665. Mario Beauregard

Mario BeauregardDr. Mario Beauregard, PhD., is a neuroscientist currently affiliated with the Department of Psychology, University of Arizona. He has received a bachelor degree in psychology and a doctorate degree in neuroscience from the University of Montreal. He also underwent postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Texas Medical School (Houston) and the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), McGill University.

Dr. Beauregard is the author of more than 100 publications in neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry. He was the first neuroscientist to use functional neuroimaging to investigate the neural underpinnings of voluntary control in relation to emotion. Because of his research into the neuroscience of consciousness, he was selected (2000) by the World Media Net to be one of the “One Hundred Pioneers of the 21st Century.” In addition, his groundbreaking research on the neurobiology of spiritual experiences (including near-death experiences) has received international media coverage. In 2008, he was invited to participate in a symposium held at the United Nations. In 2013, he participated in a dialogue with the Dalai Lama in regard to the new science of mind.

Dr. Beauregard has appeared over several radio programs in the U.S.A., Canada, and Europe, Asia, and Australia. His research has been featured on TV (Discovery Channel) and in many newspapers and magazines, including Nature, Science, The New Scientist, Scientific American Mind, and The Economist. He has received a number of distinctions, including the Joel F. Lubar Award (International Society for Neuronal Regulation, USA) and the Spectrum Award (The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, USA).
Being also an author, Dr. Beauregard has published The Spiritual Brain (Harper Collins, 2007) and Brain Wars (Harper Collins, 2012). In these books, he demonstrates that mind and consciousness are much more than the activity of nerve cells in our brains. He also shows that spirituality is a central feature of human beings that cannot be reduced to physical processes.

Beauregard actively contributes to the articulation of the new postmaterialist scientific paradigm. Co-author of the Manifesto for a Postmaterialist Science, which has been signed by several hundreds of scientists, he is also one of the founders of The Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Sciences (AAPS).

Movie: Expanding Reality

Books:

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Transcript of this interview

Interview recorded October 1, 2022

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.


YouTube Video Chapters:

  • 00:00:00 – Introduction to Buddha at the Gas Pump
  • 00:03:27 – Introduction to Dr. Beauregard and his work
  • 00:06:30 – Mystical Experience and Life Mission
  • 00:10:06 – A Life-Changing Experience
  • 00:13:19 – Miraculous Recovery and Spiritual Awakening
  • 00:17:02 – Psychic Experiences and Family Connections
  • 00:20:05 – Prearranged Events and Purification of Sickness
  • 00:24:03 – The Impact of the Scientific Materialist Worldview
  • 00:27:59 – The Manifesto for a Post-Materialist Science
  • 00:32:00 – Playing the Game, Being a Black Sheep
  • 00:35:07 – The Journey from Job Loss to Collaboration
  • 00:38:25 – The Transition Period and the Waning of Materialism
  • 00:41:49 – The Illusion of Self and the Denial of Psi Phenomena
  • 00:44:59 – The Changing Attitude Towards New Ideas
  • 00:48:07 – The Importance of Open-Mindedness and Spiritual Practice
  • 00:51:52 – The Influence of Mind and Non-Local Interactions
  • 00:55:41 – Altered States of Awareness and Neuroplasticity
  • 00:58:57 – Materialism, Reductionism, Scientism, and Determinism
  • 01:03:02 – Invalid Assumptions in Neuroscience
  • 01:06:27 – The Impact of a Paradigm Shift on Society
  • 01:10:08 – The Battle Between Holistic and Materialist Vision
  • 01:12:56 – The Need for Rapid Intelligence Growth
  • 01:15:21 – The Connection Between Ancient Spiritual Traditions and Post-Materialist View
  • 01:18:21 – Influence on the Brain and Mind
  • 01:21:24 – The Physicalist Explanation of Mind and Genetics
  • 01:24:44 – The Refusal to Look at the Evidence
  • 01:27:30 – Near Death Experiences and the Reality of the Afterlife
  • 01:30:30 – A Time of Great Change and Optimism
  • 01:33:44 – Mystical Experiences and Spiritual Awakening
  • 01:36:41 – Mario’s Website and YouTube Interviews
  • 01:38:55 – Farewell and Closing Music

663. Brian Thomas Swimme

Brian Thomas Swimme did his doctoral work in gravitational dynamics in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Oregon. From the publication of The Universe Is a Green Dragon to the Emmy Award–winning PBS documentary Journey of the Universe, Swimme has articulated the cosmology of a creative universe, one in which human intelligence plays an essential role.

For three decades as a professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, he taught evolutionary cosmology to graduate students in the humanities. Currently he is director of the Third Story of the Universe at Human Energy, a nonprofit public benefit organization.

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Transcript of this interview

Interview recorded September 18, 2022

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.


YouTube Video Chapters:

  • 00:00:00 – Introduction to Brian Thomas Swimme and Cosmology
  • 00:03:59 – Two Meanings of Cosmologist
  • 00:08:00 – The Relationship Between Human Mind and the Universe
  • 00:12:49 – The Power of Scientific Knowledge in Understanding Ourselves
  • 00:16:55 – The Color of the Universe
  • 00:20:55 – The Nature of Laws and the Mystery of the Universe
  • 00:25:36 – The Ontology of Intelligence and Consciousness
  • 00:29:10 – The Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness and the Experience of Reality
  • 00:34:14 – The Ontological Connection between Individuals and the Universe
  • 00:38:50 – The Interplay of Science and Spirituality
  • 00:42:17 – The Mystery of Mathematics and Science
  • 00:46:22 – The Influence of Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry
  • 00:50:12 – The Interdependence of Science and Spirituality
  • 00:53:43 – The Noosphere: United Humanity and Earth’s Evolution
  • 00:58:46 – The Special Quality of Humanity and Symbolic Consciousness
  • 01:03:50 – The Dark Age and the Loss of Knowledge
  • 01:07:45 – Ignorance of Extinction
  • 01:10:57 – Co-evolution of Technology and Spirituality
  • 01:15:02 – Becoming beings who see the whole first
  • 01:19:50 – The Bhagavad Gita and Being Established in Action
  • 01:23:55 – The Vast Intelligence Within You
  • 01:27:25 – The Noosphere in Action
  • 01:32:05 – The Noosphere as a Collective Consciousness
  • 01:35:24 – Deepening Collective Intelligence
  • 01:38:19 – The Dream of the Earth and Integral Ecology
  • 01:43:30 – Embracing Change: A Deep Change of Heart and Mind
  • 01:46:42 – A Breaking of Symmetry in the Early Universe
  • 01:50:50 – The Incessant Creativity of the Universe
  • 01:54:52 – Matter’s Intrinsic Property of Self-Organization
  • 01:59:13 – The Excitement of Matter and Spiritual Development
  • 02:02:39 – A Round-Trip from Tacoma to Berkeley

656. Bernard Carr

Bernard CarrBernard Carr is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at Queen Mary University of London. As an undergraduate, he read mathematics at Cambridge University and for his Ph.D. he studied the first second of the Universe, working under Stephen Hawking. He was elected to a Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1975, and in 1980 spent a year traveling around America as a Lindemann Fellow before taking up a Senior Research Fellowship at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge. In 1984 he was awarded the Adams Prize, one of the UK’s most prestigious mathematical awards. In 1985 he moved to Queen Mary and he became a Professor there in 1995. He has also held Visiting Professorships at various institutes in America, Canada, and Japan. His professional area of research is cosmology and astrophysics and includes such topics as the early universe, black holes, dark matter, and the anthropic principle. He is the author of around 300 papers and the books Universe or Multiverse? and Quantum Black Holes. He is also very interested in the role of consciousness as a fundamental rather than incidental feature of the Universe. In particular, he is developing a new psychophysical paradigm linking matter and mind which accommodates normal, paranormal, and mystical experiences. He also has a long-standing interest in the relationship between science and religion, especially Buddhism, having been the coholder of a grant from the Templeton Foundation for a project entitled “Fundamental Physics, Cosmology and the Problem of our Existence”. He is President of The Scientific and Medical Network and a former President of the Society for Psychical Research.

Transcript of this interview

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Interview recorded July 24, 2022

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.


YouTube Video Chapters:

  • 00:00:00 – Introduction to Buddha at the Gas Pump with Rick Archer
  • 00:06:07 – The Three Books that Awakened My Interests
  • 00:11:41 – The Origins of the Anthropic Principle
  • 00:17:09 – Fine Tunings in Physics
  • 00:23:05 – The Number of Fundamental Constants in Physics
  • 00:28:41 – The Fine Tuning and Theology
  • 00:34:21 – The Changing Nature of Science
  • 00:39:47 – The Possibility of Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter
  • 00:44:55 – The Possibility of Life in Different Universes
  • 00:50:31 – The Complexity Principle and the Hierarchy of Complexity
  • 00:56:20 – The Origin of Order in the Universe
  • 01:01:49 – The Existence of a Pre-Big Bang Mind
  • 01:07:31 – God’s Presence in the Universe
  • 01:12:42 – The Limits of Physics and Mathematics
  • 01:17:57 – Anomalies in the Standard Big Bang Model
  • 01:23:32 – Indirect Evidence of Fine Tuning and Containment of Superintelligence
  • 01:29:02 – Primordial Black Holes and Astronomical Observations
  • 01:34:07 – Connecting Science, Spirituality, and Psychical Research
  • 01:39:55 – Expanding Physics to Accommodate Consciousness
  • 01:45:51 – Expanding Science for Spirit
  • 01:51:53 – The Possibility of Levitation
  • 01:56:49 – Building a Bridge Between Mind and Spirit
  • 02:01:56 – The Reconciliation of Science and Religion
  • 02:07:34 – The Human Psyche and Probing Reality
  • 02:13:03 – Exploring the Mysteries of Reality
  • 02:18:26 – Extra dimensions and their implications
  • 02:23:55 – Hyperspatial Higher Dimensions and Consciousness
  • 02:29:40 – The Perception of Time and Consciousness
  • 02:34:51 – The Nature of Consciousness and Self-Identity
  • 02:40:09 – The Programmer of the Simulation
  • 02:44:54 – Wrapping up the Topics