It's Growing!

Hey all looking to learn and teach.  There is a tsunami of new consciousness out there.  First the concept of consciousness itself is finally hitting the radar in science.  This is alongside the linked view that spacetime is not fundamental.     Donald Hoffman and his co workers argue that space time is part of our "headset" our way of seeing and  is not fundamental .   Hoffman argues that using evolutionary game theory it can be demonstrated that if evolutionary theory is correct (and it isn't but it is widely  believed to be n the Academy and more widely)  then the probability that we see Reality as it is is precisely 0.  Since evolutionary theory like most of current thinking implies spacetime this shows that spacetime is not fundamental.    Donald Hoffman proposes instead  that consciousness is fundamental and has developed a  mathematical model of what he calls conscious agents.  It turns out this model using Markovian dynamics can be mapped into the geometries of  Decorated Permutations.  The geometries of spacetime can then apparently   be derived  from these as a special case.  Decorated Permutations are among other things the geometries that can be used to elegantly and simply  describe the scattering amplitudes. These are the  particles and their components which are generated by the Hadron Collider.  

Another direction comes from quantum physics.   Nima Arkani-Hamed and other quantum physicists  argue that space time is "doomed" as a view of the fundamental nature of the Universe.  This is according to the most evidenced and most mathematically rigorous theories  of reality which we have so far which is quantum physics.   That local realism is false  has now been experimentally demonstrated by the 3 quantum physicists who won  the 2022 Nobel Prize  in physics: Alain Aspect Anton Zellinger and John Clauser.  Local realism consists of  two related views.  The "local" part is the view that the speed of light is the limit to which matter can be accelerated in the material realm and so there cannot be "action at a distance".    Instead the three Nobel prize winners demonstrated that entangled quantum particles interact instantaneously therefore faster than light over any distance even the furthest reaches of the Universe.  Secondly the "realism" part is that objects exist whether we are observing them or not.  Local realism assumes spacetime is fundamental.  Quantum theory says the limit for observing (measuring) time using the widely recognised  Planck scale is 10 to the minus 44.  The limit for observing (measuring)  space is 10 to the minus 34.  That means that given mathematical  assumptions about gravity according to Einstein's General Relativity it makes no sense to talk about observation or measurement beyond these very small but finite  limits.    They can be given no operational or practical meaning. 

Hoffman takes the leap following many other seekers of Truth before him:  the view that consciousness  is fundamental.  Consciousness is then not within space time but outside of it.  Like all good scientific theories it must be made mathematically rigorous so it can be proven to be right or wrong theoretically and experimentally.  He and his colleagues have devised the theory of conscious agents just so.  

So what?  The assumption that spacetime is fundamental have extraordinary and profound consequences.   For instance if there is no space time there is no separation and no lack.  We are all connected and everything is abundantly supplied.  This may seem counterintuitive to all except "god botherers" as Martin Shaw so nicely calls them. The many NDE reports (I heard an estimate that 40 million people have come forward world wide to talk about their NDE's) and the University of Virginia has had a 60 years program headed by Bruce Reyson investigating NDE's from a scientific viewpoint.  Do your own research.  I guarantee if you talk to 10 people in your circle at least 2 if not all are likely to have had NDE's or closely associated STE's (spiritually transformative experiences) including out of body experience , mystical  experiences of  union with the cosmos and experiences of great peace and wellbeing linked to a completely new idea of who  the "I" is.

To end on a personal note. Some years ago now I wanted to have an out of body experiences.  I had by then followed many new age trails and had many  different and wondrful spiritual experiences.  I knew God was real from time I was about 8 years old but no one around me including the dear religious folk at the convent  I attended seemed to have His cell.  Unlike Depeche Mode they did not seem to have their "own personal Jesus".  So I read up and tried for about 6 months,  had some very bizarre experiences including once in the middle of the night getting as far as my toes and panicking and not being able to move my body for half an hour.  But one sunny Monday afternoon in Eltham lying on the bed the "rocking" that I had read  about finally flipped me out of my body.  I had a wonderful experience I have never forgotten which seemed like it was a trip back to a previous incarnation in Vienna at the turn of the century.  I saw my body asleep on the bed before I went on my journey beyond spacetime.  I have never forgotten the details of that experience.  And it showed me definitively that I was not my body.

So here's to journeys in and out of the body to science,  spirituality and Youtube where people generously share their stories for free.

And all you need is Love .......... as some wise men said. 

t