Friday, September 29, 2017

Videos explaining Infinity, Complexity, Sentience and Consciousness

Videos explaining Infinity, Complexity, Sentience and Consciousness

I present this month links to four Videos which I felt are outstanding in their ability to communicate latest developments in Science that have a relevance to Advaita.  Three of them are by Prof. Neil Theise, MD, a diagnostic liver pathologist and adult stem cell researcher at the Beth Israel Medical Center of Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the fourth by Vsauce. (The original sources for the Videos are available at the links).


1.  Non-Dual Conscious Realism (2015), 36:24 min:

"Prof. Theise proposes a generalized theory of “Non-Dual Conscious Realism” addressing the fundamental issue of consciousness. This theoretical framework posits the universing arising from an undifferentiated, non-dual field of pure conscious awareness. From within this universal consciousness emanate the complementary phenomena of Planck scale quantum vacuum and quantum foam, generating space and time, matter and energy."

2.  Complexity Theory and Panpsychism (2016), 21:34 min:

Prof. N. D. Theise and Prof. M. C. Kafatos say that "Philosophical understandings of consciousness divide into emergentist positions (when the universe is sufficiently organized and complex it gives rise to consciousness) vs. panpsychism (consciousness pervades the universe). A complexity approach shifts autopoietic theory from an emergentist to a panpsychist position and shows that sentience must be inherent in all structures of existence across all levels of scale." 

3.  Everything Only Looks Like a Thing (2017), 33: 46 min: 

"Prof. Theise presents Complexity Theory's applications to biology and explains how the self-organizing principle depends on randomness. He advances the dialogue between science and spirituality, reminding us that non-duality implies duality, and that nothing is independent or permanent."

4.  The Banach–Tarski Paradox (2015), 24:13 min:

"The Banach–Tarski paradox is a theorem which states the following: Given a solid ball in 3‑dimensional space, there exists a decomposition of the ball into a finite number of disjoint subsets, which can then be put back together in a different way to yield two identical copies of the original ball. In other words, adding or subtracting anything from Infinity does not change it. It reminded me of the pUrNa madaH ... shAnti mantra from brihadAraNyaka upanishad."


[It may please be noted that some of the ideas of Prof. Theise are considered too speculative. For example, see here (2016), 18:55 min.]

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