Yujin Nagasawa - Is Consciousness Ultimate Reality?

Is consciousness deepest reality, the ground of being of the cosmos? If the question is "What brought all into existence?" the answer is "Consciousness". Some say this is a 'cosmic consciousness' of which our personal consciousness is a small part. Others, that the ultimate consciousness is God. Others, that consciousness and cosmos are both deep reality.



Yujin Nagasawa is a Professor of Philosophy, and Co-Director of the John Hick Centre for Philosophy of Religion in the School of Philosophy, Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham.


Closer to Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[artcruz]

Thank you for your videos. It has helped me cope with my mother's passing and it gives me faith that there's more to this world then eye can see.

[zacharybyron]

Don’t forget that everything in the universe is the universe, INCLUDING US HUMANS. We dont live in this crazy universe, we are the universe

[aclearlight]

Watching this now for the second time I realize how absolutely masterful and FUN the presentation is. Bravo!

[simonjohnson]

"If there are things that cannot be explained by physichal theories, even in principle, then it seems that physicalism is false." Damn. That quote has made me even more sure that there's more to reality then just physichs. I feel like science tries to avoid talking about consciousness, because it sounds like religion or something. I think they feel as if they're going against physichs by trying to explain something that seems meta physichal or super natural. They just say that consciounsess happens because of neurons, atoms and whatever else there is in the brain, but there's no proof of why consciousness exists. Consciousness is such a mystery, and even the greatest scientist can't prove it, not even in theory. So maybe science isn't at a high enough level to even come close to explaining consciousness. To me consciousness is so much different from anything. You could say it's an energy, but it's not any of the energies we know of: Kinetic, potential, heat, nuclear, sound, light, chemical and elastic. I mean none of these energies act out of their consciousness, they act because of the laws of physichs. But I'm able to act on my own, I'm not controlled by laws of physichs, I'm only limited to the laws of physichs.

[abhishekshah]

Here's an exercise. We know dancing exists. We can write a book on elementary particles, but can you write the steps of a dance in a book and read it? In short, there is no "theory of dancing". Dancing is a strongly emergent phenomena of human civilization. It's essence cannot be described by the mere movements of particles, which is not statistically different from the surrounding particles, hence, dancing truly is a non-reducible phenomena. You have to watch a dance, and dance, in order to "understand" or "get" what dancing means. The universe isn't just physical, it's also emotional.

[Lerian_V]

Has Yujin Nagasawa studied Catholic theology? I think it makes the most sense of these concepts of consciousness. It masterfully articulates consciousness as one of the attributes of God who is outside the material universe but has his indelible imprints in it. The Ultimate reality that is distinct from the universe but at the same time is intimately related to it. As Saint Augustine aptly puts it, God is “interior intimo meo et superior summo meo, ” which simply translates to God as more closer to me than I am to myself while at the same time higher than anything I could possibly imagine. That's the true God, the creator of all things.

[mrbogdanoff]

Infinite matter from nothing is impossible, but within a dream the illusion of infinite matter is possible, the physical universe is a dream within universal consciousness.

[rseyedoc]

Quantum field theory has already demonstrated that particles don't exist, only waves/vibrations in the fields exist. When there are no "wave/particles" (99.999% of spacetime) there is only a field as tangible as a magnetic field in styrofoam. That is pretty close to nothing. Maybe that field is proto-consciousness. Appearance and form can already by crudely simulated with human VR, imagine if a vastly more powerful consciousness evolved from the proto-consciousness, how much more sophisticated and "real" would that VR be?

[childofvenus]

This Gentleman says Idealism is implausible because we can't deny there are physical things, But what he's failing to realize is that "physicality" itself is a feature of mind, When you're dreaming, the dream world and its objects can appear just as physical too, but when you wake up, what was the "chair" in your dream made out of? The answer is "nothing". It was mind stuff. So appearing "Physical", is a mental property. (Or at least It CAN BE, proven by our dreams). The only difference is that the chair in your dream was held in your individual consciousness and a chair in this reality is held within the universal consciousness, But there isn't a fundamental difference between dream and reality, they're just two layers of the same thing.

[matriputra]

At long last, Eastern views on existence on Closer to Truth!

[tomad]

The universe was born of the conscious thought "what can be"

[achyuthcn]

Not ultimate but only reality. There can be nothing real outside/ other than consciousness.

[dougg]

You are not the same person you were in the past, you just share that persons memories.

[TheTruthseeker]

It sounds to me like he is trying to have it both ways. Doesn't want dualism, so he says everything is the same, but that not everything is the same. Say what?

[theoutsider]

I recommend the emperor's new mind by Roger Penrose

[cuddywifter]

Actually modern physics tells us that matter isn't made of matter (but of energy), just as information isn't made of Information and energy isn't made of energy. So in that sense while physics may not grasp it all, nonetheless it tells us there must be more and that physicalism is the fallacy of misplaced concreteness (where we have mistaken the abstract for the concrete)

[brentonbrenton]

We have evidence for idealism which everyone experiences: dreams. In a dream, the universe appears and you interact with 'physical objects' - but at the end of the dream it is revealed to be 100% consciousness. There never was anything physical behind it out of which the dream is created.

Occam's Razor demands the simplest explanation, and that is that consciousness is fractal - so just as our dreams create a universe filled with entities, so to is consensus reality a 'dream' of a higher more unified perspective of consciousness. What consciousness does is create universes and takes up different perspectives in them. Our reality is one consciousness dreaming a universe and taking up infinite perspectives in it. That's what all of reality is.

The downside is all these smart people studying physics are spending their time studying the contents of a dream instead of base reality.

The upside is you are this eternal unborn undying spirit enjoying all kinds of different adventures in infinite forms. When this dream ends, you will remember what you are - then forget again when you enter into another dream. It is always 'you' playing all the parts, experiencing all the experiences. Birth and death are you taking on new forms, entering the dream for a bit, then leaving again back to 'consciousness without form', and this is what you always do for all eternity.

[andybrown]

According to Advaita Vedanta there is a state prior to consciousness. In this state there is no sense of recognition, no concepts, no knowledge, no being. This is the original source of the “I” prior to consciousness whereby being is recognised and becomes the “I am”. Everything that is alive is the same consciousness just operating at different levels of awareness. And right now consciousness is dreaming the dream of you. You are not even human you are just a point of awareness through which the universe is temporarily experiencing life. Because you have a body and an ego you know yourself to be human but strip away all the layers and you will see this for the illusion it is. I believe consciousness is universal but I don’t believe it is the ultimate reality. If you follow it all the way back to its source you will find the absolute, namely absolutely nothing but still you are

[danbreeden]

Sounds like he's describing spinozas idea or a form of neutral monism

[andrewmarkmusic]

My experience leads me to kosmic panpsychism but as a metaphysical and ontological dualist. As speculation, this particular universe came about via kosmic error and is deeply flawed. So although there is an original monad it doesn't exist here in the way that monism asserts--so, in fact--I'm actually a double dualist ((I'll have two of those bartenders)) and in this particular stance, there is trouble indeed!