1 00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:03,040 Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the best of Coast to Coast podcasts. 2 00:00:03,120 --> 00:00:05,640 Speaker 1: Become a Coast Insider to hear the rest of this 3 00:00:05,760 --> 00:00:09,760 Speaker 1: fascinating conversation, and check out recent shows where we learned 4 00:00:09,760 --> 00:00:13,200 Speaker 1: about scientific efforts to revive the Wooly mammoth, the latest 5 00:00:13,200 --> 00:00:16,880 Speaker 1: in military drone technology, and the mysterious shroud of Turin. 6 00:00:17,280 --> 00:00:19,440 Speaker 1: And you can listen to those programs and many more 7 00:00:19,480 --> 00:00:22,560 Speaker 1: amazing Coast shows by heading over to Coast to Coast 8 00:00:22,560 --> 00:00:25,840 Speaker 1: a m dot com and signing up for Coast Insider. 9 00:00:26,280 --> 00:00:29,560 Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on 10 00:00:29,680 --> 00:00:34,199 Speaker 1: iHeart Radio. Evan, Let's let's get your definition of consciousness 11 00:00:34,280 --> 00:00:37,279 Speaker 1: because we hear it so much, but God, I just 12 00:00:37,360 --> 00:00:39,600 Speaker 1: love to hear what you think it is. Well, I 13 00:00:39,640 --> 00:00:42,240 Speaker 1: think the important thing to point out, and we really 14 00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:47,279 Speaker 1: developed this idea in the book very strongly, um, is 15 00:00:47,360 --> 00:00:51,760 Speaker 1: that no human being has ever witnessed anything other than 16 00:00:51,800 --> 00:00:54,720 Speaker 1: the inside of their own consciousness. Now, our brain and 17 00:00:54,800 --> 00:01:00,480 Speaker 1: mind are extremely good at kind of convincing us that 18 00:01:00,680 --> 00:01:04,559 Speaker 1: what we're experiencing is ourself and then the world out there, 19 00:01:04,640 --> 00:01:07,600 Speaker 1: and so we have these kind of very clear ideas 20 00:01:07,640 --> 00:01:10,720 Speaker 1: of self and non self. Uh, and all that sits 21 00:01:10,720 --> 00:01:14,080 Speaker 1: into a nice orderly pattern. But when you start really 22 00:01:14,120 --> 00:01:20,440 Speaker 1: scratching and going below the surface, you realize that it's 23 00:01:20,240 --> 00:01:23,120 Speaker 1: it gets a lot more interesting than that. And basically 24 00:01:23,160 --> 00:01:26,360 Speaker 1: I would answer your question by saying, consciousness is the 25 00:01:26,440 --> 00:01:28,800 Speaker 1: only thing any one of us has ever known is 26 00:01:28,800 --> 00:01:31,720 Speaker 1: the inside of our own consciousness. And then we have 27 00:01:31,920 --> 00:01:35,360 Speaker 1: to start to determine, well, what can we discern about 28 00:01:35,400 --> 00:01:39,480 Speaker 1: that underlying reality? Uh, And we develop in our book 29 00:01:39,760 --> 00:01:43,160 Speaker 1: of a way for people to really see this very 30 00:01:43,200 --> 00:01:46,800 Speaker 1: clearly that what you're experiencing is an internal model. It's 31 00:01:46,840 --> 00:01:52,320 Speaker 1: a construct that represents something that that should be out there. 32 00:01:52,880 --> 00:01:56,600 Speaker 1: But the interesting thing that we learned, especially from quantum physics, 33 00:01:57,240 --> 00:02:00,000 Speaker 1: is that the world is really not as it appears 34 00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:03,840 Speaker 1: years and even things like time and space and mass 35 00:02:03,880 --> 00:02:06,880 Speaker 1: and energy, you really have to get to a deeper 36 00:02:06,960 --> 00:02:10,840 Speaker 1: level to understand what's really going on, because in many ways, 37 00:02:11,840 --> 00:02:15,480 Speaker 1: all of this world around us is just a stage 38 00:02:15,480 --> 00:02:19,120 Speaker 1: setting on which this drama is to unfold. But the 39 00:02:19,280 --> 00:02:24,480 Speaker 1: interesting thing to understand is that stage setting is constructed 40 00:02:24,720 --> 00:02:28,200 Speaker 1: within consciousness. And as soon as you start to say, 41 00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:31,160 Speaker 1: but wait a minute, no, there's an external physical world 42 00:02:31,200 --> 00:02:36,000 Speaker 1: that is objective that we can agree on that you know, 43 00:02:36,120 --> 00:02:40,720 Speaker 1: truly exists. Quantum physics jumps right in with the most 44 00:02:40,840 --> 00:02:44,840 Speaker 1: recent refined experiments and tells you know, that's not true. 45 00:02:44,919 --> 00:02:49,160 Speaker 1: There is not an objector of you know, an observer 46 00:02:49,400 --> 00:02:55,080 Speaker 1: independent reality. Every single bit of this human perception of 47 00:02:55,120 --> 00:02:59,680 Speaker 1: the world around us um is very much observer dependent. 48 00:02:59,800 --> 00:03:03,920 Speaker 1: It generated by mind. Even things like time that we 49 00:03:04,040 --> 00:03:06,800 Speaker 1: think would be so kind of universal and part of 50 00:03:06,800 --> 00:03:10,280 Speaker 1: that stage setting independent of us, but even time is 51 00:03:10,320 --> 00:03:14,640 Speaker 1: something that is overlain within consciousness. So we really have 52 00:03:14,800 --> 00:03:19,279 Speaker 1: to step back and uh, take a very objective outside 53 00:03:19,320 --> 00:03:23,600 Speaker 1: look at the nature of our existence within this reality 54 00:03:23,880 --> 00:03:26,040 Speaker 1: to start to make more sense of it. And that's 55 00:03:26,080 --> 00:03:28,920 Speaker 1: something that we developed very fully in living in a 56 00:03:28,960 --> 00:03:32,400 Speaker 1: mindful universe. Karen, there is a huge argument that you 57 00:03:32,520 --> 00:03:37,080 Speaker 1: must have the brain in order to have consciousness. I'm 58 00:03:37,120 --> 00:03:39,880 Speaker 1: not sure that's true. What do you think. I think 59 00:03:39,920 --> 00:03:43,280 Speaker 1: it's absolutely not true. In fact, when Evan and I 60 00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:46,400 Speaker 1: first met he you know, I knew he had had 61 00:03:46,400 --> 00:03:48,960 Speaker 1: in your death experience. This was before Proof of Heaven 62 00:03:49,080 --> 00:03:51,840 Speaker 1: was published. He didn't even have an agent at that point, 63 00:03:52,240 --> 00:03:54,640 Speaker 1: and so you know, for me, I had met other 64 00:03:54,680 --> 00:03:57,240 Speaker 1: people who had had near death experiences, and I knew 65 00:03:57,280 --> 00:04:01,840 Speaker 1: that they, you know, learned very important spiritual lessons, and 66 00:04:01,880 --> 00:04:04,160 Speaker 1: so I asked Evan, you know, what did you learn 67 00:04:04,240 --> 00:04:06,960 Speaker 1: on your near death experience? And he says to me, 68 00:04:07,200 --> 00:04:12,400 Speaker 1: very passionately, the brain does not create consciousness. And I 69 00:04:12,440 --> 00:04:15,160 Speaker 1: looked at him kind of quizzically and said, well, why 70 00:04:15,200 --> 00:04:19,040 Speaker 1: would anyone think that it does? And this is simply 71 00:04:19,080 --> 00:04:24,000 Speaker 1: because I was not really familiar with the scientific adage. Really, 72 00:04:24,040 --> 00:04:27,640 Speaker 1: the foundation of materialist science, as I learned very quickly 73 00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:31,520 Speaker 1: from Evan, is that the brain creates consciousness. And I 74 00:04:31,560 --> 00:04:34,680 Speaker 1: thought that was ridiculous because of all of the teachings 75 00:04:34,720 --> 00:04:38,360 Speaker 1: that I had been exposed to, and I knew that 76 00:04:38,440 --> 00:04:42,719 Speaker 1: there was that when you learn about things like neuroplasticity 77 00:04:42,880 --> 00:04:47,960 Speaker 1: or you know, epigenetics, or you know, think the placebo effect. 78 00:04:48,040 --> 00:04:51,640 Speaker 1: It's it's very obvious to a lay person anyway, that 79 00:04:51,760 --> 00:04:55,240 Speaker 1: those kinds of things mean that mind does have power 80 00:04:55,360 --> 00:04:57,960 Speaker 1: over matter. And we can all learn this through our 81 00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:01,960 Speaker 1: personal daily lives. We don't need scientists to tell us 82 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:06,479 Speaker 1: that it's true. But unfortunately, scientists, especially academic scientists, have 83 00:05:06,560 --> 00:05:09,800 Speaker 1: a lot of hold over our kind of general Western 84 00:05:09,960 --> 00:05:13,280 Speaker 1: societal beliefs, and so it can really hold this back 85 00:05:13,360 --> 00:05:16,680 Speaker 1: when we think that science has the answers to everything, 86 00:05:16,680 --> 00:05:19,720 Speaker 1: when it's abundantly clear, especially now that I know more 87 00:05:19,760 --> 00:05:22,960 Speaker 1: about it, that they really don't know as much as 88 00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:26,000 Speaker 1: many people think they do. And been as a neural surgeon, 89 00:05:26,120 --> 00:05:29,880 Speaker 1: had you not had the near death experience, would you 90 00:05:29,960 --> 00:05:34,240 Speaker 1: have believed that consciousness lived outside of the brain. Well, no, 91 00:05:34,480 --> 00:05:39,479 Speaker 1: that was never something that I was at all tuned into. 92 00:05:39,560 --> 00:05:45,400 Speaker 1: But my comic journey showed me very clearly, because I think, 93 00:05:45,480 --> 00:05:48,800 Speaker 1: to stress, the big shocker to me about my whole 94 00:05:48,880 --> 00:05:51,919 Speaker 1: journey was not so much my recovery, which was the 95 00:05:51,960 --> 00:05:54,240 Speaker 1: shocker for my doctors. I mean, to this day, they 96 00:05:54,279 --> 00:05:57,440 Speaker 1: have no idea how such a full and more than 97 00:05:57,520 --> 00:06:01,159 Speaker 1: complete recovery could happen in that setting and in meeting 98 00:06:01,160 --> 00:06:04,240 Speaker 1: and knowing you, you would never think anything happened to you. Well, 99 00:06:04,720 --> 00:06:08,040 Speaker 1: and that of course is a two edged sword, because 100 00:06:08,120 --> 00:06:11,120 Speaker 1: people go, well, he can have been that sick, But 101 00:06:11,240 --> 00:06:13,760 Speaker 1: my doctors and the medical records make it very clear. 102 00:06:13,800 --> 00:06:17,280 Speaker 1: I mean I absolutely should have died, and even given 103 00:06:17,320 --> 00:06:20,720 Speaker 1: that tiny, little two percent chance of survival, there's no 104 00:06:20,760 --> 00:06:23,640 Speaker 1: way I should have come back. So you know, I've 105 00:06:23,640 --> 00:06:26,440 Speaker 1: got that little mystery that has urged me along to 106 00:06:26,480 --> 00:06:30,320 Speaker 1: get to deeper understanding of this, because I couldn't just 107 00:06:30,440 --> 00:06:34,520 Speaker 1: accept that, you know, here's this extraordinary miracle involving my life, 108 00:06:34,520 --> 00:06:36,680 Speaker 1: but I can just dismiss it and forget about it 109 00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:39,520 Speaker 1: and go on. No, I can't do that. I mean, 110 00:06:39,560 --> 00:06:43,119 Speaker 1: it really was shocking. But the biggest mystery, of course, 111 00:06:43,240 --> 00:06:46,919 Speaker 1: was how could the progressive dismantling of my mia cortex, 112 00:06:47,160 --> 00:06:50,880 Speaker 1: which my doctors demonstrated to me very fully in my 113 00:06:50,960 --> 00:06:53,800 Speaker 1: medical records and scans in the weeks and months after 114 00:06:53,839 --> 00:06:57,919 Speaker 1: my coma, how could I have had any conscious experience 115 00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:01,359 Speaker 1: or memory of it at all? As neurosurgeon before my 116 00:07:01,480 --> 00:07:03,839 Speaker 1: co If you had given me the medical details of 117 00:07:03,880 --> 00:07:06,960 Speaker 1: my case and then said, well, what would you expect 118 00:07:07,040 --> 00:07:10,240 Speaker 1: for the conscious awareness of such a patient or what 119 00:07:10,280 --> 00:07:13,360 Speaker 1: would they remember that conscious awareness? I would have very 120 00:07:13,400 --> 00:07:16,920 Speaker 1: confidently told you they would have experienced nothing more than 121 00:07:16,960 --> 00:07:21,520 Speaker 1: a very primitive, uh kind of basic level awareness of 122 00:07:21,560 --> 00:07:25,160 Speaker 1: existence and would absolutely not be able to remember any 123 00:07:25,200 --> 00:07:29,280 Speaker 1: of it. And I would have been completely wrong. And 124 00:07:30,640 --> 00:07:33,040 Speaker 1: to the point now where it has now become your 125 00:07:33,040 --> 00:07:37,600 Speaker 1: pilgrimage to tell people how wrong you could have been. Well, 126 00:07:37,840 --> 00:07:40,680 Speaker 1: you know, the thing is what I've discovered, and this 127 00:07:40,760 --> 00:07:43,239 Speaker 1: is what comes out in living in a mindful universe, 128 00:07:44,760 --> 00:07:48,360 Speaker 1: is that, in so many ways, my own personal journey 129 00:07:48,480 --> 00:07:52,800 Speaker 1: is a neurosurgeon who went through this extraordinary, inexplicable experience 130 00:07:53,080 --> 00:07:55,320 Speaker 1: and has spent the nine years since then trying to 131 00:07:55,360 --> 00:07:57,520 Speaker 1: make sense of it and come to a deeper understanding. 132 00:07:57,960 --> 00:08:01,840 Speaker 1: It parallels exactly what is going on if you look 133 00:08:01,920 --> 00:08:05,520 Speaker 1: over uh, you know, hundreds of years of a modern 134 00:08:05,560 --> 00:08:08,360 Speaker 1: scientific understanding of the nature of the world. It's what 135 00:08:08,440 --> 00:08:12,600 Speaker 1: our modern scientific world is going through even now, trying 136 00:08:12,640 --> 00:08:16,720 Speaker 1: to understand this extremely deep mystery of consciousness. If you 137 00:08:16,840 --> 00:08:21,240 Speaker 1: google the hard problem of consciousness that phrase, you will 138 00:08:21,360 --> 00:08:26,960 Speaker 1: find that probably the biggest mystery facing modern science, and 139 00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:30,360 Speaker 1: I mean by far the biggest mystery is the very 140 00:08:30,480 --> 00:08:35,080 Speaker 1: nature of consciousness itself and the relationship between mind and brain. 141 00:08:35,440 --> 00:08:38,680 Speaker 1: And in fact, this discussion, the mind body discussion or 142 00:08:38,679 --> 00:08:41,400 Speaker 1: mind brain discussion, has been going on for more than 143 00:08:41,440 --> 00:08:45,720 Speaker 1: twenty four hundred years. A hundred generations of human beings 144 00:08:45,960 --> 00:08:49,360 Speaker 1: have mused over all of this, and yet the shocking 145 00:08:49,440 --> 00:08:53,520 Speaker 1: thing is how little progress we made modern nerves. There. 146 00:08:53,520 --> 00:08:56,839 Speaker 1: You know, if you use the phrase neuroscience of consciousness 147 00:08:56,920 --> 00:09:01,640 Speaker 1: that is an oxymoron. There is no such thing. Neuroscience 148 00:09:01,840 --> 00:09:06,040 Speaker 1: has not the remotest clue how to connect brain in mind. 149 00:09:06,080 --> 00:09:08,760 Speaker 1: And this is why it's so crucial to get where 150 00:09:08,760 --> 00:09:12,640 Speaker 1: this is going. And it goes very deep because in fact, 151 00:09:13,400 --> 00:09:16,040 Speaker 1: to get to any kind of meaningful answer about it all, 152 00:09:16,400 --> 00:09:19,920 Speaker 1: you really have to dive deeply into the interpretation of 153 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:25,479 Speaker 1: quantum physics, because that is the ultimate kind of positioning 154 00:09:25,520 --> 00:09:28,040 Speaker 1: of the question of the relationship between brain and mind. 155 00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:33,800 Speaker 1: Is exactly what we encounter in our experiments and quantum 156 00:09:33,800 --> 00:09:37,920 Speaker 1: physics trying to understand the nature of physical reality, Karen, 157 00:09:37,960 --> 00:09:41,640 Speaker 1: by tapping into this consciousness and using it, What can 158 00:09:41,760 --> 00:09:44,560 Speaker 1: one do for one's personal life? What can it do 159 00:09:44,679 --> 00:09:47,600 Speaker 1: for you? Well, there's all kinds of things that can do. 160 00:09:47,679 --> 00:09:50,560 Speaker 1: And I when I say that, I sometimes worry I 161 00:09:50,600 --> 00:09:53,079 Speaker 1: sound like some kind of snake oil salesman that it 162 00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:56,480 Speaker 1: can do everything under the sun. But it really is 163 00:09:56,559 --> 00:10:00,920 Speaker 1: just limited only by your imagination. When we you realize 164 00:10:01,080 --> 00:10:06,360 Speaker 1: that the mind is, as you know, creating unfolding reality. 165 00:10:06,400 --> 00:10:09,480 Speaker 1: It truly is, It's not just in our imaginations, then 166 00:10:09,480 --> 00:10:11,960 Speaker 1: it really behooves us to kind of learn how to 167 00:10:12,040 --> 00:10:15,719 Speaker 1: manage that mind, and many of us have kind of 168 00:10:15,480 --> 00:10:20,880 Speaker 1: unbidden thoughts going on and beliefs that they interfere with 169 00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:24,439 Speaker 1: maybe what we really want, these underlying things, and so 170 00:10:24,600 --> 00:10:27,480 Speaker 1: finding out what those are can be very useful because 171 00:10:27,480 --> 00:10:31,080 Speaker 1: they're very limiting into what we can really create. So 172 00:10:31,240 --> 00:10:33,440 Speaker 1: once we kind of clear the decks on all of that, 173 00:10:34,280 --> 00:10:37,080 Speaker 1: it's really just up to your imagination. So some people 174 00:10:37,520 --> 00:10:41,480 Speaker 1: use it to communicate with the souls that departed loved ones. 175 00:10:41,520 --> 00:10:45,600 Speaker 1: They want to reconnect with those relationships. Some people want 176 00:10:45,640 --> 00:10:48,520 Speaker 1: to achieve wellness if they have some sort of health 177 00:10:48,600 --> 00:10:51,200 Speaker 1: issue and they want to get rid of that. UM. 178 00:10:51,559 --> 00:10:54,560 Speaker 1: Some people, like myself, we just want to become more 179 00:10:54,600 --> 00:10:56,720 Speaker 1: of who we really are, figure out what is our 180 00:10:56,760 --> 00:10:59,600 Speaker 1: purpose and why are we here. And yet others just 181 00:10:59,679 --> 00:11:02,800 Speaker 1: want to be able to get into a focused state 182 00:11:03,120 --> 00:11:07,120 Speaker 1: so that they can solve problems. People like Thomas Edison 183 00:11:07,160 --> 00:11:11,280 Speaker 1: and Albert Einstein, they used to get into um what 184 00:11:11,360 --> 00:11:14,440 Speaker 1: was called the what is called the hypnogogic state so 185 00:11:14,520 --> 00:11:18,200 Speaker 1: that they could access creative inspirations for their inventions and 186 00:11:18,280 --> 00:11:21,840 Speaker 1: scientific ideas. And so really just learning how to settle 187 00:11:21,880 --> 00:11:25,800 Speaker 1: the mind and kind of get behind those rambling thoughts 188 00:11:25,840 --> 00:11:30,440 Speaker 1: and constant chatter really can help you to tap into 189 00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:39,400 Speaker 1: creative energy, spiritual guidance, improving health, intuition, improving relationships, figuring 190 00:11:39,440 --> 00:11:43,079 Speaker 1: out why you have certain hardships in your life. There's 191 00:11:43,200 --> 00:11:46,199 Speaker 1: just so many things going on in there, and when 192 00:11:46,200 --> 00:11:50,439 Speaker 1: you realize, it's creating unfolding reality on a big picture 193 00:11:50,480 --> 00:11:53,800 Speaker 1: and a small picture. I don't see why anyone would 194 00:11:53,840 --> 00:11:58,200 Speaker 1: not want to explore how to manage their own consciousness 195 00:11:58,200 --> 00:12:00,880 Speaker 1: from within. Listen to more were Coast to Coast a 196 00:12:01,160 --> 00:12:04,360 Speaker 1: m every weeknight at one a m. Eastern and go 197 00:12:04,440 --> 00:12:06,680 Speaker 1: to Coast to Coast am dot com for more