, and founder of the Meta Cognition Group at UCL, and the group leader of the Max Plank, UCL Centre for Computational Neuroscience. What we discuss: 00:00 Intro 05:15 Striking aspects of experience get you thinking. 08:00 ‘Know thyself’ - a moral, social and spiritual responsibility 10:00 Lao Tsu - to think you know when you do not is a disease. 11:00 Tracking the quality of our performance, error correction and learning. 14:00 Cognitive offloading - compensating for our limitations. 14:30 Metacognition and intelligence are similar but different. 17:40 Inside-out modelling of the world influences your cognition. 20:45 The brain has confidence in colour - Subjective inflation in the periphery. 22:00 UCL metacognition lab experiments - confidence in performance. 25:20 Metacogntiive efficiency - skill in evaluating your success. 26:20 MRI scans of the processes of self-aware brain activity. 28:50 Sam Harris - Self-awareness in the brain vs Ego-self. 33:20 Mind reading/Theory of mind: Evaluation of others VS evaluation of myself. 38:50 Children’s learning 43:40 Chris Frith - metacognition for collaboration: Balancing our own VS group evaluations. 44:30 Supremacy of collective knowledge 46:45 Why did self-awareness evolve? 51:30 The fight or flight mental state trumps self-reflective evaluation. 54:00 Stress blunts frontal cortex activity. 54:20 Modern life stress is not the same as the stress we evolved for. 57:20 We need self-reflection in stressful arguments but it’s not available. 58:20 Education: re-presenting your ideas - an antidote to over confidence. 01:04:00 Left Brain Interpreter - lack of self-awareness of our cognitive bias. 01:10:00 Exacerbated confidence judgements in internet/social media information ecosystems. 01:14:40 Awareness of the inside out way we construct our view of the world could be positive for compassion. 01:17:10 Balancing long-term societal self awareness, with traditional short term one. 01:21:00 The influence of Ai and technology on our self awareness. 01:26:30 ‘Offloading’ aids for cognition VS replacements for our cognition? References: Stephen Fleming, “Know thyself - the science of self-awareness” Steve Fleming’s Lab - The Meta Lab, UCL Gilbert Riles, “Concept of Mind” - self awareness in us and others Peter Carruthers - “Knowledge of our own thoughts is just as interpretive as knowledge of the thoughts of others” paper Chris D. Frith - ‘The role of metacognition in human social interactions’ paper

Is the brain structure found in many UFO experiencers and remote viewers related to intuition? Are anomalous isotope ratio alloys, allegedly fallen from UFO’s, evidence that can help important jumps in the research into energy and transportation technologies? How can this be both a physical and psychological phenomenon simultaneously? Is there a connection between the mind and this brain structure and the phenomena? In this episode, we take a stab at talking scientifically about the fascinating, empirically problematic and historically controversial UFO phenomenon; it’s particularly fascinating these days since the US director of National Intelligence confirmed in an official 2021 report that UAPs were in fact real and a ‘population of objects’. Many scientists and engineers are excited, because the study of UFO’s, regardless of their origin, could give us clues to clean energy and transportation technology that we so urgently need to combat our pollution footprint, and in fact several patents have been granted to explore such experimental physics if sadly for military purposes, but at least its a start. Apart from a short comment from Harvard Astronomer and director of The Galileo project, Avi Loeb in Episode #45; and a mythological evaluation from religious studies professor Diana Pasulka in episode #53; An idealism perspective from Bernardo Kastrup in episode #34, our guest today is the first on the show to speak in detail about the scientific study of this phenomena. This episode is the perfect deeper dive into this topic, as my guest is going to speak about two pieces of physical evidence which he has studied, so often absent in claims about this phenomenon; Firstly, MRI scans and blood samples of experiencers from the military and intelligence services who had alleged interactions with UFO’s; and secondly anomalous fragments of alloys recovered from alleged UFO encounter sites. Being a science podcast the data of physical evidence is always our first port of call, but as so often when discussing anomalous phenomena that don’t fit with our current world view, the interpretations of that data are various and contradictory. Today’s guest is the perfect person to present this data as he was contacted by US intelligence because he invented the equipment needed to analyse it; he’s not shy of the possible implications of the data, while equally in no hurry to jump to any conclusions till we have confirming proof. He is the cell biologist & Chair of the Department of Pathology and part of the cancer immunology department at Stanford University school of medicine, Dr. Garry P. Nolan. He’s published over 330 academic papers, holds 50 patents and has founded 8 bio-tech companies. What we discussed: 00:00 Intro. 10:00 Garry’s background in genetics and immunology. 18:30 Thomas Kuhn: ‘The structure of scientific revolutions’. 24:00 Imagination and problem solving. 32:00 The brains of 15 military experiencers. 34:00 Havana Syndrome. 37:00 They shared an until-now undiscovered structure in the brain. 38:30 ‘Intuition centre’ hypothesis - Basal Ganglia. 42:15 Family members also share this unlikely brain feature. 53:00 The Antenna hypothesis. 01:00:00 It’s physical AND psychological. 01:09:00 Spectrometry to analyse UFO molten metal sample alloys. 01:16:50 Patents to develop new technology and energy sources. References: “Stanford Professor Garry Nolan Is Analyzing Anomalous Materials From UFO Crashes” Vice Magazine Article, Dec ’21 Thomas Kuhn ,‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’.All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO)‘Subcortical Brain Morphometry Differences between Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Schizophrenia’ Paper Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais - US Navy “UFO” fusion energy patents Interview on T.O.E. podcast Forbes article

How can neuroscience help us personalise mental health diagnoses and treatments? How are mental heath stats changing and why? How effective are life style changes as a prevention? What other new treatments are proving promising and effective? In this episode we’re going to get an update on all the recent research from neuroscience that’s studying mental health, and not just the issues and the treatments being used to deal with them, but also the importance of the brain itself in the perception of our mental health, and the lifestyle choices that can preventatively ward off the issues before they arise; things like nutrition, sleep, exercise, and social contact. We’ll be looking at the big one: depression and its connection to inflammation, and a wide range of buzz therapies including psychedelic therapy and cold water immersion. Today’s guest has just written a book for the public on this topic “The Balanced Brain: The science of mental health”, and her lab at MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences in Cambridge bridges the gap between the nuts and bolts of cognitive neuroscience and the more mind base of clinical psychology. She is neuroscientist and author Camilla Nord. In 2022, she was named a Rising Star by the US Association for Psychological Science, and received the Young Investigator Award from the European Society for Affective and Cognitive Science.   Now it strikes me that if we can integrate new evidence from brain research into the clinical psychology field, we‘ve got a much better shot at treating ever rising numbers of mental health diagnoses and perhaps educating a good portion of the next generation enough to avoid these issues all together. It may be a pipe dream but we’ve got to try. What we discuss:  00:00 Intro 07:00 Our perception of pain. 11:00 Body changes lead to mental health changes. 12:00 Our ‘Inside-out’ perception is an active predictor of our mental health and the outside world. 16:00 The importance of narrative repetition to our self-perception. 18:00 Individualised data and solutions to mental health are impractical for our one-size-fits-all medical systems on a budget. 23:30 Nutritional Psychiatry - the connection between diet and mental health. 26:30 Gut-brain axis importance. 28:00 The risk of dieting affecting pleasure centres and thus motivation and mental health. 30:00 Inflammatory diet choices and lifestyle leading to depression. 33:30 Microbiome research: promise vs wishful thinking. 37:45 Social connection, nature connection and connection to meaning. 40:45 Some mental health symptoms can be useful and adaptive. 43:20 Sport and physical exercise to improve mental health. 46:00 Depression leads to a lack of drive to obtain pleasure - Anhedonia. 48:20 Sleep neuroscience. 53:30 Anger management and ‘hangriness’. 56:20 The Placebo effect is a useful part of a treatment’s effect. 58:00 Changing diagnosis rates in mental health. 01:02:00 Psychedelic therapy was unpopular before the last 10 years of study. 01:06:00 MDMA’s uses for PTSD, and modifying beliefs and expectations. 01:08:10 Connection between psychosis and cannabis. 01:09:20 Cannabis CBD Oil treatment of THC addiction. 01:11:15 Cold water immersion for euphoria and pain tolerance. 01:13:00 The changing nature of mental health. References: Camilla Nord, “The Balanced Brain, the Science of mental health”. Felicity Jacka, Nutritional psychiatry, Guardian Article Metabolic health influences learning paper. Clinical psychosis vs mediumship paper. Connection to symptoms changes mental health outcomes. Oliver J Robinson - Adaptive anxiety paper Wim Hof, Cold water Immersion method, list of science papers

Can time symmetry in physics, combined with exceptional violations of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, and the “quantum handshake” transactional interpretation of Quantum mechanics, open up main stream physics to the possibility of retro-causation? Could it help to explain the many paradoxes left open in modern physics? and is there experimental evidence for it? Today we have the extraordinary possibility of retro-causation to get our heads around: the apparently impossible phenomenon of events in the present causing changes in the past, or future events having an effect in the present depending on how you want to look at it. Today we’ll be approaching this topic via the context of time symmetry in physics. As far back as 1947, French quantum physicist Olivier Costa de Beauregard, began to question the usual interpretation of time in quantum mechanics, intuiting that something was missing from the model for the many paradoxes in Quantum Mechanics to remain unexplained. And then, with others get on board over the years, in the 80’s, John G Kramer, agreed that the missing ingredient was found in time symmetry and he proposed a ‘quantum handshake’ between the waves passing forward and backward in time at the moment of collapse; in this Transactional Interpretation of quantum mechanics, Kramer claimed he had solved the paradoxes. My guest today has put together this research, a re-interpretation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics based on violations where Entropy exceptionally does not hold, and theorisation about quantum correlates to consciousness to create a new theory of retro-causation, which he thinks can be tested. He is Daniel Sheehan, Author and Professor of Physics at the University of San Diego, specialist in plasma physics, violations of the 2nd Law thermodynamics and Retro-causation. He is the founder the Quantum Retro-causation symposia that met at The University of San Diego. What we discuss: 00:00 Intro. 09:00 Time dilation: the twin paradox. 12:20 Time symmetry: reversible time functions in physics equations. 13:20 Violations of the 2nd Law, the Entropic arrow of time. 18:20 Wheeler’s bizarre altered double slit experiment. 23:15 Wheeler’s ‘Participatory Universe’. 26:00 The history of retro-causation research. 29:15 Bergmann and Lebowitz ‘Two-State Vector Formalism’ theory 1964 31:00 Kramer’s “Quantum Handshake” Transactional interpretation of QM. 35:30 Sheehan’s theory of retro-causation. 36:45 The assumption of quantum processes acting in the brain. 39:00 Issues with quantum consciousness hypotheses. 42:00 Macroscopic quantum systems. 50:00 Precognitive retro-causation experiments: Graff & Cyrus  51:45 Triple blind experiments - blind ‘even to the universe’. 55:00 Is the subject finding out what actually happened important to the result? 57:00 Emotional charge in the future, influencing the past. 59:00 Are some events in the future already fixed? 01:01:30 Global Consciousness aggregate effects in physical systems. 01:02:30 Time symmetry allows the transmission into the past of important. 01:05:00 Wider science reception of such a paradigm shifting ideas as retro-causation. 01:05:00 Getting over our Second law biology habits. References: Vladislav Capek & Daniel P. Sheehan, “Challenges to The Second Law of Thermodynamics: Theory and Experiment”. Stephen Wolfram, “Computational Foundations for the Second Law of Thermodynamics” John Wheeler - Altered double double slit “Delayed Choice” experiment. Bergmann and Lebowitz ‘Two-State Vector Formalism’ theory 1964 John G. Kramer’s “Transactional interpretation” of Quantum Mechanics. Dale E Graff, Patricia S. Cyrus, ‘Perceiving the future news: Evidence for retrocausation’ Paper Global Consciousness project at Princeton, Roger Nelson. Quotes: “The question is more important than the answer”, author unknown. “Order is a state of mind, not a state of matter” On Entropy, Daniel Sheehan. 

How have we ended up in a meaning crisis and what are the symptoms? Why is embodiment important to knowing? Why is an ecology of practices part of the solution? Today we have the growing issue of The Meaning Crisis to discuss, and the embodied practices that could offer a few solutions. This conversation is a part 2, following directly on from Episode #51, where John and I talked about Collective intelligence, and how the evolution of distributed cognition has led to homo-sapiens being such effective collaborators. It was so fascinating that we didn’t have time to connect the sheer power of our collective intelligence, to today’s discussion about what John has dubbed The Meaning Crisis. We come back to the importance of our propensity for self-transcendence, and the correspondent risk of self-delusion; how important a sense of the sacred is to our sense of meaning in life, to our mental health; then we zoom in on the importance of a range of embodied practices that John calls an ecology of practices, like Chi Gong, circling, flow states and meditation to re-discover lost forms of knowledge and embodied cognition that John thinks can bring us back from the brink of self delusion and self destruction. There is of course only one polymath who can speak about so many things and connect them all, like a ninja of the mind as one listener called him, the Cognitive scientist and philosopher John Vervaeke. Vervaeke is the director of the university of Toronto’s Consciousness and Wisdom Studies Laboratory and its Cognitive Science program, where he teaches an Introduction to Cognitive Science and The Cognitive Science of Consciousness. Vervaeke has taught courses on Buddhism and Cognitive Science in the Buddhism, Psychology, and Mental Health programs for 15 years. He is also the author and presenter of his much loved YouTube series “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis” and ‘After Socrates.’ What we discuss: 00:00 Intro 06:15 Self-transcendence VS self-delusion. 07:45 The ‘frame’ problem, the need to ignore many things to attend to the ‘salient’ ones. 12:30 The history of meaning in the west. 17:00 The history of religion and philosophy: connectedness across generations. 20:00 Pre-agricultural sacred practices and rituals. 22:30 The upper palaeolithic transition - the artistic, technical, and symbolic. 24:30 The axial revolution - numeracy, literacy and democracy. 27:30 The ‘2 world’ mythology revolution - the natural and supernatural. 29:30 The scientific revolution - the collapse of the 2 world mythology. 31:20 The impossible promise of scientism. 38:00 The difference between wisdom and knowledge. 43:00 Participatory knowledge - graspable, shapable knowledge. 45:00 Gnosis - embodied knowledge. 49:30 The importance of the sacred to meaning. 54:00 Maladaptive replacement of religion with consumerism. 57:45 A relationship with the transcendent. 59:00 Becoming mature is about facing reality. 01:01:00 Loss of epistemic humility. 01:04:00 Loss of wonder 01:05:00 Humility + Wonder = reverence. 01:06:09 The disappearing of traditional men’s roles. 01:17:30 The changing of women’s roles. 01:23:50 Direct embodied experience 01:26:00 An ecology of practices - there is no single panacea practice 01:30:20 Dialogical over monological reasoning - we don’t become wise in isolation. 01:33:40 Flow States and the lowering of the ego mind. 01:38:00 Circling: Listening as an intentional action 01:41:30 Meditation helps break mental frames. 01:46:40 The lowering of the Default Mode Network 01:50:20 Tai Chi and Qigong.  01:53:45 ‘Transjective’ embodiment References: John Vervaeke, “Awakening from the meaning crisis”, You Tube lecture series. Karl Jaspers - Bronze Age collapse to Axial revolution, 1949 article Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems Elisabeth Oldfield - ‘The Sacred’ podcast. ‘Soul Heal’ film, Jose Enrique Pardo, with James Hollis, a film about healing the issues of men Flow states The Circling Institute

Why do we have the tendency to believe things when they may not be true? Why do we project patterns, agency and meaning onto the world when sometimes there is none? How can we consider the probabilities of conspiracies to identify the ones that may be true? How do we encourage brave journalism that calls out conspiracies even by powerful institutions, in spite of the pejorative term ‘conspiracy theorist’? Today we have the uncomfortable topic of how our brains often believe things which aren’t true. The topic fits perfectly with our theme for series 4 of Self-transcendence vs Self-delusion. Our innate ability to notice patterns in systems, assign agency and find meaning in the world are among the reasons we’ve evolved to become so successful at predicting, understanding and creating meaningful collaborations in the world. But the issue with these abilities is that we might make the mistake of thinking what the brain assigns to the world for our own survival, is necessarily true of the world itself. Sure our brains do track the truth but truth is not always what’s needed for survival; so issues like negativity bias, confirmation bias and creating narrative stories that conveniently map onto our existing world view have become a deeply engrained part of our society. Add to this modern phenomena like the siloing of information by the internet into small echo chambers where only like minds come together; algorithmic amplification of memes led by the internet business model of “maximising engagement”; and decreasing trust in institutions, as economic inequality in the world increases exponentially, and you get a perfect storm of clashing beliefs about the truth. Fortunately, our guest today is one of the most established sceptical voices in science who reminds us that we need to track closely the difference between what can be collectively confirmed to be true, and what our brains project to be true from the inside out. He is of course, New York Times best selling author and founding publisher of Skeptic magazine Michael Shermer; he wrote for 18 years for the Scientific American. He’s written nine books but today we’re going to focus on his books “The Believing Brain” and his new release “Conspiracy: Why the rational believe the irrational”. What we discuss: 00:00 Intro 07:00 The philosophy of scepticism. 08:45 ‘Default to truth’ 15:40 Moral truth VS moral relativism. 19:00 Scientific revolutions overturning consensus. 24:30 ‘The Believing Brain’. 25:40 The ability to see patterns in the chaos, and assign agency to them. 26:50 Evolution selects for assuming more things are real than not, just in case. 30:10 Bayesian inference: levels of confidence in being right or wrong. 32:40 ‘Agencicity’, impugning patterns with intentional agency. 33:40 Most things happen randomly, and can’t be predicted. 41:10 Assigning meaning to patterns in nature. 43:50 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. 44:40 Teleology: goal directness in life. 47:50 Dennet - the intentional stance 48:50 Confirmation bias. 54:00 Algorithmic amplification. 57:40 There are many real conspiracies. 01:00:20 Tribal, proxy and paranoid conspiracism. 01:03:35 Being overly suspicious - negativity bias. 01:07:50 Critical thinking - how not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. 01:16:50 Conflict of interest in media - shareholders vs stakeholder interest. 01:18:40 The pejorative term ‘conspiracy theorist’ demotivating brave journalism. 01:26:30 Reductionism and determinism evaluated. 01:32:20 Remote Viewing and psi phenomena: sceptics view. 01:46:30 The UFO phenomena: sceptics view. References: Michael Shermer, “The Believing Brain” Michael Shermer, “Conspiracy” Michael Shermer, “The Moral Arc” Scepticism 101 course: How to think like a scientist Remote viewing Stargate Program documentary “Third Eye Spies” Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal, and Leslie Kean - ‘Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program’, NYTimes article

What role do estrogen and the menstrual cycle play in the moods of women? Is ‘baby brain’ a real phenomena or does the brain actually sharpen during motherhood? What are the symptoms of menopause and how natural and effective is HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy)? - Use the time stamps for those interested only in the neuroscience of Menopause (01:07:45) and Motherhood (37:00).  - NO VIDEO Episode, audio only. Today we have the important topic of women’s hormones to up our awareness about. A big part of the experience we have of our bodies is thanks to hormones, also called  neurotransmitters because they help our nervous system communicate with the rest of the body about what’s going on inside and outside the body. Having accompanied my partner through the process of having two children, and us both having had many unanswered questions about that; and now heading into my late forties having many female friends and listeners heading towards menopause, and speaking publicly about how they wished there’d been given more information about it as it seems not to be discussed much, even amongst women. So I felt the need to make a show about the science and experience of female hormones, particularly with regard to motherhood and menopause; in the hope that women facing these experiences and men hoping to be informed and supportive to those experiences might get more insight. If you’re looking for a show about the comparison or difference between men and women, or Mars or Venus, or the battle of the sexes this is not the show for you: this is simply an informative show about the female brain and particularly about the changes that take place during motherhood and menopause. Unfortunately there is hardly any research into the neuroscience and hormones of trans people, so I apologise in advance for the fact that this show speaks only of those who are born and identify themselves as women.  We are extremely fortunate that our guest today is a neuroscientist and author who has specialised in the Female Brain, both studying the full arc of a woman’s life  in her highly accessible yet detailed book “The Women’s Brain Book: The neuroscience of Health, Hormones and Happiness”; and most recently in her new 2023 book “Baby Brain: The surprising science of how pregnancy and motherhood sculpt our brains and change our minds (for the better)”. She is of course Dr. Sarah McKay, an Oxford University phD in Neuroscience, whose super power is to make neuroscience simple, actionable and relevant to your everyday life. So she chose to leave her research career in favour of science communication, hoping to bridge the gap between the lab and everyday life. She’s the founder of the Neuroscience Academy; has been the neuroscience correspondent for ABC in Australia and has been quoted in the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Grazia and the Sydney Morning Herald. What we discuss: 00:00 Intro. 10:55 Menstrual cycle and estrogen neuroscience. 13:45 Brain-ovarian axis (HPO hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis). 18:45 Wrong assumption that estrogen equals negative moods in women. 24:30 PMS misconceptions - proved to affect only %10 of population. 35:00 A bio-psycho-social model - many contributing factors to mood. 37:00 MOTHERHOOD neuroscience. 48:45 Wrong assumptions about ‘baby brain’ - no cognitive decline. 55:15 Wrong assumptions about post-partum attachment dynamics. 01:05:15 Post natal depression - Not only due to an estrogen drop. 01:07:45 MENOPAUSE Neuroscience. 01:17:00 Perimenopause - menstrual cycle becomes erratic. 01:27:30 Sex-drive and discomfort after menopause. 01:31:30 HRT - Hormone Replacement Therapy  01:41:45 Nuance and ‘grey areas’ in a world of click bait. References: Sarah McKay The Women’s Brain Book Sarah McKay "Baby Brain: The Suprising Neuroscience of how Pregnancy and Motherhood Sculpt our Brains and Change Our Minds (for the better)" The Neuroscience Academy Dr. Sarah Romans - ‘Mood and the menstrual cycle’ paper.

What technological solutions can mitigate our ecological and economic crises? Why are horizontally integrated 'smart' data sharing networks so important? What are 'Glocalisation' and Bio-regional governance? Will we rise to the challenge in time to survive the next extinction event? Today we have the technological solutions to our economic and ecological crisis offered by the Third Industrial Revolution to consider. Some may jump to the conclusion that technology and industrialisation are what got us into this mess in the first place and depending on my mood on any one day I might agree with you, but there’s no turning back the clock on the scientific and technological revolutions, so if you can’t beat it then reform it; And many social elements of the digital and internet revolution seem to have started doing just that, quite independently. That said it has been the campaign and deep vision of my guest today for more than 40 years to go further than just talking about it, to push beyond political divides by prioritising life over blind growth and productivity, and get big entities like governments and trade federations to start thinking like this. He is of course the economist, social theorist, activist and author of 21 books, Jeremy Rifkin. His work focuses on the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment. Today we’ll be focusing on this new book the “Age of Resilience”, his 2014 book “The Zero Marginal Cost Society”, and his 2011 book “The Third Industrial Revolution”; Rifkin has been an advisor to the leadership of the European Union since 2000 and several other European heads of state, particularly on ushering in the smart, green revolution; he has advised the Peoples Republic of China on the build out and scale up of the Internet in a sustainable low-carbon economy; And he is currently advising the European Commission on the deployment of the Smart Europe initiative. What we discuss: 00:00 Intro. 06:20 Dysfunctional economic system from 1st and 2nd and Industrial Revolution. 08:00 Exponential Climate change feedback loop from industrialisation. 08:30 New Communication, Energy, logistics and water paradigm changes alter society radically. 10:20 Infrastructure paradigms define our world view. 15:00 Dropping productivity and efficiency after 2008. 17:50 Near-marginal cost economy e.g Solar, wind, internet commerce. 20:00 Jeremy’s 3rd Industrial Revolution vision, all at near zero marginal cost. 21:30 Component 1: Communication via the internet. 22:30 Component 2: Energy internet - sharing surplus globally. 23:55 Component 3: Logistics internet fed by the energy internet. 24:30 Component 4: The Water internet. 31:00 The 3IR infrastructure system is by its nature distributed using data over the internet. 38:00 "The Age of Resilience" Book. 38:20 Biophilia, Eco-consciousness, and an empathic society. 44:10 “Periods of Happiness.. are the black pages of history” Hegel. 47:00 Mirror neurones and empathic neurocircuitry. 55:00 Extinction events lead to unity. 55:50 Shadow 1: Big data. Can this common be democratised? 01:02:52 Bio-regional governance. 01:04:45 “Glocalisation”. 01:19:00 Shadow 2: The internet business model. 01:29:40 Shadow 3: No motivation for corporations to move from multinational investment to ‘glocal’ investment. 01:39:00 Differences between Claus Schwab’s “4th Industrial Revolution” and Jeremy’s 3rd. 01:50:00 The Ginsburg “Moloch” allegory. Jeremy Rifkin, “The Age of Resilience: Reimagining Existence on a Rewilding Earth” https://search.app.goo.gl/g97t6pL Jeremy Rifkin, “The Third Industrial Revolution” https://search.app.goo.gl/gbMdqE9 Jeremy Rifkin, “The Zero Marginal Cost SocietyThe Zero Marginal Cost Society” https://search.app.goo.gl/eiZXAy5 The Human Microbiome Project NIH https://hmpdacc.org/

Why do complex systems self-organise? What is cellular uncertainty and stem cell plasticity? Can we create artificial digital life that’s subject to the same creative adaptability that nature and life demonstrate? Today we have the extraordinary phenomena of self-organisation in Complex Systems to look into. We’re going to be looking into the conditions for a system to be considered complex, how a certain amount of randomness in the system releases the creativity required to permit adaptability, and how the feedback loops within that adaptability lead to a self-correcting organisational principle that keeps the system’s order and randomness in balance as it evolves. We’re going to be seeing how that self-organisation is operative at almost every level of scale in the universe and in life and death, and trying to get our heads around what that means for the nature of reality and consciousness. So who better to discuss this with than stem cell biologist and diagnostic pathologist Neil Theise. Neil is is a professor of pathology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and a pioneer of adult stem cell plasticity research. In 2018 the news of his discovery of the interstitial, a vast communication network throughout the human body went viral and was featured in the New York Times and Scientific American among many others. Theise is also a long term student of Zen meditation and Kabbalah. And his studies of complexity theory, summarised in his new book “Notes on Complexity: A scientific theory of connection, consciousness and being”, have led to interdisciplinary collaborations in fields as diverse integrative medicine, consciousness studies and the science-spirituality interface. Since speaking with biologist Michael Levin on Cellular cognition, and cognitive scientist John Vervaeke on collective intelligence, in the last series; I’ve been keen to speak to Neil about stem cell plasticity and self-organising systems, as their elegant sophistication begs so many questions about the nature of reality and consciousness. So without further ado, let’s go! 00:00 Intro 05:45 Livers have stem cells, Neil’s first of many discoveries 13:50 “Cellular Uncertainty” - Stem-cell plasticity. 17:43 Heisenberg’s ‘Uncertainty principle’ analogy. 20:20 Cellular sensitivity 22:00 The TechnoSphere - interacting with virtual creatures 26:20 Emergent bottom-up structure, self-organising inside the game 27:20 Artificial Life. 29:20 Complexity Theory explained by Ants. 34:20 Randomness allows the creativity to adapt to changes: in the environment Divergent ants. 35:20 A minimum of elements are needed over time to become self-organising. 36:50 Cells, ants and humans all self-organise: micro macro phenomena. 38:40 No planning or top-down intelligence managing complex systems. 42:55 ‘Wholarchies’ not hierarchies. 47:50 Living systems and complexity arise at the boundary between perfect order and fractal chaos. 49:55 Extinction is also part of complexity, as much as creative adaptivity. 50:30 “What makes you able to be a living system, inevitably, given enough time will lead you to die. You can’t separate life and death”. 53:10 Self correction 55:50 Cancer, economic crashes, extinction events: Pruning away the corrective negative feedback loops leads to collapse. 57:30 Every scale of nature adheres to complex system behaviours. 59:50 Complementarity exists at all levels of scale - Niels Bohr. 01:01:40 Biological complementarity. 01:04:50 Breaking down the separations between discrete organisms. 01:10:50 Not upward or downward causation but complementarity. 01:35:50 Zen meditation insights which led to scientific insight. 01:18:20 The risk of over-rating our personal experience. 01:23:20 Where you find mind, you find life. References: Neil Theise, “Notes on Complexity: A scientific theory of connection, consciousness and being” Evan Thompson - Deep Continuity (of Life and Mind) Francisco Varela - (Evan Thompson’s mentor)

How are traumatic memories stored in the body? How has Somatic Experiencing helped thousands of people release the symptoms of trauma through bodily practices rather than talky therapy? How did Peter resolve his own devastating childhood trauma? What will a trauma aware society be like? In this episode we have the fascinating question of the different ways traumatic memories are stored to think about, and how the body itself and not only the brain is instrumental in the way the memory’s are made and processed, and so in how we might ease the symptoms of the trauma later on. We’re going to delve into the brain-body connection in traumatic memory, looking at the way trauma can influence our bodily states and so in turn the way we can use bodily methods in a bottom-up approach, to re-train the brain to feel safe and integrate traumatic memories.  For this there can be no better person than the psychotherapist, Dr. Peter Levine, the creator of the Somatic Experiencing therapy method, founder of the Institute of Somatic Education and author of many books on trauma and therapy, including “Waking the Tiger”, “Healing Trauma”, “Trauma Through a Childs Eyes”, “Trauma and Memory” which we’ll be discussing today, and his brand new book, which this episode is happy to celebrate the release of “An autobiography of Trauma: A healing Journey”. Minus 1 minute What we discuss: 00:00 Intro. 06:00 Conscious memories start earlier than we might imagine. 07:00 Descartes was wrong, better “I move, I sense, I feel, I have images, I have thoughts: therefore I am.” 07:30 The mid-1960’s session with Nancy that started it all for Peter. 14:20 The 3 different nervous system bodily states: fight or flight, freeze and social engagement. 20:00 Body/Nervous system bi-directionality: Influences between Polyvagal theory and Somatic Experiencing. 26:00 Exercises to switch the hyper-aroused message coming from the body. 29:00 Animal kingdom research into ‘shaking off’ daily life threatening experiences. 31:00 The very sensations that help animals release, are scary to us so we block them. 31:40 Vitality, movement and exuberance VS a disembodied society. 33:20 As children we learn to limit our exuberance, so as not to disturb adults. 35:30 Different types of memory and the role of the body in recording them. 36:00 Declarative conscious memory. 36:45 Autobiographical conscious memory. 38:30 Emotional unconscious memory (associative). 39:00 Procedural/body unconscious memories (to protect oneself). 39:45 Peter as Chiron “The Woundd Healer” archetype. 45.10 Being heard, witnessed and listened to: why reflection and mirroring are important. 47:00 “I don’t think there is consciousness without being mirrored”. 47:40 A trauma aware society. 51:00 Being heard and mirrored leads to resilience. 54:00 Peter’s devastating childhood trauma and shame: “An Autobiography of Trauma” 57:00 Confronting shame tends to intensify it. 59:30 Why share such a personal vulnerable story with the world? 01:01:00 The dream that helped him choose whether or not to publish this deeply personal story. 01:02:20 Encouraging others to tell their stories: cathartic sharing. 01:04:45 Sharing vulnerability with the compassionate other. 01:05:30 Is trauma required to transform or is it just an inevitability of life? 01:07:00 Trauma is a rite of passage towards being truly compassionate. 01:07:40 Gabor Mate, “Compassionate Enquiry”. 01:08:00 Curiosity can’t co-exist with fear, use it to shift the process. References: Peter Levine, “An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey” 2024 (Available at Ergos Institute, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Amazon UK, Inner Traditions, Books A Million, and Bookshop.org) Somatic Experiencing https://www.somaticexperiencing.com/home Peter Levine, “Trauma and Memory” 2015 https://g.co/kgs/vAzjvB2 “Hand in Hand: Parenting by connection” episode, Listening technique https://www.chasingconsciousness.net/episode-18-parenting-by-connection-maya-coleman

In what way is beef in UFOs religious-like? Is there evidence for collective visions of these objects and entities, or rather for their objective reality? In what way could the experience have elements of both? In this episode we have the ever more mainstream story of UFO experiences to assess; Not necessarily the important questions around the existence of the phenomenon, which the office of the US director of National Intelligence confirmed in an official 2021 report that they were, in fact, a ‘population of objects’ (see show notes below)- but rather the belief in the phenomenon, in 2008 polled at around %37 of Americans, but by no means confined to the US. This widespread belief, along with less ridiculed beliefs bolstered by the high probability of extraterrestrial civilisations more advanced than our own existing out there in the cosmos, has had a huge sociological and cultural influence on western society. So in this episode I want to put into a sociological context all of this quasi-religious belief; understand the role of our perception of technology; get our heads around a rare example of a modern myth forming in real time; look at the ways a phenomenon can be both physical and psychological at the same time; and examine various scientific, academic and even philosophical doors into this confounding phenomena that no matter how much the sceptics deny, just won’t go away. So when we study belief we have to turn to a religious studies specialist, and who better to call on than Professor of Religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Diana Pasulka. She’s also the author of 3 books, “Heaven Can Wait”, a book about purgatory, “American Cosmic” on scientists who believe in UFO’s, and her new 2023 book “Encounters” on multi-disciplinary academic approaches to the UFO phenomenon and experiences with non-human intelligence. Don’t forget listeners, that we talk about all the science in more detail with Stanford medical School’s immunologist, pathologist and inventor Garry Nolan in this series so check that out too. What we discuss:00:00 Intro.13:08 Meaningful events propel people towards religious belief.21:30 Heidegger’s warning about underestimating the influence of technology on our culture.27:00 Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” - A just government and the control of information.34:40 Nietzsche, the risk of assigning causal power for synchronicities to higher powers.44:00 Perspective change: The creation of a modern myth, to a real physical phenomenon.45:50 Looking for UFO crash parts in the desert with Garry Nolan, taken blindfolded by a Space Force scientist.49:00 The ‘Antenna’ hypothesis: the brain as a receiver and transmitter.56:00 Physical data analysed by top scientists, and government “management” of information.01:01:00 Where the physical and non-physical meet: idealism or VR hypotheses.01:05:00 Humans may be a sophisticated type of biotechnology.01:06:00 The use of intuition protocols to find technological solutions: intention and visualisation.01:11:30 New Encounters book: a “reorientation”.01:14:00 Iya Whitely: validating pilots experiences. Diana Pasulka, “Encounters”. https://g.co/kgs/tFfG3Mx Diana Pasulka, “American Cosmic”. https://g.co/kgs/MbQ1tXQ Office of the Director of National Intelligence Assessment on UAP, June 2021, John L. Ratcliffe https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf Martin Heidegger essay, “The Question Concerning Technology” https://g.co/kgs/ed5JVEW Iya Whitely “Trusting and Learning from Pilots”, Lecture at the SOL Foundation symposium at the Nolan Lab at Stanford Medical School https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR09GHQ5AwA Beyond UFOs: The Science of Consciousness & Contact with Non Human Intelligence - Rey hernandez et al. https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-UFOs-Science-Consciousness-Intelligence/dp/1721088652

Does the use of computer models in physics change the way we see the universe? How far reaching are the implications of computation irreducibility? Are observer limitations key to the way we conceive the laws of physics? In this episode we have the difficult yet beautiful topic of trying to model complex systems like nature and the universe computationally to get into; and how beyond a low level of complexity all systems, seem to become equally unpredictable. We have a whole episode in this series on Complexity Theory in biology and nature, but today we’re going to be taking a more physics and computational slant. Another key element to this episode is Observer Theory, because we have to take into account the perceptual limitations of our species’ context and perspective, if we want to understand how the laws of physics that we’ve worked out from our environment, are not and cannot be fixed and universal but rather will always be perspective bound, within a multitude of alternative branches of possible reality with alternative possible computational rules. We’ll then connect this multi-computational approach to a reinterpretation of Entropy and the 2nd law of thermodynamics. The fact that my guest has been building on these ideas for over 40 years, creating computer language and Ai solutions, to map his deep theories of computational physics, makes him the ideal guest to help us unpack this topic. He is physicist, computer scientist and tech entrepreneur Stephen Wolfram. In 1987 he left academia at Caltech and Princeton behind and devoted himself to his computer science intuitions at his company Wolfram Research. He’s published many blog articles about his ideas, and written many influential books including “A New kind of Science”, and more recently “A Project to Find the Fundamental Theory of Physics”, and “Computer Modelling and Simulation of Dynamic Systems”, and just out in 2023 “The Second Law” about the mystery of Entropy. One of the most wonderful things about Stephen Wolfram is that, despite his visionary insight into reality, he really loves to be ‘in the moment’ with his thinking, engaging in socratic dialogue, staying open to perspectives other than his own and allowing his old ideas to be updated if something comes up that contradicts them; and given how quickly the fields of physics and computer science are evolving I think his humility and conceptual flexibility gives us a fine example of how we should update how we do science as we go. What we discuss:  00:00 Intro 07:45 The history of scientific models of reality: structural, mathematical and computational. 20:20 The Principle of Computational Equivalence (PCE) 24:45 Computational Irreducibility - the process that means you can’t predict the outcome in advance. 27:50 The importance of the passage of time to Consciousness. 28:45 Irreducibility and the limits of science. 33:30 Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem 42:20 Observer Theory and the Wolfram Physics Project. 50:30 We ’make’ space. 51:30 Branchial Space - different quantum histories of the world, branching and merging 58:50 Rulial Space: All possible rules of all possible interconnected branches. 01:19:30 The Measurement problem of QM and Entanglement meets computational irreducibility and observer theory.  01:32:40 Inviting Stephen back for a separate episode on AI safety, safety solutions and applications for science, as we did’t have time. 01:37:30 At the molecular level the laws of physics are reversible. 01:45:30 Entropy defined in computational terms. 01:50:30 If we ever overcame our finite minds, there would be no coherent concept of existence. 01:51:30 Parallels between modern physics and ancient eastern mysticism and cosmology. 01:55:30 Reductionism in an irreducible world: saying a lot from very little input. References: “The Second Law: Resolving the Mystery of the Second Law of Thermodynamics”, Stephen Wolfram “A New Kind of Science”, Stephen Wolfram Observer Theory Article, Stephen Wolfram

How has the evolution of cognition led to homo-sapiens being such effective collaborators and how is the collective knowledge and wisdom of the society distributed and passed on to later generations? How can we apply the amplified wisdom of distributed cognition to solve some of humanities biggest problems? Today we have the important fields of Collective Intelligence and how we can use it to solve our problems as a society, to try and get our heads around. We’ll be discussing the relevance of difficulties arising from cognitive science and physics research that for some put into question the consensus story that embodied feelings were fundamental in the development of reasoning and consciousness; We also discuss the relevance of the work of Carl Jung on the Collective Unconscious; of Neuroscientist Anil Seth’s Controlled Hallucination and Don Hoffman’s User interface theory; of Iain McGilchrist’s split brain research and of Michael Levin’s take on cellular cognition.  There is of course only one polymath who can hold that many topics in a single conversation and that’s the Cognitive scientist, and philosopher John Vervaeke. Vervaeke is the director of UToronto’s Consciousness and Wisdom Studies Laboratory and its Cognitive Science program, where he teaches an Introduction to Cognitive Science and The Cognitive Science of Consciousness.  He has been a leading intellectual observer of the modern meaning crisis: the loss of a spiritual worldview in the West, and the decline of wisdom traditions that help individuals find meaning in their lives. His online lectures and practices integrate teachings from many different disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, religion, and cutting edge cognitive science. He is the author and presenter of the YouTube series, “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis” and his brand new series, "After Socrates." What we discuss: 00:00 Intro. 05:35 Losing faith without losing a taste for the transcendent. 15:30 The difference between intelligence and living cognition. 18:40 Relevance realisation: What to attend to in the sea of info available. 21:00 Cognition “cares” because its life is on the line: Salience landscapes. 24:15 Humans VS persons. 30:05 Distributed Cognition explained. 30:30 ‘Reason is monological’ framework. 33:15 The rise of individualism. 34:30 Distributed computation and problem solving via the internet. 36:30 ‘Reason is dialogical’ framework. 38:00 Your best self-correction ability is with other people. 42:30 Life builds collective intelligence without language. 45:50 Issues from neuroscience and quantum physics. 50:30 Predictive processing to identify salience. 52:30 The imaginary VS the imaginal. 53:40 Imaginally augmented perception. 58:00 Causality is not the same as causal relevance: Acausal phenomena. 01:00:30 Determinism VS fractal probability.  01:03:50 A hierarchy of cognitive selves: Michael Levin. 01:06:50 There isn’t just bottom up emergence but top down emanation. 01:07:20 Deep continuity - Evan Thompson. 01:09:30 Hierarchies of selves: Michael Levin. 01:15:30 Could we be part of single selves greater than our individual organisms? 01:17:30 Cognition is a continuum but differences of degree eventually make differences of kind. 01:19:30 Solving collective problems via distributed cognition and practices of connectedness. 01:25:20 Left/right hemisphere considerations for distributed cognition: Iain McGilchrist. 01:32:30 Adaptivity: Self-transcendence VS self-delusion. 01:35:15 Narrative bias and the Left Brain interpreter: Mike Gazzaniga. 01:37:00 Extended naturalism 01:40:24 The Collective Unconscious - Carl Jung. 01:46:25 A lot of the unconscious contents are not narrative like or persona like. References:  “After Socrates” You Tube series “The meaning Crisis” You Tube series Michael Levin - Cellular cognition episode Evan Thompson - Deep continuity hypothesis “Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind”

How does breathwork interact with our nervous system, access memories and help integrate traumatic memories? How has it got results treating auto-immune disease, addiction, agrophobia, PTSD and depression? How can it help sleep, detoxification, digestion, immunity, and taking control of negative thought patterns. In this episode we have the hugely popular practice of Breathwork to look into. After millennia of it being used in bodily practices like martial arts and yoga, conscious breathing was launched into our modern scientific world view by the work of psychologist Stan Grof, who developed Holotropic Breathing in the 1960’s at Harvard, see our Transpersonal Psychology episode for more on that; Breathwork continued to gain in popularity following the focus on the lungs and breathing in near regulation proposed by Dr. Stephen Porges in his Polyvagal Theory, see our devoted episode with Dr. Porges for detail on that; And gained further in popularity with Dr. Pete Levine’s development of Somatic Experiencing, who I am delighted to announce will be coming on the show in the next series, so look out for that.  So having been present for some time in the trauma community, in the last few years the practice has exploded onto the wellbeing scene as well because of all its benefits both physiologically and psychologically. So who better to talk to about this than expert in a wide range of Breathwork and body-based therapies, Rebecca Dennis. She facilitates workshops, events and retreats alongside her public speaking and individual sessions. She is a gifted speaker and coach, specialising in breathwork, trauma release, somatic modalities, polyvagal theory and nervous system regulation.  Part of her wide popularity is due to her having written three successful books on the topic, the latest being a new edition of Let it Go, “Let It Go and Breathe – A Practical Guide To Breathwork” which has been featured in Amazon and Sunday Times Best Sellers, and which we’ll be discussing today. And she has also collaborated with Google, BBC, Stylist magazine and Sweaty Betty. What we discuss: 00:00 intro. 05:15 Breathwork explained 09:00 Repressing and controling emotions changes breathing. 12:00 Sympathetic vs parasympathetic nervous system. 20:50 Long deep breaths don’t necessarily calm you down. 23:50 It’s NOT hyperventilation or hyperoxygenation. 29:00 How traumatic memories can be brought up by the breath. 38:00 Rebecca’s crisis that brought her to breathwork. 43:30 Benefits: Depression relief, confidence, sleep, detox, digestion, immunity, taking control of thought patterns. 46:00 “Let it go” book: the foundations of the breath in daily life, tips and methods. 47:40 Breathe yourself calm - lower abdominal breathing. 49:00 Anxiety is higher now than ever. 52:40 What’s the right way to breathe? 59:00 Accessing altered states of consciousness without psychedelics. 59:45 Unlocking traumatic memories: Breath, psychedelics, EMDR. 01:01:00 Easing the symptoms without re-living the memories. 01:02:45 Some of her darkest memories have been her greatest teachers. 01:05:00 Increased resilience emotionally, physically and mentally. 01:07:20 Anti bacterial/anti viral Nitrous-oxide produced, improving immunity. 01:08:00 Gut-brain-cardio vascular system axis: anti-inflammatory effects. 01:11:45 Telomere length in meditators (caps on the end of chromosomes) Elizabeth Blackburn 2015 study. 01:13:30 Treating auto-immune disease, addiction, agrophobia, PTSD and depression using breathwork. 01:17:00 New book coming soon. 01:17:50 Her own new training school in Nov 2024. References: Rebecca Dennis, ‘Let it Go: Breathe yourself calm’ www.Breathingtree.co.uk Polyvagal theory, Stephen Porges, CC Episode #5 Deborah Dana, ‘Anchored’: how to befriend your nervous system’ Elissa Epel, Elizabeth Blackburn 2015 ‘Can meditation slow rate of cellular aging? Cognitive stress, mindfulness, and telomeres’ 

What role does bioelectricity play in the formation of new organisms? How do cells connect to form a hierarchy of ever more advanced cognnition, preferences and goals? What are the implications for regenerative medicine, sense of self and consciousness? In this episode we have the extraordinary role of bio-electricity in the orchestration and elaboration of organisms to look at. I became interested in this topic in the nineties when I read a book that was controversial at the time: ‘The Body Electric’, by Dr. Robert Becker who had been studying the bioelectric fields around salamanders as they regenerated limbs. I’ve been hoping to hear about it again ever since, but I thought the research had died out. That was until my guest Zhen Xu at the university of Michigan, spoke about the work of my guest today, in our episode #37 on her work “Histotripsy: Ultrasound for destroying cancer cells”. He is the award winning Biology professor at TUFTS Michael Levin, in the department of regenerative and developmental Biology, although he started out as a computer engineer. His specialisations are in how cells form bioleletrical networks, used for storing and recalling the pattern memories that guide morphogenesis. He then applies that to next generation Ai to help understand a top down control of pattern regulation in the new field of the bioinformatics of shape. He is also a visionary in how all this can be applied to regenerative medicine and bioengineering and his work obliges us to re-examine our approach to morphogenesis. I have been longing to find someone to talk to about the implications of this work for the biolelectric nature of collective intelligence, and how that builds up ever higher levels and layers of collective cellular agency, cognition and sense of self, culminating perhaps in collective intelligences greater than single organisms. For that answer you’ll have to listen to what Michael says in the episode. What we discuss: 00:00 Intro. 06:10 Bioelectrical fields are responsible for which cells become which body parts. 07:30 The cognitive ‘glue’ that binds collectives of cells to goals, agency and preferences. 09:30 Morphogenesis explained. 11:00 Self-organising cellular adaptability. 12:30 Cells also communicate using electric signals, not only neurones. 16:00 How are cognitive memories encoded in the electrical field? We don’t know yet. 16:45 “Electric face” present in the field: copy it, apply it elsewhere and it grows there! 18:30 The bioelectrical pattern is instructive. 20:15 It’s a simple information encoding. 20:30 Competent active cellular material. 24:30 DNA vs Bioelectricty: Analogy of Hardware vs Software with reprogrammability 28:00 Where is the location of the forms stored, memorised and encoded in the bioelectric field? 30:30 “We really have to redefine what me mean by “Where”“ 32:21 We don’t know where the truths of mathematics reside. 38:10 Bioengineering: Training competent materials VS building passive materials. 40:30 Agential’ material: Cells have agency and preferences. 44:30 Zenobots: cells re-program themselves in days, with no training only influenced by their environment. 50:40 Highly regenerative, cancer resistant, immortal: Plenaria asexual worms. 55:40 Gap Junctions: bioelectric gates for cells to network memories and agency 01:01:50 Cognitive hierarchy of selves within selves, with increasing levels of advanced complexity and agency, each with subjective experience. 01:08:00 Collaborative collective intelligence between organisms VS ever larger selves as one unified intelligence. 01:09:00 Testing agency at any level: Perturbative experiment over only observation. References: https://drmichaellevin.org/ https://thoughtforms.life/ Voltage movie of an embryo developing “Electric face” - Dany Adams, TUFTS Agential material Nature paper Zenobot researchWerner Lowenstein book - the discovery of Gap junctions

What did Jung mean by ‘The Shadow’? What did he mean by making the Unconscious conscious? What is integrating the shadow so useful for us and our relationships? In this episode we cover the fascinating topic of Carl Jung’s concept of ‘The Shadow’ in analytic psychology; a term that has become overused in pop psychology and seems to be understood in many different ways depending on who you talk to. To clarify the mystery, our guest today is one of the worlds most published and respected Jungian analysts, teachers, authors and commentators, Dr James Hollis. After a career teaching literature, he then retrained to become a Jungian analyst, and is still lecturing, writing books and giving psychotherapy at 83. He has written 19 books on Jungian themes, among which ‘Why good people do bad things: understanding our darker selves’ which we’ll touch on today. What we discuss: 00:00 Intro. 08:00 ‘The Shadow’ according to Jung. 08:30 A Reluctance to face what contradictory, disturbing or challenging. 11:00 4 ways the shadow manifests: 11:10 1) Unconsciously: everyone else deals with the consequences. 11:40 2) Projected onto others: we disown what we don’t accept in ourselves. 12:00 3) Being possessed by the shadow. 13:00 4) Consciously: this takes a lot of work and is a social responsibility. 13:50 Projected onto children: "The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of its parents”, Jung. 16:00 “Why good people do bad things: understanding our darker selves” Hollis’ book on the shadow. 18:30 Being accountable for our actions and their consequences. 19:50 Making the unconscious conscious. 23:00 Making decisions as if we were still 8 years old. 24:50 What am I expecting the other to do, that is mine to address? 26:45 Storification and oversimplified narratives, become complexes. 31:43 Changing our relationship to our complexes. 32:30 We don’t solve these complexes we outgrow them. 35:50 What does your complex make you do or stop you from doing? 36:20 Meaning is the goal of life not happiness. 38:00 “The least of things with meaning, is always greater the the largest of things without meaning” Jung 39:00 An inner sense of purpose and satisfaction, and what to do if it’s not there. 40:20 The role of suffering, failure, and challenges in learning and meaning. 42:30 “Relationship is finding one special person you can annoy for a very long time” Mrs. Hollis. 43:45 The trickster overthrows our expectations: life’s way to force us to look in a new way. 47:00 Life is change, yet our nervous system and ego respond badly to ambiguity and the unknown. 49:30 The Ego’s complex is control - understandable but life rarely collaborates. 50:30 Ageing and mortality: an example of a summons to the ego to let go and go with it. 51:00 The ego is like a wafer thin boat floating on the vast iridescent sea of the unconscious. 52:20 “The unconscious is as vast as nature, you carry the human race inside of you”, J. Hollis. 56:45 Leading a life more examined = asking where I can change, improve and grow. 01:00:00 Most of our habits are protective, but stand in the way of our growth. 01:01:15 ‘Soul Heal’ Joe Enrique Pardo, a film about men being cut off forms their inner life. References: James Hollis, “Why good people do bad things: understanding our darker selves” James Hollis’ 18 other books! ‘Soul Heal’ film, Jose Enrique Pardo, with James Hollis, a film about healing the issues of men Bernardo Kastrup, Jung’s Metaphysics CC episode  Monika Wikman, Collective Unconscious CC episode Laura London’s, Speaking of Jung podcast

How close are we to a scalable quantum computer? How do they work? Why is it so difficult for women in science? Is that changing? In this episode we have the fascinating new technology of Quantum Computers to get our heads around. They’ve been in the news a lot recently for the extraordinary computing power they could offer if harnessed properly; and also in conjunction with misleadingly named ‘teleportation’ technologies that can encode information in a quantum key and have it appear at the destination almost instantaneously and unshackably using quantum entanglement. But how do they work? Our guest today Shohini Ghose explains beautifully, she studies them as a professor of Quantum Physics at the Wilfrid Laurier University in Toronto, Canada. She is also a Senior Fellow at TED and her TED talk, ‘A beginners guide to Quantum Computers’ has been viewed almost 5 million times. She’s a passionate advocate for women in science which she’s just released a new book on, ‘Her Space, Her Time’ and which we’ll be getting into around the 45min mark, and she’s the Chair for women in Science at the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. She is also the author of the 2019 book ‘Clues to the cosmos’. I couldn’t let such a brilliant since communicator get away without asking her what the measurement problem means for the nature of reality too. Fascinating stuff! What we discuss: 00:00 Intro 06:50 A beginners guide to quantum computers 09:50 The difference between binary 0/1 opposite and quantum superposition ‘probabilistic’ states 13:20 Integrating sensitive quantum systems into a practical computing technology 15:00 Harnessing cubits connecting them via entanglement for processing power 15:30 Avoiding the ‘noise’ of entanglement with external particles: near absolute zero conditions  20:40 The applications of quantum computing 21:30 Encryption via ‘no cloning’ keys 22:10 A quantum enhanced internet - more security 25:40 Developing new chemical compositions via quantum simulations  30:10 Quantum ‘teleportation’  35:40 Clarifying the role of light photons in quantum teleportation - it isn’t instantaneous 40:30 The limitations: When will we have a practically useful quantum computer (VS Neural network computers, see Vitaly Vanchurin episode) 45:30 Women in Science throughout history and the appropriation of their success by men 47:10 “Her Space, Her Time”, Shohini’s new book 47:40 The Mathilda effect: When men get credit for women’s work 52:30 Skew in The Nobel Prize and awards in general, and the risk of tokenism now 56:10 There is a lower ratio of women choosing science careers, but is that culturally biased data? See study 01:03:10 “Clues to the Cosmos” Shohini’s first book  01:05:10 The way new experiments force us to update our theories step by step 01:09:05 The implications of non-local probabilistic quantum phenomena  01:12:10 Matter is not fixed, reality is fluid 01:13:55 Measurement problem’s meaning: Even the separation between classical and quantum scale is fluid References: Shohini Ghose “Her Space, Her Time: How Trailblazing Women Scientists Decoded the Hidden Universe” 2023 https://g.co/kgs/bt9h63 A Beginners Guide to Quantum Computers, TED talk https://www.ted.com/talks/shohini_ghose_a_beginner_s_guide_to_quantum_computing?language=en Nobel prize for experiments confirming non-local realism and entanglement https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-universe-is-not-locally-real-and-the-physics-nobel-prize-winners-proved-it/ Vitaly Vanchurin - Neural network computers https://www.chasingconsciousness.net/episode-38-vitaly-vanchurin-the-world-as-a-neural-network A celebration of women scientists, TED talk https://www.ted.com/talks/shohini_ghose_a_celebration_of_women_scientists_and_why_we_need_more_of_them Scientific Careers and Gender differences, A qualitative study https://jcom.sissa.it/article/pubid/Jcom0701(2008)L01/ Shohini Ghose, “Clues to the Cosmos” 2019 https://g.co/kgs/PiuqF6