Is Consciousness More than the Brain? | Interview with Dr. Gary Schwartz

We at The Thunderbolts Project think that no truly coherent cosmology can fail to address human consciousness. As Wal Thornhill has written, "A real cosmology must be a broad and coherent natural philosophy. It may always be incomplete, based on our limitations, but to be valid there can be no exceptions in our experience. In particular, cosmology must address issues of life and the human condition. Therefore it must be a truly interdisciplinary pursuit."

Today, perhaps the ultimate unsolved mystery of human life is: how and why does consciousness exist? Although some scientific literature still acknowledges that the question remains open, the overwhelming consensus among neuroscientists today is that the brain alone creates conscious experience. However, for decades, acclaimed scientists around the world have conducted research into consciousness that provides a very different picture. One of the most remarkable of these researchers is Dr. Gary Schwartz, professor of psychology, medicine, neurology, psychiatry and surgery at the University of Arizona and director of its Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health. We asked Dr. Gary Schwartz for his thoughts on the mystery of consciousness.

Gary E. Schwartz, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology, Medicine, Neurology, Psychiatry, and Surgery at the University of Arizona, at the main campus in Tucson. In addition to teaching courses on health and spiritual psychology, he is the Director of the Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health.

Gary received his Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University in 1971 and was an assistant professor at Harvard for five years. He later served as a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Yale University, was director of the Yale Psychophysiology Center, and co-director of the Yale Behavioral Medicine Clinic, before moving to Arizona in 1988.

Previous videos on this channel relating to consciousness:

[tottenhamhotspurish]

13.8 Billion years of the Universe and my Consciousness is now. I believe my consciousness has been there before I was in this Body and will transcend this Body!

[daviddrew]

I do not understand why some people are so afraid of consciousness studies. In my experience this very often relates to their religious convictions. Atheists usually detest the idea of consciousness being external to the body, as this might open the door to something they interpret as 'spiritual', and religious people, in much the same way, may not approve of science interfering with what they see as sacred. A better understanding of the mind, however, would surely help us overcome our limitations and dogmas, which are all too often imposed by such tramline thinking in the first place. Strictly speaking, spiritual means only non-material...

[spitfire]

It's sad the number of people that refuse to accept anything other than what they want to believe.

[dikraneg]

Mr Schwartz sums up what has been the nature of my realizations, inspirations and awakenings these latter years.

[ElveeKaye]

I read a book called "Dogs Who Know When Their Owners are Coming Home, " by Rupert Sheldrake. It was very interesting. I know that many people say it is impossible for an animal to know when you are coming home, or to sense an impending earthquake, or many of the other things that are often attributed to animals; but the sheer number of stories of animals seemingly having ESP indicates that something is happening that we don't understand. My best friend's dog has exhibited this behavior on several occasions when I was dogsitting him. I had no idea when she was coming home, so it couldn't have been me giving him clues. On one occasion, she called to let me know she was on her way home, and I told her that Pippin had started pacing and going to the door at about 2:30 PM, about an hour prior to her call. She said that this was the exact time she and her fiance had finished loading the car and set off for home. Do animals receive information from their environment, and from people and other animals, in some way that we don't yet know about? I think they do, but scientists almost unanimously reject the idea, and so it rarely gets studied.

[onewyatt]

Had a heart attack and my body died. I on the other hand, went to a place I could never have dreamed up and still, 2 plus years later, can't find words to tell about it. I come back to my body before it was alive again and watched what was going on while they were loading it into an ambulance. For me, the question is answered, my flesh is only a vessel for what is something more real. The soul is much more than something that can be understood unless you have been dead. Them who say NDEs are just a brain function are not experts, only them who have experienced death are. I know near death and wasn't anything near death about my death. I was gone, not almost gone, until I returned to this filthy muffled place. As corrupt as this universe is, I am still doing a happy dance I've been doing for over 2 years. To them who love God, you are going to love it over there. To them who don't, I can't say at this time but I personally wouldn't take a chance. To great a thing awaits, better than any mind can know.

[P-Drum]

I salute you in daring to allow these kinds of ideas to be explored through your channel. There indeed is a lot that favors the idea of consciousness not being a result of the brain, anyone who has done any serious research into NDEs must admit to this. Bravo!

[LesiureBoy]

In my early twenties I experienced something like no other. I was going through major depression, during which I was literally crying myself to sleep. I would always lash out at God, all sorts of bad things. One night, during one of my many neurotic episodes, I was crying and asked God with pure rage to show me if he existed because I felt so lonely and abandoned. I think it was a couple nights later when I laid down to sleep when suddenly I was visited by a bright light. It was absolutely sensational. Words can't describe it but what I can say was during the experience I was totally lucid. In fact, I was thinking to myself, just as I am now, how I couldn't believe that this was actually happening to me and that I didn't deserve it because it was so magnificent. Needless to say the light rose and came closer and closer and closer to my head and tapped my forehead. I distinctively felt a release of pressure from my head. I immediately woke up and literally jumped to my feet and froze with eyes wide open and a huge "holy shit, did that just happen to me!?" look on my face. I'm 40 now and ever sense that time I've been intrigued about this subject. Look back I can tell you I really have come a long way. Of course I still have my ups and downs. I'm not perfect obviously. I still sin and I still feel at times that Earth and the things that happen on it just don't make sense but who am to try to answer that? After all, we're humans. Maybe, just maybe we're not meant to answer that question. All I know is what I experienced that night, after many, many years that have passed, still remains a powerful and very real experience that really makes me think that there quit possibly IS something out there which has nothing to do with our physical brain, but rather something that's much, MUCH bigger than you and I here  on Earth.

[SirPhilosopher]

Staunch materialists demonstrate that "mainstream" science is but another religion. It takes just as much faith to be a materialist, or naturalist, as it does to be a theist or mystic. Thanks for the enlightening video.

[targz_]

Consciousness is not a physical thing, it is an experience, a continuous state of being aware. For example, with a Record, the consciousness would not be the record (body/brain) or the song (Memories/Personality), but rather the state of being played.

[MushroomCloud]

I find it funny how many people come here and comment just to automatically condemn the idea, when exactly this was the concept of consciousness among mystics and ancient cultures. But yeah let's stick to the mainstream materialistic explanation of everything and label everything else as mysticism or magic. The truth is we don't really know much about consciouness and the materialistic theory has more holes in it than swiss cheese.
I, personally, think of consciouness as something like another dimension and our brains are just tools to access it...

[anduinxbym]

There is no reason to believe that consciousness is a function of a material brain, and by extension there is no reason to believe that consciousness ends with the death of the brain.

[jieyuzhang]

I believe after physical death, conscious stays in some form but self identity dies. The former is a fundamental aspect of the universe while the latter, i.e. ego, is merely a psychological consequence of brain complexity.

[marks.]

Very good analogy! I will have to remember to use it!

Ever since I was a young man, I always wondered "what is it that makes this body mine?", or, "why am I looking through these eyes?". I don't think there will ever be an intellectual answer; we are restricted to the human experience which we then use to create patterns out of dots. Such concepts are of our making and cannot therefore include the consciousness that created them. For, one cannot logically have "the set of all sets". Of course logic is of our own making to. It is a human expression, like a rose that expresses a fragrance.

We can describe with whatever symbolic language we want, math for example, if we prefer that to art or language. Yet it will always remain but a description and not "the-thing-in-itself".

Your video reminded me of a quote by Alan Watts that I like:
..."If people are intelligent, and I suppose we have to grant that, then the energy that people express must also be intelligent, because one does not gather figs from thistles, or grapes from thorns. But it does not occur to ordinary, civilized people to regard themselves as expressions of the whole universe".

Our consciousness is a human expression of something grander; our consciousness cannot come from nothing.

Thank you for your input into these joyful contemplations.

[God-is-Great]

Functional MRI have demonstrated that motor cortex lights up 6 seconds before we are are aware of any action which we will perform in future. This "lag" could be explained by delay caused by downloading of projected illusion of matter from consciousness. For example, consider a person is looking at a tree. First the image of "tree" is projected by consciousness, and then in our material life our eyes performs an act of  "seeing". The photons falling on retina forms an image and then electrically transmitted by neurons to visual cortex hence causing this lag in time. 

[Diane]

I think consciousness is an essential topic for a new paradigm in science. Actually without consciousnesses science and experiencing life would not be possible. As the TV can not take the signal for it self, it is not because we can not see or measure for now the signal that it does not exist.   Thanks for this video.

[chumpalounka]

Consciousness is not inside of the brain. It is the other way around. Hence why we can't find it in the brain.

[God-is-Great]

I believe the act of observation (living creatures in material illusion) breaks the infinite possibilities of consciousness into material illusion continuously as long as they are observing, and hence they generate memories into the sea of consciousness. These memories can then be retrieved by observers "living" in material life.

[Gianfranco_]

i suggest the exact opposite of the standard scientific model of consciousness...'the brain is a by-product of consciousness'...the brain is a 'device' that consciousness uses to interact with the body and by extension the physical universe....i am simplifying HUGELY of course

[krisc]

"is consciousness more than the brain?" really?? I always thought this was obvious. I am not my brain, not my body, not my cells.