Susan Blackmore - Does Consciousness Lead to God?

Why does the mystery of consciousness lead some to the existence of God and a spirit world, and others to only the physical world and the physical brain? What is it about consciousness that enables such divergent inferences (from smart folks on both sides)? For those who would like to believe in God, can the mere existence of consciousness help their belief?



Susan Jane Blackmore is an English freelance writer, lecturer, and broadcaster on psychology and the paranormal, perhaps best known for her book The Meme Machine.


Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, 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.

[irfanmehmud]

Basically she is saying, "Consciousness is an illusion, but my conclusion about this illusion is not an illusion".

[foryourspirit]

She never once asks herself, “What makes my thinking possible?, Where does it come from?”.
She also strongly believes that consciousness is something that arises from within her. Rather, it’s something that we are linked into and have thoughts and sensations. We experience thinking through consciousness, rather than consciousness causing our thinking.

[pandawandas]

The problem is that people think we see reality as it is. The brain is an icon. Conscious processes come first, matter is a representation of conscious processes. This has been shown empirically by Hoffman and Friston.

[observatory]

The more they study, the less they know. The mystery of existence eludes them totally.

[bradleymosman]

"I cannot grasp all that I am." Saint Augustine of Hippo wrote those words in the fourth century c.e. And now, fourteen centuries later, a science revolution, Renaissance, and an Enlightenment, we still don't know who we are. We're more likely to get an answer among homeless people than among comfortable academics.

[existncdotcom]

.“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don’t know the answer.”

[bluelotus]

The answers of this lady are perfectly consistent with her structural inconsistency. If she doesn't believe she's an individual, why is she so passionately asserting her own individual ideas?

[tabansteintv]

That thumbnail and title has absolutely nothing to do, with that was discussed in this clip.

[slayagecentral]

Is consciousness not just another word for soul?

[jalosor]

Being conscious simply means evolution is having an experience of itself. In our case, as humans. The more we pay attention to everything that happens in our mind and body the more we realize that we can't really do anything but observe. The only will we have is the will of "cause and effect" aka. God/Love/oneness. We all have that will, but only if we realize our true identity hiding underneath the egoic experience. Existence itself can only become self-conscious through duality. this is why the universe exists. Our ultimate purpose is to become fully aware of this.

[Jose-gdji]

Even after watching this channel for the past 1 year still not able to make a

[jabster]

Listen to the facts of near death experiences ..it will enlighten you. Way more then what this lady did..

[kakalam]

I am curious if there is no self, who is she meditating for?
Universe is doing its stuff? appeal to necessity, since when did universe has will and intent to do stuff?

[Jalcolm]

Materialism or better "physicalism" is correct. Experience isn't physical, it is the function of physical stuff. One error people make (see below) is to divide the world between material stuff and energy or "forces" . This comes out of Newtonian physics. Physicists now know that stuff can be transmuted into energy using Einstein 's formula E = mc2. There is a lot of energy in "matter" more than enough for the brain to create the self illusion. Don't panic- the woman is not sawn in half. It's a trick.

[Sierpinskiii]

We don’t need neurophysiology or buddhist monks to establish that there isn’t a self. I experience what I call myself just as directly as I experience the apples and trees and skies. They are things ‘I’ am subjected to. There is no sense in which any of the things that are experienced (like the body, brain, or even thoughts) are themselves the experiencer - as we have believed for so long. I feel so aligned with my body, and that ‘I’ appears to be my thoughts. In reality, this consistency and alignment is just as much experiential and in consciousness as the redness of an apple. The entire world has been delivered experientially. It is not conciousness inside my head, but rather my head appearing in consciousness.

[jamesmziegler]

They can deny their own existences - fine for them. I have a hard time doing that - I'm really here.

[anikettripathi]

Everyone is satisfied only with answers they expect and never to real or exact. It's impossible for us to have open minds without preconditioning /prejudices.

[bardoteachings]

What a lovely lady! She got it right and she has humility to admit that she doesn't know how it really is.

[kevinlenihan]

She's probably right, there is no "me" at the center of my mind, but aside from being extremely annoying, she's fundamentally wrong about one thing. She insists we'd all be "better off" if we just recognize the world is pointless and meaningless, and that whatever happens, even whatever decisions we make, is really just the result of random processes. Even if that is true, who would be better off thinking that? Who would feel better about themselves? And what would the consequences be for society at large if we tell people they have no agency and it's all meaningless? That she would just casually assume we'd all be "better off" thinking this really exposes the limitations on her own thinking. Every subjective and objective analysis of the evidence shows the impact of thinking this way is harmful...even if it turns out to be the truth.

[jesuschris]

Think about music our brains interpret music but music comes from the outside I think its the same with consciousness