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From: Deepak Chopra Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2017 4:12 PM To: Jeff Epstein Subject: Fwd: FYI FYI She is an eminent science writer Deepak Chopra MD 2013 Costa Del Mar Road <x-apple-data-detectors://0> Carlsbad, CA 92009 <x-apple-data-detectors://0> Chopra Foundation <http://www.choprafoundation.org/> Jiyo <http://www.jiyo.com/> Chopra Center for Wellbeing <http://www.chopra.com/> <http://home-everyone-welcome.com/> Home: Where Everyone is Welcome <http://home-everyone-welcome.com/> Begin forwarded message: From: Amanda Gefter Date: September 5, 2017 at 12:08:00 AM PDT To: Deepak Chopra 1 EFTA_R1_01869585 EFTA02638239 Subject: Re: FYI Hi Deepak, Great to hear from you again. Thanks for sending your interesting article - I enjoyed reading this one, and the follow up. While I don't agree with every point in them, I do think it's important that people realize that naive realism is an illusion. And I especially liked the point you made about panpsychism as a way of sneaking "things" in through the back door. I'd like to understand your distinction between mind and consciousness a bit better - it's an interesting take. I suspect, as I think you've suggested as well, that your "consciousness" is very similar to my "nothing" (the state of infinite, unbounded homogeneity)! If so, I agree that it is the foundation of all reality. But then we still need a theory of how, exactly, the nothingness or consciousness comes to give rise to individual minds, and the worlds they construct, and how they relate to one another, what laws govern them, etc. Which is to say, we still need fundamental physics and cognitive science. And the tricky part is that we need them in some unified form that doesn't quite exist yet. That point has become really important to me lately - that mind and universe, subject and object, are two sides of a coin, and that it's impossible to understand the true nature of one without understanding the nature of the other. And the epiphany I've come to is that the only way to unite physics and cognitive science is to formulate them both in first person. It's the mistaken idea that reality is describable in third person that leads to the measurement problem in quantum mechanics and the hard problem in cognitive science. Recasting both fields in first person clears up so many conceptual difficulties, and allows us to see how the two are profoundly intertwined. First person physics is a physics where everything is relative to the core (the world built of relations, not things) and the quantum wavefunction can equally be said to describe the state of the world or the state of the observer, since they are the same thing! First person cognitive science rejects the idea that the brain "in here" creates mental representations of the world "out there," and instead sees mind and world as co-creating one another through a process of dynamic self-organization. I think there are really important and inspiring steps being taken in each of these fields toward this first person goal.l'm very excited by it all :-) Anyway...another ramble...I hope all is well on your end! All the best, Amanda •14 PM, Deepak Chopra wrote: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/chopra/article/If-Reality-isn-t-Na-ve-We-Shouldn-t-Be-11816979.php <http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/chopra/article/lf-Reality-isn-t-Na-ve-We-Shouldn-t-Be-11816979.php> <http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/chopra/article/If-Reality-isn-t-Na-ve-We-Shouldn-t-Be-11816979.php> If Reality isn't Naive, We Shouldn't Be, Either <http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/chopra/article/lf-Reality-isn-t-Na-ve-We- Shouldn-t-Be-11816979.php> www.sfgate.com <http://www.sfgate.com> The second version, known as scientific realism, also relies on the senses but in a more sophisticated fashion-when the eyes tell us that the sun rises in the East, science steps in with the actual facts of astronomy. (...J breaking down a piece of wood, a grain of salt, or a chunk of uranium down into finer and finer particles, until you reach the mysterious domain of quantum mechanics isn't remotely the same as describing reality "in here," which is governed by the mind. There has never been the slightest proof that the basic chemical components of the brain can think, feel, or have experience. L.) 2 EFTA_R1_01869586 EFTA02638240 it's extremely naive to assume such a thing•and yet neuroscience insists upon it. Naïve realism and scientific realism agree with this proposition, but they have plumped for the wrong candidate, forcing physical "things" to create mind when that is obviously impossible. Imagine what it was like as a child to discover that the black specks of ink on a page were a code for language, and by learning to read this 2013 Costa Del Mar Road Carlsbad, CA 92009 Chopra Foundation <http://www.choprafoundation.org> <http://www.choprafoundation.org> Jiyo <http://www.jiyo.com> <http://jiyo.com> <http://jiyo.com> Chopra Center for Wellbeing <http://www.chopra.com> <http://chopra.com> <http://chopra.com> <http://www.jiyo.com> discoveringyourcosmicself.com <http://www.discoveringyourcosmicself.com> 3 EFTA_R1_01869587 EFTA02638241