Transcription
Everything we experience. So all the elements of experience, we will have entropy. So when we look in the mirror, oh goodness, there's some more gray hairs, there's some more crow's feet or whatever it may be. Um, oh yeah, you know, our sofa, there's a few more scratches from the cat, etc., etc., right? However, whatever does the experience in, there is no entropy there.
And now this is a bit of a complex area because I know I was I was having a little look at consciousness and you know how difficult people find it to really even agree what consciousness means. But one definition if we if if we can sort of stick with it or just use it for for just for this example would be you know that that pure field of subjectivity and and and that's why um a lot of people would agree with this that that's why we intuit it that even though when we look in the mirror we're like oh my god I'm getting older I'm you know in my mid-40s I'm in my mid-60s I'm in my mid-70s but I feel just the same as I did when I was a you know a a strapping young man or or young woman and that that links to that subjectivity and and again I don't want to dwell too long on this. We might come back to this but I just wonder what you what you made of that.
>> Well yes that's a very important thing to to discuss about consciousness. Um yes, we do have this feeling that in some sense there is a fundamental aspect of our consciousness that that is the same now as it was when I was a child. Just that that that raw awareness. And I I think that one way to think about this is that this is a deep a deep topic.
So >> yes. No, I know. I mean, I heard you talking um in in a the one you did with I forget his name. The um the guy who of Ukrainian um origin um when you >> Yes, that's him. um when he was when you and you spoke about the the ground of being that you experience in meditation, you know, what's behind you and he said, "Oh, I've got thoughts of what's behind me." But that's felt to me sort of pointing towards what we're talking about here. Not that that's necessarily a good explanation, but that's what rings in my mind.
>> Yeah. Yes. Well, well, for me, the the thing about consciousness that that's critical here is that there maybe a metaphor could could help, >> right? >> So, if you look at your computer screen, say you're watching a movie on your computer screen, you you're watching, you know, Star War Star Wars or >> You know me well, Don. Yeah, you know me well. Yeah, go for it. Yeah. There there's and and each movie is really, you know, fun to watch and absorbing and so forth, but but you realize if you think step back the the screen itself that was playing the movie, you're not really aware of the screen when you're playing the movie. That screen is truly remarkable. You could play trillions of different movies on that same screen. it that screen itself which doesn't call attention to itself. I mean I'm paying attention to the I'm watching Star Trek or I'm watching Star Wars or whatever the movie might be. >> I'm not really paying attention to the screen. I'm paying attention to the movie. But when you think about it, it's this screen that that's very understated that's allowing the whole spectacular thing of the movie that I'm watching to occur. and it could allow for billions of others and all of a sudden you realize my attention is on a particular movie and I don't pay attention to the the incredible power of this screen that is there that could play any movie and countless movies >> and that's the sort of the shift that you have in meditation. My life is absorbed in this particular movie. You know, my body, my room, my car, the people around me, a movie is happening and I'm completely absorbed in it and I don't I'm unaware of the screen on which that movie is being played. And and and that screen is not somehow divorced from me.
>> It's not like there's me and then there's the screen. It's like no I am whatever I am is not anything in the movie. It's not my body. It's not my hands. It's it's I am that potential for infinitely many different movies. And that's sort of the shift that you get in the spiritual traditions is >> um from physicalism which is being tied to the movie you oh I'm really absorbed in the movie to wait there's something much more impressive. The movie is impressive absolutely impressive >> but there's something that is even much more impressive than the movie. It's the capability of showing any movie. >> What is it that could show any possible movie? Well, that's what I am. That's hard to wrap your head around. >> Yeah. >> I can't I am that. And I I can't know it by like writing equations. I can know it because I am it. So, I can just be it. >> Yeah, >> I can be it. But um and and by the way, our theory of consciousness actually has as a mathematical theorem. It's it's it's actually a theorem that you can never have a theory of the ultimate consciousness. You can have theories of projections of consciousness >> and so we have all these projected conscious agents >> and we're fine and we we can work with those but our theory says there is this ultimate one consciousness which I am and the theory says that that we are infinitely far away from ever getting there mathematically. It's it's impossible to get there mathematically. >> Yeah. >> That's by the way the power of mathematics is to show its own limitations. Right. >> Yeah. It it says precisely all scientific theories will always be infinitely far away from a final description of this one conscious screen the the the ultimate one consciousness. So that's why I I paused a little bit. You can these are not trivial ideas but the basic idea is what we call spaceime in the world is just one movie >> that the screen of consciousness can play. You are that infinitely potential screen that could play trillions upon trillions of different movies. This is just one. But we're wrapped up in this one movie. We've identified ourselves with particular object in that particular movie. And the whole spiritual move is to say, "No, no, no. You're not this little object in this little movie. You are the infinite potential, the screen that could do any movie, you know, infinitely many movies. And you can't understand yourself by thought, >> but you can understand yourself by just being yourself.