Nature and Consciousness

NATURE AND CONSCIOUSNESS Bertrand Wong Eurotech, S’pore Branch Email: [email protected] ! % % & " # "$ % & &' ( & $ Mind and consciousness has been given scant attention in the hard science of physics and has been relegated to the soft science of psychology instead. This evidently stems from the problem that consciousness is not “hard”, tangible or quantifiable whereas physics deals with particles which can be seen when greatly magnified. Though consciousness is intangible we somehow know it is real; we all simply know we have consciousness. Consciousness may possibly pervade the whole universe, possibly forming links with other conscious beings, that is, there is an entanglement of consciousness, which may explain why human beings are so similar in their psychological or mental make-up and closely connected. A moot question is whether consciousness comprises of invisible particles which are similar to, for example, electrons, or, whether it is the result of such invisible particles. We will delve further below. Conditions in nature have evidently been fine-tuned to support life. This seems to imply that there had been a Creator behind all this, which many think is the case, though there are also a number who believe life just exists spontaneously, that is, without the work of a Creator, as is implied by Darwin’s theory of evolution. If life were the result of a Creator, this Creator is a First Consciousness or First Intelligence. Hence, in this case, for nature and life to materialize there must first be Consciousness. Many are adamant that nature and life in all its glory, beauty and complexity could not have existed spontaneously and must be the handiwork of a Supremely Intelligent Creator. The important point here is that if a Supremely Intelligent Creator could exist spontaneously why couldn’t intelligent life like ourselves? Next, could a Creator have created beings capable of questioning It, even blaming It? To this question, it has been said that the Creator has given all of us independence of mind. Analogously, could man the creator have created computers and robots capable of questioning or blaming him, even rebelling? Man could possibly create such “beings”, giving them “independence of mind”. As human beings are evidently quite flawed, should a Creator really had a hand in their creation the quality control appears to have been lacking, whereas in our factories we normally exercise strict quality control and try to achieve zero defect in our products. We may ask if there is no consciousness would there be life, or even science? Isn’t life synonymous with consciousness? What is science if it is not the interpretations of our surroundings or nature with our consciousness or intelligence? Why shouldn’t we also interpret our own consciousness or intelligence? ____________________________ Copyright © Bertrand Wong, 2016 1 A good question is whether consciousness is the same as the spiritual. Those who have experienced spiritual happenings first-hand would agree that they are similar. A further, and, important, question is whether consciousness is a kind of force, similar to electromagnetic forces. Mentalists, who some may regard as fakes, have been known to move physical objects and read minds with their mental powers. We know the vast capability of the mind with all its strong intuitive, reasoning and inventive powers. We have heard of lightning calculators, people with photographic memories, people who could foretell the future, etc. The author would like to bring to attention the feats of a mentalist whom he is quite familiar with below. His name is Lior Suchard. It is up to the reader to investigate and judge. The following is a description of Lior Suchard taken from his book MIND READER: UNLOCKING THE POWER OF YOUR MIND TO GET WHAT YOU WANT:LIOR SUCHARD is a world-renowned entertainer and mentalist who first created a buzz when he was selected as the winner of the highly rated international TV show The Successor, hosted by celebrated mystifier Uri Geller. Amazing audiences with the power of his mind, Suchard appears often on international talk shows, including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and is a charismatic crowd-pleaser on the Las Vegas circuit. DO YOU BELIEVE IT’S POSSIBLE FOR SOMEONE TO READ YOUR MIND? Lior Suchard can. He can read your innermost thoughts, and knows what you are going to say before you say it – before you even know you’re going to say it! As a six-year-old boy in Haifa, Israel, Lior first realized he had an extraordinary mental power. Now he is known throughout the world as a dazzling entertainer and peerless mentalist, astounding audiences everywhere with his singular talent for mind reading, thought influencing, and telekinesis. In Mind Reader, Lior takes us on an incredible journey through the wonders of the human mind, sharing his remarkable personal story while offering invaluable advice. Lior’s secrets and lessons, illustrated throughout with interactive elements and brainteasers, will enable readers to achieve phenomenal success by unlocking their untapped mental powers and freely embracing their inner mentalist. The following are excerpts from Lior Suchard’s book MIND READER: UNLOCKING THE POWER OF YOUR MIND TO GET WHAT YOU WANT:We all know that we have five senses: sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. I can still remember learning about it as a kid. Our senses let us process and perceive the world around us. Guess what? It’s not that simple. Scientists now agree that we have other senses, too, other ways of taking in outside information. You know how you ride a bicycle? Through your sense of balance. And what tells you to wear gloves on a freezing cold day? That would be your sense of temperature. It also tells you to stop touching the hot iron. I used this one a lot when I was a kid. We also have senses that help to detect pain or tell us how heavy something is. And then there are senses of time and direction – although I know many people who don’t seem to have either one. For me, there’s another sense, too, that is very, very interesting. It is what is commonly known as the “sixth sense”. What do I mean by this? It means perceiving the world through my mind, using this sense in addition to the other senses to see and understand things in a special way. I believe that through our attention we create fields of perception that stretch 2 out around us. Some of us are more sensitive to those fields or we are able to focus our attention more intensely. People ask me all the time whether I have supernatural powers – I don’t. Even though I use the word “supernatural” in my show, I don’t believe that my skills are unnatural in any way. I don’t say that I’m psychic or clairvoyant. Instead I say that I have certain “skills” or “abilities” and I believe that everyone has them. To some degree. We all use our minds differently. For me, it was a question of discovering as a young kid that I had this talent for using my mind in a different way, and then deciding to practice and hone this skill. It was all about focusing, and I mean really, really, really focusing on the matter. You can’t just want a spoon to bend or move. Or to read someone’s thoughts. You have to focus and practice. And, as you know, I practiced a lot. There’s a famous moment when South African golfer Gary Player hit a perfect shot three hundred yards into the hole. Appreciation and wonder rippled through the crowd, and one spectator called out, “Lucky shot!” To which Gary responded, “You’re right. But the funny thing is, the harder I practice, the luckier I get.” How to Focus on Focusing Focusing the mind is about emptying it of distractions so that we can think clearly. Kids find it easier to get into deep concentration because they live in the moment and don’t worry about things that aren’t in the here and now. Adults, on the other hand, are often not fully present because they are distracted – and don’t realize it. Learn to ask yourself, “What’s on my mind right now?” Maybe you’re thinking about a phone call you have to make and it’s stopping you from focusing. If you can, handle distractions immediately. Or put them on a list to handle later, so your mind can relax for now and you can use all your brain power for the task at hand. There’s a blind artist, John Bramblitt, who, after losing his sight, learned to paint by feeling the different textures of different-color paints. He sees so well through touch that he paints portraits that are exactly lifelike – of people he’s never seen in his life before. How amazing is that? There are blind people who can ride mountain bikes and navigate pathways through forests because they’ve learned the skill of echolocation to get around. There are deaf composers who create the most beautiful symphonies but never hear that music played aloud. There are so many ways of perceiving the world. Why is it so surprising then that someone can read minds or use mental energy to bend silverware? The mind is an amazing thing. My show is called Supernatural Entertainment. The name is self-explanatory. The show delves into the supernatural, into those areas beyond the five senses that deal with extrasensory perception. And, equally important, it is pure entertainment. My aim is to provide a positive, thrilling experience for the audience each time I perform. I’ve described the way I use my thoughts as similar to working with a laser beam compared to a flashlight. When I play basketball, I’m definitely a flashlight to Michael Jordan’s laser beam. Or playing the guitar? Well, I’m better than a flashlight but no laser beam. We could go on here, but you get the picture. I’m sure you have many talents where you’re closer to a laser beam, and others – well, we can just forget about those. Here are some things I can do with my mind: 3 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Know a number you’re thinking of between one and one hundred Know your first love’s name Know your first teacher’s name Know your birth sign and birth date Know the name you’ve thought of for your unborn child Bend a coin or spoon or nail in your hand Bend the stem of a wine glass Make your eyeglasses jump into the air Tell you a story that only you would know Transfer energy between you and another person Make you think you’re being touched when you’re not Predict which word you will choose in a book that you randomly choose from hundreds Predict numbers now that you will say when I ask you tomorrow Mess up a baseball player’s swing Win in any poker game Here are some things I cannot do: • • • • • • • • • Guess the lottery – as it is figured out by machines (although I’ve come close) Read the thoughts of random strangers walking along Read all your thoughts as I sit across from you at dinner Find missing persons – although I wish I could Cure diseases (I’ve been asked many times) Speak to the dead (actually, I can speak to the dead – they just never answer me!) Walk along sidewalks without falling into holes Gain weight even though I try Play casinos in Vegas I use different aspects of my mental skills for each of the different feats I do and combine them with techniques I’ve picked up from psychology along the way. For mind-reading, I’ll read the overall person as well as the mind, using clues like body language and eye movement to help me channel my thought processes, and to focus more clearly on the exact name or image the person is thinking about. Whenever I give you a choice to think of something, whether it’s a number between one and one hundred, or a word in a book chosen from hundreds of books on a shelf, I’ll write down ahead of time what your choice will be. This seems like I’m making a prediction. And, in a way, I am making a prediction, but it’s one that is called an open prediction. The question is, “Is it possible to read a mind when the thought isn’t there yet?” Wrap your mind around that one for a moment. How can I predict a number when you haven’t thought of it yet? It’s the same for the word. How can I predict which word you’ll choose when you haven’t even selected a book to choose it from yet? But the reality is that you choose a number or a word because I make you do so. I persuade you. I influence you. I zip into your thought process and plant that word or that number. How cool is that? London, 2009 Sometimes I’ll do a little mind-reading and a little persuasion at the same time. The lines blur. I’m at an office party in an old converted warehouse near the river. I ask Penny to go outside the room and think of a time in her mind. Any time, whatever time she wants. While she’s gone, I ask a young guy, Peter, to turn the dial on his watch, making the hands spin backward 4 and forward, backward and forward, and to stop whenever he wants. All while hiding the face of the watch so no one, including Peter, can see the time. Next I call Penny back into the room. “Did you think of a time?” I ask her. “Yes,” she says. “Does the time have a specific meaning for you, or is it just a random time?” “It’s special,” she says, nodding enthusiastically. Next I ask her to visualize the time on a clock. “Imagine Big Ben, or just a big clock.” In this way, she sees the time in her mind as analog and not digital. It’s easier for me to feel it this way. At that point, the image of the time becomes very clear to me. I write it down on my card, keeping it hidden. I look over at Penny. Her face is alive with emotion. “Please say the time you were thinking about.” “Seven fifty-five,” she says. “It’s the time I was born.” “That’s amazing, because I wrote down on my card ‘7:55,’” I say, showing everyone the card. Penny gasps. She can’t believe it. “That’s crazy,” says someone a few rows away. Everyone in the room is moved that I read Penny’s mind and found such a personal time in there. “But wait,” I say. “There’s more. You remember that Peter turned the hands on his watch and chose when to stop? And no one saw the time?” Everyone is nodding, anticipating. “Well, Peter, could you please look at your watch and tell us the time.” He holds up the watch. “Seven fifty-five,” he says. He’s shaking his head, astonished. “Incredible,” someone shouts. Everyone bursts into applause. Amazing, right? But there’s another layer to this. Here’s my question to you. Did I read Penny’s mind while she was outside the room and get the watch to stop at the same time? Or did I stop the watch at 7:55 first and then persuade Penny to think of that time? And, if I persuaded her, how did I know to persuade her to think of a time that had such emotional meaning to her? The time of her birth? Coincidence? I don’t think so. I don’t believe in coincidences. Mind-boggling, yes. I’ve done this kind of thing many times, when I ask people to think of a number. I’ll plant a number in their mind and then they’ll tell me they thought of that number because it has special associations for them. One woman told me she’d thought of the number ninety-one because her grandfather had just turned ninety-one. In reality, I had written down that number before even asking her to think of a number. It makes you think, right? I mentioned earlier another aspect of my mental skill – the transfer of positive energy, or chi energy. It’s essentially a form of vital energy that unites body, mind, and spirit, that I create and control using my mind. It involves extreme focus of my thoughts to gather and send energy – enough energy to make eyeglasses fly through the air, to bend spoons and coins in someone’s hand, or to stop a watch. Or even to transfer energy from one person to another. This kind of mentalism is really interesting, because it’s where my thoughts can clearly be seen to operate outside my mind, projecting beyond my body, showing themselves in a physical way. It’s mind over matter, of the purest kind. So, mind-reading, persuasion, and chi energy are the elements of how I use my mind as a mentalist. It’s the basic answer to “how do you do that?” It’s all about harnessing the power of the mind in very specific ways. I’ll talk in more depth about what I do in later chapters, and open a door to a world of underground secrets that you can use. I really believe that everyone can increase their mental powers – maybe not to the point of being a mentalist but enough to move a little way along the road from flashlight to laser beam. 5 You’ve probably guessed that I love everything to do with the mind and how it works. I consider it part of my job to read everything I can about the mechanisms of our brains, about our thought processes, about how we think the way we do. Mind over matter is a really interesting concept, especially when we think of it in terms of metal-bending and objects flying through the air. But what if I tell you that we all use it all the time? Think about the placebo effect for a moment. We’ve all heard of medical studies in which patients are given a treatment that, in reality, does not affect them physically in any way and absolutely cannot cure them. But the important point is that the patient is told that the treatment will help their medical condition, and so they believe that it will. In this case, the mind takes over. It gets to work in helping the body to heal. Mind over matter. Getting Sneaky with the Subconscious Our minds are at work without our knowing it, from the moment we wake in the morning and start making our multitasking way through our world. We’ve learned all kinds of shortcuts and automatic responses for dealing with the things we don’t need to think about – those little details like breathing, or knowing, by the smell coming from the kitchen, the first cup of coffee is ready – so that we can focus our minds on the morning commute or navigating the treadmill at the gym. All the time we’re viewing the world through our senses and acting and reacting to the external stuff, while focusing on the internal stuff – what did your girlfriend mean last night when she said she was working late? What’s the name of that new movie you want to see? Our conscious minds are busy, busy, busy. And then there’s the subconscious. Most of the time we’re not even aware of our subconscious, but it makes up a great percentage of our mental processes. It, too, is active even if we’re not always sure of what it’s doing. It is evident that consciousness is a great force of nature in itself and should be a part of the “nature” equation, and, consciousness actually controls matter. Excluding it from the equation gives an incomplete picture of nature. Consciousness is in fact dominant. There is the consciousness of all living things including possibly plants and other objects such as particles, even possibly the consciousness of a controlling Deity or Deities or the consciousness of spiritual beings as some have experienced and believe. The Gaia hypothesis provides a picture of the universe as a vast living organism wherein consciousness has a role. Consciousness is a most important part of nature for without consciousness everything else is meaningless. Man, that is, consciousness, has always played a part in influencing and changing nature, for example, he destroys nature by cutting down trees and vegetation, he also creates nature by planting trees and flowering plants, he farms, grows crops, rears, hunts and kills animals for food, he fills up or digs up rivers and seas, he builds structures, he carries out genetic modification, he clones new beings such as new species of animals, a feat which has been described as playing God, he changes the weather, he causes climatic changes, he creates new chemicals and materials, he creates new sources of energy, he creates new vaccines and medication, he creates new, useful products and services, he creates artificial intelligence which is a form of life, he creates weapons of mass destruction, the more powerful ones being capable of wiping out civilization completely, etc. The primacy of consciousness is such that should the day arrive when all life is destroyed due to a large-scale catastrophe consciousness will probably continue to exist, for consciousness seems independent of the body and matter. 6 REFERENCES [1] A. Beiser, 1995, Concepts Of Modern Physics, Fifth Edition, McGraw-Hill [2] B. Green, 2000, The Elegant Universe, Vintage Books [3] K. Mathew, 2012, Logic: Its Proper Use [How To Think Logically] Volume 1 & Volume 2, www.Amazon.com [4] L. Suchard, 2012, Mind Reader: Unlocking The Power Of Your Mind To Get What You Want, HarperCollins Publishers 7