The Origin of Life and Consciousness with Bruce Damer

Bruce Damer, PhD, is coauthor with David Deamer, of a new theory on the origins of life that was featured in a Scientific American cover story in 2017. His professional interests also include space exploration, virtual reality, and entheogens. He is author of Avatars: Exploring and Building Virtual Worlds on the Internet.

Here he describes the details of his PIM (probability shaper, interaction network, memory system) model as it pertains to the origin of life. This model has now inspired a line of experimental inquiry that supports the notion of abiogenesis, or the creation of life from non-living molecular colonies. He offers his support for the extending the PIM model to the evolution of consciousness. He also emphasizes the significance of the notion that life originated from a colony of progenotes -- and not a single ancestor -- elevating cooperation among organisms as an essential biological principle.

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in "parapsychology" ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980).

(Recorded on May 15, 2019)

[NewThinkingAllowed]

Bruce has just released a set of four blog articles:


David Deamer: Five Decades of Research on the Question of How Life Can Begin (interview article for his special 80th birthday issue in the journal Life):


Working with Dave Deamer at Bumpass Hell hydrothermal field in California (from Living Universe documentary):


Bruce's SAND 21017 talk "The Origin of Life and Consciousness":

[MrSpeedbuggy]

You ALWAYS find great content Jeff. Thank you very much for what you do!

[wanderingthepeaks]

I'm grateful that the topic of the primacy of consciousness comes up, which Bruce Damer seems to be denying while at the same time confusingly affirming when he talks about communing with a primordial, somehow non-conscious, 'field' capable of intelligent communication. At the same time he praises the ideas of Ken Wilber, who as far as I can tell, from reading his body of work, is pretty much in sync with Vedanta philosophy, which is based in the primacy of Brahman, taking Satchitanada, i.e. Being/Consciousness/Bliss, as its immanent nature. So Bruce seems to be contradicting himself here. I wonder too how much Bruce has actually read of Bernardo Kastrup's overall body of work? I for one would greatly appreciate another interview with Bernardo, in which he directly responds to this apparent confusion, which Jeffrey attempts to address in his own way. Even better, have BK and BD interviewed together, and have them try to reconcile their views in a mutually coherent way.

[robertg]

Jeesh. Another expert. Just what we need.

[edperry]

I’ve watched so many NTA videos and this was one of the most enjoyable. Thanks once again, Jeffrey - and Bruce!

[amyk]

I love Dr. Damer! I find it hard to reconcile the deep inner experiences he creates for himself, an obvious spiritual gift, with his "materialistic" denial of consciousness as a field. I mean, I would interpret the mental ability to access information from an invisible synchronized field as evidence that this field exists. I think it's because he's a computer guy and interprets conciousness as software in a wet computer. I still feel "blessed" to hear him speak, however. He exudes peace.

[JAMESKOURTIDES]

I don't believe in consciousness....but there's this big field of expanded reality filled with love and bliss that's ever present and accessible lol

[morphixnm]

So Bruce, it seems to me that you don't get past the question of what is consciousness by citing the evolutionary development of sensory awareness. Even the most basic awareness is already problematic for the materialist paradigm. What it means for a phone to die is not at at all the same as what it means for a worm to die, as the phone was never informed, it has no experience, it has no now or before or after. It only processes information in the sense that it runs data that informs a user. It is just like sheets of paper with symbols on them (like punch cards on early computers) which must be read before they have meaning. And how does Nature "rock" at shaping probability if it is not conscious, and what is intention if not consciousness? How the heck can you characterize all these cosmic things as materialist based? I am confused.

[brucedamer_videostream]

I appreciate the time and care you have all taken to write commentary, post questions and challenges and suggest new avenues of enquiry through these wonderful conversations with Jeffrey Mishlove. I would like to propose a way to carry this on, in person, via zoom "Levity Salons" once or twice a month. A good friend of mine helped set up a "Patreon" page as he said that indeed I give out so much but there is literally no support coming in for my research or even much basic living costs. So, he says that Patreon is a good way to provide value while interacting with and receiving small support from a community of interest. So, the site is now live and thanks to the six of you who have already become Patrons. Any donations will go toward building the community and helping me make ends meet. The value you will all garner is a chance to live chat in Zoom sometime soon. So here it goes folks, my first ever promotion of a sort of container of support, I hope some of you will consider small recurrent donations at the $25/month Levity Salon tier and I can then put time into creating these live events up to twice per month... hope to see you there!

[susanwoodward]

Might I suggest that this fascinating video elucidates the origin of biological BODIES, not necessarily LIFE (clear definition required at beginning of this conversation) - that fundamental organizing principle which exists independent of material bodies (including atomic bodies), but is requisite to body organization manifestation. The latter are scalar manifestations of cooperating individual bodies. Also, resonance is a non-material memory-based field source of complex information that amplifies feedback and precludes the absolute requirement for DNA or RNA.

[mackenziebowles]

I would really like to see Damer and Kastrup have a discussion on the primacy/epiphenomenon of consciousness. I think it would be great.

[JJAngleton]

I think, the seemingly contradiction between materialism and spirituality could be resolved by looking at the forces that are on the ground of matter. What exactly is strong and weak binding force, chemical affinity?

Maybe Arthur Young would have resolved it a little bit like this: Matter is at its base energy. Energy vortices are producing binding forces and they form atoms with different configurations (periodic table).

Put it in other way: Freud thought of libido as a binding force (attraction) or neg-entropy. You can produce both polarities from the geometric configuration of the energetic vortex.

So in my humble view, in order to have atoms, you first have to start with sub atomic (energetic) forces. Thus, matter is already a product, not a starting point. Of course, we could argue, what consciousness actually means. Could a photon be conscious? I consider consciousness at the very basic level of neg-entropy; a form of information conservation.

The problem of the terminology is, most people have different ideas what a word implies. The hieroglyphs for example incorporate different levels of symbolism. One symbol can be seen as a letter, a word, or even an entire story. Freud suffered from this misinterpretation of the word sexuality, which he used as a technical term in order to avoid the confusion that the word ‘love’ would have caused. At the same time, he caused confusion of narrow minded people that think of sexuality in a reductionistic way. Maybe the same happens to us, when I use attraction, force, vortex, consciousness...

[pixiehammond]

A very thought provoking interview. Thank you both.

[Hurmanetar]

Enjoyed Bruce greatly!
I have to disagree with his version of materialism and Bernardo’s Idealism.

I promote the notion of Patternism combined with the notion that all correct ontologies must be circular.

Material is ultimately anything that can be reduced to a reliable pattern. Science studies patterns. Therefore anything that can be studied with science can ultimately be folded into the label of “material”.

Here’s where my version of Patternism differs from materialism: all patterns contain boundaries or thresholds which are arbitrary and “mentally” created. So pattern is where subject and object meet. The boundary region is the Abyss of uncertainty wherein lies choice or will.

We exist as logical mechanisms floating upon and interpenetrated by the Abyss of will as sponge floats upon water with all of its pores saturated. Those pores are the action potentials at the synapse or the orientation of the dipoles in the microtubules.

The universe is probabilistic and synchronized. It is not generated linearly but is a networked creation. The objective world is created by a generative adversarial network and we are the completion of that loop of oneness with our perceiving neural network. A moment of experience unifies the networked creation and networked perception as we “travel” through an uncharted multidimensional block universe.

The universe is both logical and insane. It is both generative and perceptive. It is both Logos and Abyss, pattern and boundary, mechanism and will. And we both exist in and create the moments of experience by riding along this boundary between the opposing dualisms.

Materialists are right. They just forget the other half of the universe exists: The Abyss. They forget because their sense organ is science which is by design blind to novelty and irregularity.

The will operating at the edges of the mechanism shapes the probability space redefining the boundaries of that mechanism. Thus abiogenesis is not merely a matter of the improbability of proteins self organizing into life, but there is also the Will in operation there.

[aeonian]

Thank you so much for doing this wonderful dialogue

[halpippack]

Great interview, Jeffrey! Towards the end Bruce mentions Ken Wilber - it would be really interesting to see you talking to Ken.

[RichardOkun]

Fantastic interview - I have a different opinion, but appreciated the intellectual challenges and perspectives offered here.

[dedicatedgamer]

I would really like a response by Bernardo Kastrup to some aspects of this.

[georgitchkhaidze]

Everything is very interesting, but does he really believe that the incredibly complex system in which we live has emerged by itself? A system that is built on such complex laws?!

[cosmicdustparticle]

Another huge interview... Something electric here.