The Consciousness Podcast

This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Edward Kelly, and our topic was Survival of Consciousness after death. It was a great conversation, one which has stayed with me and has me contemplating everything from cosmic consciousness to quantum field theory to heaven and souls. Ed is currently a Professor in the Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) at the University of Virginia. He received his Ph.D. in psycholinguistics and cognitive science from Harvard, and spent the next 15-plus years working mainly in parapsychology, initially at J. B. Rhine’s Institute for Parapsychology, then for ten
years through the Department of Electrical Engineering at Duke and finally through a private research institute in Chapel Hill. You may be familiar with his books, Irreducible Mind and Beyond Physicalism. He has now returned to his central long-term research interest – the application of modern functional neuroimaging methods to intensive psychophysiological studies of psi and altered states of consciousness.

We discussed:

1. What exactly is psi, especially as it relates to your experiments and studies?
2. What is materialism?
   1. Why is a discussion of materialism important regarding consciousness?
      You started off as a materialist. What was the central ‘discovery’ that moved you, or convinced you otherwise? Examples from Irreducible Mind (Amazon)
   2. Would you like to share some of the examples from Irreducible Mind that show that physicalism is false?
3. Psi phenomena are real (“take it to the bank”). What are some examples of psi-phenomena?
4. Does a crisis apparition have consciousness? Does the apparition’s original, material body’s consciousness survive in this apparition?
5. A discussion of near-death experiences (NDE) and how they relate to consciousness. What are your thoughts as to what’s going on with a person’s consciousness during an NDE?
   1. You mention that there are physical requirements in the brain, according to neuroscientists, for consciousness to exist. But, with an NDE, those requirements are not there. Can you expand a little on consciousness and the NDE?
6. How do you define ‘self’? Is there such a thing in your view?
7. You mention Mrs. Piper and mediums and how they can connect with the deceased. How do you think that happens? There is so much there, in the context of consciousness. The deceased person’s consciousness persists, and is accessible somehow, somewhere. The medium is able to connect, even communicate with this consciousness. Can you share your thoughts on this process and how it happens?
8. So, you mention that a picture is coming together of how the mind and brain work together. I guess, obviously, you believe in the duality of mind/brain. Would you mind giving us your description or definition of this duality? The mind is a ‘larger something.’ What is that something?
9. The brain anchors this consciousness. Aldous Huxley says it also filters a common, universal knowledge and memory (my interpretation). Any thoughts on that, the brain as a filter or portal into a ‘cosmic consciousness’?
10. Beyond Physicalism (Amazon): Toward Reconciliation of Science and Spirituality. To paraphrase: we are connected to something bigger that is expressing itself through our [consciousness] evolution. Can you speak to that a little bit?
11. You mention that we’re approaching a major inflection point in our intellectual (growth) history. What kind of leap are you predicting/envisioning? How is this tied to our consciousness?
    How does DOPS play into that?

 

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