The Adventure of Consciousness
What you'll learn
- How modern neuroscientific findings suggest there is more than physicality.
- Aspects of the contemporary philosophy of mind and consciousness studies.
- Aspects of philosophical idealism.
- Aspects of mysticism.
- See Nature, reality, but especially ourselves, from a comprehensive scientific and intuitive perspective.
Requirements
- No intellectual prerequisite needed.
- Take notes, step by step and get into the subject more intuitively than analytically.
- Intuitive first-person perception.
- Even though the content has been ordered according to a logical structure and later lectures may sometimes refer to previous ones, you don't necessarily need to follow systematically each lecture in sequence. To a large extent, the lectures are self-contained and you may also selectively pick out the lectures by identifying those that attract your attention, prioritizing essential information to optimize your time.
Description
A philosophical, scientific, and spiritual overview of the relationship between science, consciousness studies, the mind, the mystery of consciousness, neuroscience, philosophy, spirituality, the nature of reality, evolution, and life.
A course for the scientific- and philosophical-minded who would like to expand their intellectual and intuitive horizon beyond the straitjacket of materialism. For those who feel there is something more, but struggle with connecting the dots into a more coherent picture supported by a way of seeing that allows us to overcome the present paradigm and yet maintains a scientific and conceptual rigor, without falling into oversimplifications. A critique of physicalism, the still-dominant doctrine that believes that all reality can be reduced to matter and the laws of physics alone. A review and reassessment of the old and new philosophical and metaphysical ideas which attempts to bring closer Western and Eastern traditions where science, philosophy, consciousness, Spirit, and Nature are united in a grand vision that transcends the limited conventional scientific and philosophical paradigm. A possible answer to the questions of purpose and meaning and the future evolution of humankind beyond a conception that posits a priori a purposeless and meaningless universe.
A report of the new scientific discoveries of a basal intelligence in cells and plants, on the question if mind is computational, the issue of free will, the mind-body problem, and the so-called ‘hard problem of consciousness’. A look into the recent revival of panpsychism and theories of universal consciousness. A journey into quantum physics from the perspective of philosophical idealism and an invitation to adopt new ways of seeing that might help us to transform our present understanding, expanding it into an integral cosmology, with a special emphasis on the spiritual and evolutionary cosmology of Sri Aurobindo.
Who this course is for:
- For those who perceive a connection between science and something that transcends it.
- For those who wonder if there is more than just matter and how a spiritual worldview is in line with modern science.
- For those who are technically-minded and are not satisfied with religious and only faith-based or pseudo-scientific arguments.
Instructor
- 4.6 Instructor Rating
- 1,835 Reviews
- 13,718 Students
- 5 Courses
Marco Masi (born 1965) attended the German School of Milan, Italy. He graduated in physics at the University of Padua, and later obtained a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Trento. He worked as a postdoc in universities in Italy, France, and Germany, and as a school teacher for three years. After he had authored several scientific papers (see ResearchGate) his interests veered towards philosophical and metaphysical questions that led him to the vision of Sri Aurobindo. He also wrote a two-volume series on quantum physics entitled “Quantum Physics: An Overview of a Weird World”, which tries to close a gap between the too high-level university textbooks and a too low-level popular science approach. He is also interested in new forms of individual learning and a new concept of free progress education originated from his activity both as a tutor in several universities and as a high school teacher, but especially from his direct, lived experience of what education should not be. This led him to author a book on ”Free progress Education”. He loves walking in the woods, loves animals (and would never kill a cat to carry out Schrödinger's experiment).