Is Consciousness The Unified Field?

The main modern field theory of global consciousness is John Hagelin’s unified field theory of consciousness (Hagelin 1987). This theory is a direct descendent of the Vedic tradition, arising from its author’s practice of Transcendental Meditation, a method of teaching Advaita Vedantist meditation that was franchised in the West by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Hagelin was originally trained as a quantum mechanic, and the unified field theory of consciousness proposes that consciousness is identical with his own idiosyncratic mathematical version of the putative unified field.

The main supporting evidence put forward for the unified field theory of consciousness is the reported existence of the Maharishi effect. The Maharishi effect is an increase in quality of life and decrease in violent offending that is reported to occur when approximately 1% of the population of any given geographical area repeatedly meditates in such a way that all the practitioners in the group achieve pure consciousness (ie consciousness without any contents) at the same time. The proposed explanation of the Maharishi effect is something like: (a) consciousness is the unified field, (b) attainment of pure consciousness by an individual meditator injects 'a wave of coherence' into the unified field (c) if many individuals put such waves of coherence into the field at the same time, the effect spreads and becomes so strong that other individual consciousnesses in the vicinity are affected (even though they themselves have never experienced pure consciousness) (d) these essentially broadcast effects act to lower individual stress, increase life satisfaction and thus decrease violent crime, over an unspecified but limited geographic area.

Empirical data claimed to demonstrate the existence of the Maharishi effect have been published in a number of independent, peer reviewed journals, (Orme-Johnson et al 1988; Dillbeck 1990; Hatchard et al 1996; Hagelin et al 1999). However, criticisms have also been published of both the statistics purporting to demonstrate the effect itself and of a certain lack of clarity about why or even whether the unified field theory of consciousness might reasonably be considered to predict the Maharishi effect (Schrodt 1990; Fales & Markovsky 1997).

A second bit of experimental evidence that such a global field might exist is the claim that the EEG of several pairs of different subjects became coherent during time periods when 2500 meditators were practicing the technique of ‘yogic flying’ together 100 miles from the EEG laboratory (Orme-Johnson et al 1982). In this paper the claimed statistical effect is marginal (p = 0.02) and too little information is supplied to allow adequate assessment of the method of measuring coherence from non-digitized data, recorded on magnetic tape. If these authors still believe their early conclusions, it would seem a good idea to repeat the experiment using more clearly described and up-to-date methodology.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/VlfNTJ8hhRY



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dark Matter Transducer

Image
Scientists are on a quest to solve one of physics’ biggest mysteries: What exactly is dark matter – the invisible substance that accounts for 85 percent of all the matter in the universe but can’t be seen even with our most advanced scientific instruments? Most scientists believe it’s made of ghostly particles that rarely bump into their surroundings; that’s why billions of dark matter particles might zip right through our bodies every second without us even noticing. Leading candidates for dark matter particles are WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) National Accelerator Laboratory is helping to build and test the LUX-ZEPLIN or LZ detector, one of the biggest and most sensitive detectors ever designed to catch hypothetical dark matter particles known as WIMPs. Identifying the building blocks of dark matter is one of the highest priorities of modern physics. Most scientists believe it’s made of ghostly particles that rarely bump int
Read more

Chasing The Dream

Image
Similar to many other fields in Psychiatry, understanding sleep and dreams as biological events remain unconsolidated and a work in progress. In 'The Neuroscience of Sleep and Dreams', psychologist Patrick McNamara describes the neuroscience of sleep and dreams while emphasizing on the evolutionary and social significance of the two. Organized into two sections, Part I Sleep and Part II Dreams, McNamara walks through definitions, characteristics, variations and theories of sleep and dreams. He draws examples from human case studies to describe the two phenomena in relation to human anatomy, as well as citing animal studies to explain possible mechanisms. McNamara approaches sleep and dreams as physiological and social functions that can be explained within the paradigm of Darwinian evolutionary biology. In other words, sleeping and dreaming involve fitness 'trade-offs' in our social context, such that one’s 'sleep expression' centers around his or her interactio
Read more

The Science Of Lucid Dreaming

Image
Lucid dreaming refers to realizing within a dream that you are dreaming. It is an ancient spiritual technique (used in Buddhist dream yoga, Taoism, Sufism, and numerous native wisdom traditions). However, the scientific evidence for lucid dreaming emerged in 1980, which makes lucid dreaming a fascinating subject, since this ancient spiritual technique has achieved scientific acceptance and investigation. In the video link below, Robert Waggoner examines the experiments which provided evidence for lucid dreaming, along with the more ancient view of lucid dreaming as a pathway to accelerated spiritual growth. He also examines the use of lucid dreaming by modern day psychotherapists to resolve recurring nightmares in people with PTSD, along with lucid dreaming's potential use in areas such as accessing inner creativity, exploring the unconscious, and spiritual practice. In 1975, Robert Waggoner taught himself a simple technique to lucid dream or become consciously aware of dreaming, w
Read more