Does Consciousness Survive Death? | Prof. Donald Hoffman | The Tim Ferriss Show

Donald Hoffman ( @donalddhoffman) received a PhD in computational psychology from MIT and is a Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He is an author of over 120 scientific papers and three books, including The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Award of the American Psychological Association and the Troland Research Award of the US National Academy of Sciences.

His writing has appeared in Scientific American, New Scientist, LA Review of Books, and Edge, and his work has been featured in Wired, Quanta, The Atlantic, Ars Technica, National Public Radio, Discover Magazine, and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman. His TED Talk, titled “Do We See Reality as It Is?,” has almost 4M views.

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About Tim Ferriss:
Tim Ferriss is one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People” and an early-stage tech investor/advisor in Uber, Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, Duolingo, Alibaba, and 50+ other companies. He is also the author of five #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers: The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, The 4-Hour Chef, Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors. The Observer and other media have named him “the Oprah of audio” due to the influence of his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, which has exceeded 500 million downloads and been selected for “Best of Apple Podcasts” three years running.

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[emzywillrich]

My late mother came to me in a dream after her death and told me that none of this is real. Now, that's a dream I have never forgotten. 😃

[hhhxzkvhvu]

Ive always considered myself a "rational", non religious, non spiritual person. After meditating for about 600hours over the past 2-3 years ive had an intense experience where my consciousness expanded towards everything around me. The sky, the stars, trees, houses etc...litteraly everything. My whole identity was vanished away for a brief moment and all i could say afterwards was "i cannot believe it. ive never been here". By that i mean me, the ego. That constant and repeating stream of thought, that we all build up in our heads. So yeah, i highly agree with Dr. Hofmanns theory that consciousness is fundamental, in one way or another. I believe thats what all the religions are pointing to and which is the core of their lessons, only theres so much dogmatism and strict rules to it that we nowadays dont believe in possibilities like that anymore.

[Dion_Mustard]

As someone who has had an Out of Body Experience (and was once skeptical), I can tell you now that without any doubt Consciousness is MORE than brain. My consciousness separated from my physical body and I travelled places. Look up Non Local Consciousness, its a fascinating concept.

[thepsychicskeptic]

It’s quite simple. When our memory dies, so do we. That’s why dementia patients fade away to nothing. There is no divine consciousness guiding the body. The brain ceases to function and so do we.
It’s the same when we go in for a small medical procedure and are given a drug to make us forget. It’s as if the procedure never happened. Our “soul” is affected by the medication. If the “soul” was independent of our body then we shouldn’t forget.
I’ve had many OBEs and am certain they were hallucinations.

[jjay]

Here’s a quote from Nobel Prize Winner Max Planck. “ I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”

[tunahelpa]

I see the question as being stated kind of backwards! It should be "does the persona survive
Because the consciousness is real, but the persona - the physical body, brain emotions, memories - those are all ephemeral.

[dorothyhellmuth]

I'm blown away! I have been studying an ancient and relatively unknown yoga tradition called Kriya Yoga Siddhantha for nearly 50 years, whose radical idea of our purpose is that every living thing is an agent that allows consciousness to discover its own existence. I never believed the idea could be expressed so perfectly in terms of math and science. Perhaps the "avatar of the age" is a person who speaks in the language of science..

[jjn]

It's kind of amazing how compatible Prof. Hoffman's hypothesis or understanding of consciousness and death is with NDE survivors' who overwhelmingly recall that their physical bodies are simply avatars, and there is a higher realm of some kind of "source" where they are simply aware and in profound peace.

[irenamagdalena]

Yes, that is the way I feel and understand consciousness for a long time now. Exactly the way Hoffman verbalised it. It feels so good I’m not alone ❣️

[mahoneypmichael]

It's fascinating to listen to a psychologist/cognitive scientist talk about consciousness and try to prove that it is fundamental with mathematics and evidence. When philosophers and mystics have arrived at the same conclusion intuitively and have no doubt what this world is and that consciousness is all there is. We all need to get there since the physicalism model so far has practically destroyed humanity and will if we all can't wake up. I'd love to see Tim host a discussion with Rupert Spira or Francis Lucille and Bernardo Kastrop and discuss consciousness.

[jjay]

Hoffman is one of the best scientists in the world today. What he says matches Plato's Allegory of the Cave. When people have Near Death Experiences they see what's outside of the cave(3rd dimension) They come back to tell the prisoners in the cave that it's amazing and there's so much more outside of the cave but they get scoffed at because the prisoners in the cave think the shadows on the wall(3rd dimension, the material world) has an objective existence and is all that there is. People who are so connected to the cave can't unplug. They really think what we experience in the cave(materialism) is all that exists.

[AndrewUnruh]

My educational background is in the hard sciences and I was once a strict physicalist. This view persisted even after I experienced something that fits the description of kundalini. The first real doubt in my viewpoint was when I compared consciousness with every other emergent property. That’s when it appeared highly unlikely to me that consciousness just spontaneously appears from our current understanding of the physical world.

[batcollins]

My late sister and her husband, A heart consultant, went to India and studied under Maharishi Maresh and they taught me, A lowly carpenter, and what I heard in this video is so pure, so true that I had to add, in my humble unlearned knowledge that what is spoken of here is true. There are no words to explain but I have felt pure joy that as a human I could not express, yet I try. What they try to convey here is so, so true that anything I say could not explain what the pure joy of BEING will answer every question that you could think of, yet when you experience this transendence, you don't need to ask, you know.

[MrSpacejase]

It's like taking a drop of water out of the ocean and bottling it for one year before going to the ocean and dropping it back into the ocean where it seems to disappear into infinity. Although the ocean is finite, pretend that it shares a similarity to fundamental consciousness. The drop of water in a year developed its individual self and once returned to the source, it experiences both oneness and individuality. Reminds me of Isaiah, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you and set you apart. This still brings to mind a first mover of all things. Anyway, just thinking lol

[DihelsonMendonca]

And does memory survive death ? What value has to survive to death without remember anything ? It's the same thing as being dead ! 😮

[doloreslehmann]

I've listened to this man and read his book, and I must say it's brilliant, but he's been telling the same things for many years now, I would be interested if there's actually any progress in the testing of this model. He always ends with like: "We could test it this and that way", but never if any of this is already taking place and with what results.

[BesharALAzzawi]

“We are consciousness trying on different headsets” well is that not the essence of Hinduism? The world is a drama played by “god”

[timism]

NDE's hold the key to narrowing down the debate around the hard problem of consciousness. Great to hear open minded scientists like this.

[Bob-vgm]

What type of stupid consciousness would create this stew of suffering, of endless violence among all species, and fear? If anything, it makes life even more pointless... and if there was a consciousness behind it all, even more evil.

[XxSEETHRxX]

Yes. I knw because I died 30 years ago and came back. Matter of fact after I left my body it was as if I had no past there. It was the end of thought. I felt pure peace and thought of nothing. The future, the past...