The Adventure of Consciousness

The Age of Enlightenment, the scientific and industrial revolution, changed the world. Reason, rationality, and the analytic mind were powerful tools that had an evolutionary purpose. But now it is time to go beyond.

There is a frequent misconception that conflates mind, consciousness, and emotions as being one and the same thing. Or a misunderstanding that describes mind and consciousness as synonymous, and emotions as a "state of mind". We review these psychological aspects of our conscious existence and reveal the fallacy of such confusion.

Also, our physicality has a place in the conscious perception of the world. But, here again, an inner discrimination is necessary to avoid confusion.

There is a difference between scientific quests that progress incrementally and questions that stand beyond science and analytic reason. We introduce the main aspects of it.

Many open questions in science are thought to be progressive quests which, however, are complicated and need more time to be resolved. We show that this is not always the case and that the "complexity argument" is frequently used to justify a lack of progress that might never come, not even in principle.

One thing is knowing how the brain works, another thing is that of connecting its workings to our subjective and sentient experience. there is an explanatory gap, the so-called "hard problem of consciousness".

We don't see the world's parts first and then combine it in one unique semantic whole, we see the latter only. How can this be?

More on the binding problem.

Is our mind just an algorithm that could, at least in principle, be simulated on a computer?

What is the difference between conscious, subliminal, subconscious, and unconscious?

A first-person approach to different conscious states.

Do we have free will? Or are we only biological automatons? What does neuroscience tell us?

Benjamin Libet was a neuroscientist who made groundbreaking experiments on the nature of free will. Here we discuss these briefly, and explain what they showed and, especially, what they didn't show.

Especially with the mind-body problem, before jumping to conclusions, we must always beware of possible fallacies and biases.

Am I my Brain? Where in my brain? The search for the seat of consciousness.

One can live well also without large chunks of the brain. How is this possible?

Where is the centre of our intelligence in the brain? Where is the memory in the brain?

Can plants make choices? Do they possess some elementary form of cognition?

Single cells show to have unexpected cognitive skills. How should we interpret this "basal cognition"?

Nowadays, the neuronal description is a prevailing paradigm. How far can this lead us?

This lecture introduces the first intuitive foundations of philosophical idealism.

Is the distinction between the size, and form of an object as being "objectively real" vs. colours, tastes and smells only "subjective illusions" warranted?

Do we experience reality as it is? An approximation of it? Or do we live in an illusion?

Plato, Kant, and the Eastern nondual mystic path all claimed that we live in a world of illusions. What did they really mean?

Quantum physics sends us a message: the world is not as it appears to our senses and intellect. It is in line with idealism.

We learn to look at the world with an intuitive seeing that complements reason and goes beyond it.

A. N. Whitehead, Teilhard de Chardin, and Jean Gebser are the three examples of the 20th century of what I call a 'higher-mind' seeing. It is only my personal choice, but the aim is to lead you step by step into this cosmic consciousness way of seeing the world, life, and ourselves.

A revival in modern philosophy is taking place. Old doctrines, such as panpsychism and biopsychism, and new ones, such as cellular-based consciousness models, are emerging.

Some more modern metaphysical theories about reality and consciousness: Reflexive monism and Cosmopsychism

Yet a couple of other modern metaphysical theories about reality and consciousness: Analytic Idealism and Panspiritism

Officially, modern biology considers vitalism a relic of the history of science. Here I will consider some aspects that should induce us to be more cautious in jumping to conclusions.

The previous metaphysical frameworks have their pros and cons. Here I review what is still missing for a synthesis of knowledge.

Putting Sri Aurobindo's cosmology in the context of a spiritual emergentism.

The planes and parts of being of the lower hemisphere of consciousness.

The concentric system of being, and the question of free will.

The psychic being, the psychic transformation, and the higher hemisphere of consciousness.

The Supermind, the supramental transformation, and the vertical system of being.

The supramental transformation is the last stage of the integral yoga, which leads to the creation of a new species that Aurobindo called the 'gnostic being'.