Is a title of a talk by Peter Russell; perhaps an appropriate subtitle would be:
The Kantian Revolution (youtube link to be provided shortly)
Quote:Psalms 33:6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were established;
and all the power of them by the spirit of his mouth.
Genesis 1:2 And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the
spirit of Elohim moved over the waters.
2 Corinthians 3:17 But The Spirit is THE LORD, and wherever The Spirit of THE LORD is, there is freedom.
John 1:1 In the origin The Word had been existing and That Word had been existing with God and
That Word was himself God.
God sleeps in the rock
Dreams in the plant
Stirs in the animal
And awakens in man-Inayat Arabe 12th Century Spanish
Sufi Mystic
What is most fundamental? On some of my various personal web/blog sites I have this description:
Quote:Experiments vindicating quantum physics indicate that consciousness is more fundamental than matter/energy. Now trying to figure out where all that leads to - the science/spiritual pursuit of the 21st century.
I began truly earnest explorations or studies with intent of trying to understand the nature of what we call reality and this on-going experience that we refer to as a
lifetime circa 1994-96. I was in my thirties, in the midst of raising a family, and caught up in the vibrancy of a career as a software developer at Microsoft. My reading material and topical field of inquiry at this time became much broader in scope and definitely more voracious than in prior phases of life.
These days this quest has culminated in a conclusion that materialism is an incorrect paradigm of reality and that consciousness, mind, or if you will,
information processing is the most fundamental thing. This
mind is a substrate upon which all else is emergent/existent. Thus reality, as a product of information processing and that there is in actuality no material existence (according to quantum physics and the study of the atomic and subatomic scale of phenomena – there are no tiny marbles of material substance), is essentially what might be dubbed a
virtual reality. The purpose of reality and our so-called respective individual lifetimes is apparently to serve as experience vehicles for consciousnesses.
When I was a young adult and in my twenties, from what I knew of the various world religions, I thought that they were all rather divergent and in conflict in respect to so-called truth claims. Any more I tend to see, though, that when the ancient traditions are brought continually under greater and greater scrutiny and cross comparison, there seems to be some elements of accord – certainly more so than what I once imagined there to be. As the Vedic, ancient Mesopotamian theologies, the Judaic and Christian streams that have imbued Western Civilization, aspects of Islamic belief, such as the more mystical Sufi tradition, and of course others, are probed, prodded, and sifted; various nuggets will come tumbling out.
Referring back to the above cited biblical verses taken from the Judaic Old Testament and the Christian New Testament, is it possible that the expressions
God is spirit and
the Word is God are essentially equivalent?
A primary definition for
spirit is:
Quote:an animating or vital principle held to give life to physical organisms
The term
word (Greek Logos) implies information state. Indeed, in the computer science field, there is a definition for word that means very literally just that:
Quote:a number of bytes processed as a unit and conveying a quantum of information in communication and computer work
Acting upon information is
information processing, or could we say: that which animates life, experience, reality…
The above cited biblical verses are interesting in this respect because one could take the view that they imply that God is a great consciousness that is some sort of information processing substrate from which all else is emergent. The cited Sufi quote likewise implies that the great consciousness of God comprises all things yet in different character of manifestation.
Well, these musings have been my way of going about introducing this talk by Peter Russell titled:
The Primacy of ConsciousnessPeter does a skillful job of introducing this concept of consciousness being that which is most fundamental to all else we dub existence. He is an academic and does so incorporating an academic and scientific sided approach. (As such you won’t see his talk bringing in religious references as I just did or at least are kept very tangential.)
One personal note: If like me, you’ve been around the block on some of the relevant subject matter involved in this talk, you will have long since been familiar with some of the quotations Russell cites. As such the amusement factor registered by his audience here and there gets a wee bit tedious at times. Just need to keep the focus on the presentation content and try to block out the audience.
In addition to hearing a person speak about ideas, it is often times worthwhile to see their mind at work in written form as well. So to accompanying the above video presentation I’m adding this link into some of Peter’s writing at his web site:
The Meeting of Science and Spirit
