Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Reality. What is it good for?

Sunday May 15 we will meet at my office in Binghamton at 2 pm for 15 minutes of silent meditation followed by a discussion of Donald Hoffman’s TED talk “Do We see Reality as it Is?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYp5XuGYqqY. Dr. Hoffman is a cognitive psychologist/neuroscientist http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/. I first discovered his work in a recent article in The Atlantic  http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/the-illusion-of-reality/479559/ . The title of that article is The Case Against Reality. If you would like to come to this discussion, it would be helpful to watch the 20 minute TED talk and read the article.

I have been describing the nature of reality as directly perceived for many years. In this understanding, there is no objective reality "out there". Nor is there anything solid or substantial "in here". Many of you have heard me say that it is fascinating that all physicists and most scientists know beyond any doubt that nothing anywhere in the universe is actually solid or substantial. Yet very few scientists appear to draw the logical conclusion, namely, if it is true that nothing is actually solid, then Who or What am I, exactly? It is fascinating to realize that contemporary neuroscientists are describing a similar perspective of reality to the one first revealed experientially to me in 1982.

If you are interested in attending the talk this Sunday, please RSVP as space is limited

No comments: