From: Deepak Chopra <

From: Deepak Chopra < To: Michael Shermer CC Subject: Re: Non local Awareness is not personal Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2017 19:46:31 +0000 Leonard current email Mlodinow Just a thought - a philosophical conundrum If thought is a result of neurochemical activity in synaptic networks why would these neurochemicals want to know their own nature . Physical structures and the names we give them are human constructs for cognitive and perceptual experiences in human consciousness. Is Matter material ? Or is it an activity of nothingness- whatever you want to call that - quantum vacuum etc . I asked Frank Wilczek The Nobel Physicist the same question and he said " our understanding of matter is still evolving . " What is the entity that wants to understand , to know , and why ? If reality is One then matter and consciousness are just words humans invented for ultimate mystery ? I'm told by scientists " one day we will understand ". So who or what is it that wants to know itself? Deepak Chopra 2013 Costa Del Mar Road Carlsbad, CA 92013 New Book: Radicalbeauty.com On Jan 14, 2017, at 10:43 AM, Michael Shermer < wrote: Hi Deepak, Thanks for this interesting article. EFTA00630730 It seems to me these are all examples of the causal arrow going from brain/neural activity to mind/consciousness/qualia. The first causes the second. This is, in any case, how the vast majority of neuroscientists interpret such findings. The author's conclusion... in.f.)•-i uacuynuWuouW conscepk untlerbang the enure pattern Seems to me to be another example of a god-of-the-gaps argument. Oliver Sacks writes about such experiences in many of his books (clinical case studies he had as a neurologist), and in his autobiography he writes about how he intentionally stimulated such experiences through psychedelics! To my ears the descriptions of his and his patients' experiences are indistinguishable from those of mystics and shamans who report them as well. Michael EFTA00630731