When Science and Mysticism Merge

A conversation with cosmologist Dr. Bernard Carr

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Adam Jacobs: Let me start with this. In a periodical called Peri Perspectives, there's a wonderful article called Towards a Trans-Materialist Science of the Sacred, and there's a quote that I really liked that says, “The degree to which we focus on each of these worlds (and the worlds that you're referring to are sciences, humanities, and religious studies.) So they inevitably vary, but it's very important for both individuals and humanity as a whole to embrace them all because they are all sacred.” So, first of all, I relate to that very much. It strikes me as very critical and insightful, but I'm curious, what do you mean? What do you mean by saying that the humanities are sacred and science is sacred, and how do you understand the connection between all those ideas?

Bernard Carr: Well, first of all, I suppose my general fascination is with the three worlds of Matter, mind, and spirit. Those three worlds have various aspects, and in particular, what you were quoting there were, if you like, the three academic aspects of those three worlds. So, in academia, you have the sciences, you have the humanities, and you have religious studies. So that's what you were quoting. But I would say the remark is actually more general to the three worlds of matter, mind, and spirit. Because you don't often think of it as academic studies, I mean, you don't normally think of academic studies as being particularly sacred.

So, it might seem a bit odd to talk about academic studies as being sacred. So then the question is, in what sense are these three worlds sacred? Well, I suppose, let me go back a bit because what is particularly fascinating to me is the problem of consciousness. And, of course, the view some people take is that, well, the material world has nothing to do with consciousness. Consciousness has to do with the world of mind and maybe the world of spirit. But that's a view I disagree with because it seems to me that consciousness is fundamental to all three worlds.

Consciousness underlies our understanding of the physical world, not just the mental world because our understanding of the nature of matter comes from a mental model. A paradigm of physics is really a mental model. And so there are all sorts of arguments to say that, in fact, consciousness is fundamental even to the material world. So it's a mistake to think that consciousness is just there in the mental world, it's in all three worlds. Indeed, consciousness, in my perspective at least, is what links all three worlds now, going from consciousness to sacred.

Adam Jacobs: Right. I was going to ask you about that.

Bernard Carr: And that's a bit more subtle because it means, what do you mean by sacred? To me, justice means that there is consciousness in all three worlds. I would say that there is an element of the divine in all three worlds. Now, I have to be careful what I mean by divine because if I start talking about God, then you've got all sorts of semantic issues about what you mean by God. And, of course, there are many different concepts of God. But roughly speaking, what I'm saying is that not only is consciousness in all three worlds, but so is, I'll use the word God if you like, but so is the God or the divine presence in all three worlds. So, for example, if you are a believer in God, I would say that you should look for God in both the physical world and the mental and spiritual worlds.

You might say, oh, God, he's just the spiritual world in the spiritual domain. But no, I would say that God-like consciousness is in all three worlds, including the physical world. But again, I don't really like using the word God because it is so vague. But at least when I talk about God, I'm really talking about some, well, God obviously has many different qualities, but in particular, I associate God with some form of a great cosmic consciousness, some universal mind of which we are all apart. I mean, that's a fundamental viewpoint, which I take that all our individual minds are just reflections of some cosmic or universal mind, which, in some sense, you might relate to God or relate to some aspect of God. And so in everything then within my own particular model is contained within this universal mind. But this universal mind, in that sense, is also associated, if you like, with the universal spirit. And therefore that's the sense in which I'm saying all three worlds are sacred.

But it's partly a semantic question because I've gone from consciousness to sacred to God. So I mean, because all these terms are a little bit vague, but what I'm really saying is that although there are these three worlds, they are all connected. And you can't just partition them off and say, consciousness is in this world. God in this world, the sacred in this world, they're all connected. That's why when we talk about post-materialist science, we want a science that is, in some sense, going to accommodate all these three worlds. And, of course, that goes against the traditional mainstream pure science, which says, no, science is confined to the material world. And what I'm trying to say, and other people are trying to say, is that we must extend the principle of science to the domain of mind and the domain of spirits.

Adam Jacobs: So that sounds very much like the opposite of Stephen J. Gould's concept of the non-overlapping magisterial, right?

Bernard Carr: That's right. I mean, there is this view that you've got these non-overlapping magisterial. So although when I tend to show a diagram, I tend to draw these worlds as separate as three separate worlds. That's rather simplistic because the worlds are all connected. There are bridges between the worlds. And I sort of talk about in my various interviews and articles, I talk about the nature of those bridges. For example, the bridge between the material world and the mental world for me is in psychical research. Psychical research, although it's a controversial area, is trying to study scientifically the interactions of the mind and consciousness with the physical world, the bridge between the mental world and the spiritual world. Well, that comes into transpersonal psychology, but it also comes into the whole connection between arts and the spiritual. Because as I'm sure, I mean if you look at the origin of arts, either in literature or music or visual arts, it actually nearly always has a religious origin associated historically.

And if you're looking at the link between the material world and the spiritual world, well, I'm interested in something called the Anthropic Principle, which is saying they're fine tunings in the physical world, which can't be explained without references to consciousness and possibly even some divine creator, although that's not a popular idea. So the point I'm making is that these three worlds, although one might start off by representing them as distinct, they are all linked because they're formed with bridges. And so I'm not only saying that the divine, if you like, is in all three worlds, but that consciousness is in all three worlds. I'm actually saying that science should be in all three worlds as well. So what I'm really saying is one needs to, by building these bridges, you are actually going against the idea that you've got these independent magisteria that may be independent now, but you're trying to make them dependent or connected.

Adam Jacobs: There's certainly a cadre of scientists who were trying to do that and are trying to merge them. But there's also, and I was just speaking with Dr. Gomez Marin about this, there's a much larger group of scientists who seem to want to preserve the status quo of the separate,

Bernard Carr: That's simplest, right? But that doesn't mean it's true because you started off by pointing out how, in practice, most of us focus our activities on one particular world. If we're scientists, we focus on the scientific and material world. If we're an artist, we concentrate on the humanities world. If we're a mystic, we focus on the spiritual world. Nevertheless, you also pointed out how important it is to connect all these worlds. And so it doesn't surprise me sociologically that most scientists aren't in favor of this. In fact, not only scientists, but I would say that in all three worlds, most people probably want to remain independent.

Most mystics aren't particularly keen on forming an alliance with science because they think, oh, that's too reductionist, and we're going. It's too materialist because they have a preconception of what science is. And so it's not just the scientists who don't want this alliance, it's the mystics too, and maybe the artists as well, but they're always competing forces, some who want to keep these worlds separate and some who want to merge them. And this has always happened. And now you talk about most scientists. Well, actually, my impression is that most scientists are extreme scientists, sometimes called scientism, which is, if you like, the fundamentalist branch of science, which is rather akin to the fundamentalist branch of religion or Christianity.

And these are the ones who have a very narrow view of science, and they're the ones who say, right, the world is materialist. All that exists is matter. That's the only reality. Everything is reductionist in that everything can be reduced to the interaction of elementary particles. Consciousness is just an epiphenomenon used by the brain, and of course, God and any mystical experiences are all an illusion. So those are the four assumptions of, if you like, this extreme form of science, which is called scientism. And I disagree with that. And to me, fundamentalist science is just as dangerous as fundamentalist religion.

And I think the broader range of scientists are more tolerant than that. Now, I do think most scientists are not particularly interested in forming an alliance with these other worlds. So, most of my physicist friends are not interested in psychical research. And that's fine because you have to be in science now. You have to be very focused to be successful with this escalating knowledge, an ever-increasing amount of knowledge. The only way you can make a contribution in science is to be really narrow in your attention.

So it doesn't surprise me at all that most artists say, well, I just don't have time to be interested in these other domains because I have to focus on my research. And that's perfectly understandable, and I've never felt any urge to tell these people they're wrong and that they should be focusing on other things because that's true of life. But what I'm saying is, though, there is another, so if you like, there are the extremists who don't believe in any of these phenomena. The people who are just don't disbelieve them, but they just don't have time. But then there's another band of scientists, a smaller band of course, who are not only interested in these other phenomena but want to extend science to accommodate them. And I'm in that third category.

Adam Jacobs: Okay, so based on that, let me ask you a question. The handful of times that it was proposed that someone had a solution for nuclear fusion, the world got very excited about this incredible discovery, and it was looked into, and it was in the popular press, and so on and so forth.

Bernard Carr: Are you talking about fusion?

Adam Jacobs: Yeah.

Bernard Carr: Yeah. Okay.

Adam Jacobs: If there are people who are in the process of demonstrating psychical research is real, and I'm talking about places like the Division of Perceptual Studies and The Institute of Noetic Sciences and all the contributions that you're making, and Dr. Gomez Marin, there are people out there who are evidencing pretty solidly. It seems to me, although I'm a layman, that these phenomena are real. Wouldn't you think that this would make the cover of Nature and Time magazine, and isn't this such a revolutionary introduction of a concept that the world, including the world of science, should be flocking to see if it's true?

Bernard Carr: Well, first of all, bear in mind, the subject is now, I mean, 140 years old; the Society for Psychical Research is almost 140 years old. It was founded 140 years ago. And you could argue the subject is much older than that. But the more recent studies, laboratory studies are more recent. More recently, they go back to the 1930s with Ryan. But the point is, in that period, there have been periods when there have been occasions when the subject got a lot of press, when it was in the front of the newspapers, normally controversially.

But what you're really asking is why has the subject not obtained more scientific recognition after 140 years? Because it is true. It still is very controversial, and many people, like the Scientism Group, would say that these phenomena are just all loosey. They don't exist at all. Well, I would say, first of all, the reason is that I mean, I would say actually that the evidence now from the literature is pretty overwhelming. Still, you have to be very careful when you talk about psychic phenomena. You have to be very careful to specify exactly which ones you're talking about because they're phenomenal, like telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition, which are studied in the laboratory.

And I would say there's pretty good evidence for that. I mean, just from experimental work, there's the evidence from psychokinesis, which is mind physically affecting matter, which is maybe more controversial because it's more open to fraud. But I'd say there's pretty good evidence for that, too. But that's one class of phenomena. But there are other phenomena that are sort of more experiential, like ghosts, out-of-body experiences, and near-death experiences. The question is not whether the phenomenon is real. What's the interpretation?

Is it just in the mind, or does it represent some higher level of reality? And so you've got, when you talk about why people are, or the main body of scientists are still skeptical, you've got to be careful to divide the phenomena. I mean, for example, there are mystical experiences, and most people, those scientists are not going to say, well, mystical experiences are rubbish or illusory because most people would claim they're not sort of applicable in a scientific way anyway, even most mystics would say these phenomena go beyond science. The problem with psychical research is that the phenomena actually purport to be studied scientifically.

That's the problem, you see. So long as you say, well, the mystical phenomena have nothing to do with science, and the scientists aren't going to get upset. But when you start talking about psychic phenomena, which can apparently be studied scientifically and demand an expansion of science or an expansion of physics, that's when people get upset. So that's where the opposition comes from. Now, when you ask the question, why is it still not accepted? I mean, partly, there is that sociological factor that causes people to be prejudiced against it. But the main reason I would say is simply that the effect is weak. I mean, it's a very weak effect. And even if telepathy exists, it's clear that we don't use it in everyday life. We prefer to read an email than to depend on telepathic Communication.

When we cross the road, we prefer to use our eyes than to use clairvoyant knowledge of the car. And so it's a small effect, and you can understand why it must be small. If we all had a hundred percent psychic ability, life would be dreadful if we knew what was in everybody's mind, if we knew what all knew what was going to happen tomorrow.

So it's a tiny effect, and I think that's one of the reasons it's still regarded as controversial. It's such a small effect, a small effect. Furthermore, it's a small effect that often goes away when you start. We have what's called the decline effect in laboratory work, where when you look at the phenomenon, it starts off with very positive results. And then as time goes on, the effect seems to go down. Now, you could ask why a skeptic would say that's because it's all fraudulent unless you tighten up your experimental conditions, and the effect goes away. I would say it's more complicated than that, that there are psychological factors involved in the decline effect. But my personal view is that there is an effect there. And I always say that even if you regard the probability of these phenomena as being small, the significance for science would be so huge that you should study them.

So even if you accept the view that these phenomena only have a 1% chance of being real, their significance would be so enormous that you should put effort into studying them. The fact of the matter is that historically, the amount of effort that has gone into studying these phenomena is tiny, both in terms of the number of people studying them but also in terms of the amount of money that goes into them. I mean, there are really only of order a hundred active parapsychologists in the world. In contrast, the number of psychologists is probably 10,000, and the number of biologists is a hundred thousand.

Sorry, it's probably much more than that. I don't have the precise figures, but it's a tiny amount of effort that has gone into psychical research over the last 140 years, both in terms of the number of people and the amount of money. And so we shouldn't be surprised that he hasn't made the same sort of progress. And it has established the same sort of credibility as I see other mainstream subjects. But I would say that the evidence for some phenomena in parapsychology is just as good as it is for some more mainstream psychological phenomena or, indeed, for some pharmaceutical claims.

So I would just say that I do think there is. Personally, I think there is good evidence for the phenomena, but you have to be careful which phenomena you're talking about because, obviously, people, the term Psi covers a multitude of sins, so to speak. And there will be some people who will start talking about UFOs and pyramid power and things.

Say, well, we shouldn't take that seriously. I mean, I'm not going to say which phenomena should be taken seriously or not because opinions differ. But I'm just saying you have to be discriminating when you start talking about whether the phenomena are real or not. But then you've got to be aware of this enormous social sociological pressure against accepting the subject. And I think the main point is, though, that most of the evidence for sigh actually comes from experience. There is evidence from laboratory work, but originally, the interest in the subject arose because people have experiences. Most people who study parapsychology are interested in the phenomena because they've had experiences. And that's, I think, the crucial point because, by and large, science has always been rather reluctant to start talking about experience or about consciousness because that is in the domain of mind. So the very fact that there is a prejudice against keeping the mind out of physics, rather than prejudice to keep the mind out of physics, inevitably implies a prejudice against psychical research. So that's a rather long answer, but I hope I made the point.

Adam Jacobs: Yes, no, you did. And it's a point well taken and good for me to keep in mind actually as I explore these things. But I wanted to ask you about the concept of time. I saw a video that you did with Bernardo Kastrup recently in which you draw a distinction between mental time versus physical time, and you hold that the mental is more fundamental. So I've got two questions based on that. First of all, I know this is a broad topic, but what does it mean that mental time is more fundamental? Let's start with that. What does that mean?

Bernard Carr: Well, first of all, let me point out that what interests me is consciousness. And the crucial feature of consciousness is the passage of time. And so when people argue that consciousness is fundamental, and that really underlies a lot of these sorts of paradigms, the one which I'm proposing, but also more generally, when people argue that consciousness is fundamental, that's also saying, well, therefore the passage of time is fundamental.

Okay. Now, when physicists talk about time, originally, we had the Newtonian picture of time where time was absolute, but then later on, of course, at the beginning of the 20th century, we adopted the eyesight view of time, which says that space and time emerged as part of four-dimensional space-time. I mean, there's no doubt that is a proper, accurate description of the physical will. Because we understand the behavior of clocks in special relativity and in general relativity, which is the theory of gravity. We understand that very well.

It's been tested with enormous precision. We know that clocks slow down when objects move and that the clocks slow down in a gravitational field. All of those phenomena have been tested with amazing precision. So, we know that Einstein's theory of general relativity works with great precision. However, the paradox is that there is nothing in Einstein's theory of relativity that describes the passage of time as being associated with consciousness. So, for example, if you imagine, imagine you've got space-time, which is compressed, say, into two dimensions. We can think of our own bodies or our brains as following a line in that four, I'll make it two dimensional so we can envisage it. Okay? So you think of your brain as having a world line in this two-dimensional space, which is time and upwards and space horizontally.

Now, you intuitively imagine that the passage of time is rather like a bead which is going along. If you like the world line of your brain, think of the world line as a wire. You think of the passage of time as a bead traversing going along that wire. But the trouble is that makes no sense in relativity because in relativity theory, past presence and future coexist, if you like it, space time is frozen. So, there is no passage of time. And that's why Einstein himself said that the passage of time is just a stubbornly persistent illusion because there is nothing in physics which identifies that passage.

Now, another aspect of this is that we think we have a decision; we have free will, so we can make a decision. So we're going on a walk and can decide whether to go left or right. That's our intuitive understanding. But the trouble is, again, that makes no sense within what's called the block universe picture of relativity, because in the block universe, the future is fixed, the future, the past, and the present coexists. And so the two features of consciousness, which are so fundamental, the passage of time and the ability to make a choice, are not described by relativity theory, which is our fundamental physical theory of time. And that's why Einstein said it was a delusion. So what a stubbornly persistent delusion.

However, there's no doubt we do experience a passage of time, but most philosophers have sort of inferred, well, yes, but the passage of time is purely a feature of mind. It's not a feature of the physical world. And in that sense, maybe it's an illusion, but the trouble is you see the people like me who are trying to expand physics to accommodate mind and to accommodate consciousness. You can't just say it's a matter of philosophy and not physics because we're trying to have a theory of physics that will accommodate consciousness and, therefore, the passage of time.

But what is clear is that this theory must go beyond relativity theory. And furthermore, it must go beyond quantum theory because quantum theory, the role of timing quantum theory, is a little bit different. But quantum theory also doesn't give you a description of mental experience. Its quantum theory is interesting because, for the first time, it says that consciousness, the observer, can maybe interact with the world and collapse the wave function, but it still doesn't describe the mental experience.

It doesn't explain my dream, my out-of-body experience, or anything like that. So the point is to explain consciousness; you have to go beyond relativity theory and beyond quantum theory. But that's no surprise because we know that the final theory of physics has got to somehow marry up quantum theory and relativity theory. Because we know that quantum theory works supremely well in the macro domain,

Rather, quantum theory works in the micro domain, relativity in the macro domain. But those two theories are incompatible. So we know there has to be a final theory of physics which is going to merge them in some way. So what I'm saying is that final theory of physics is where you're going to find mind and consciousness. You're not going to find it in relativity theory, and you're not going to find it in quantum theory. And so when people say, oh, it can't be real because it's incompatible with physics, that makes no sense to me because we don't know what the final theory of physics is.

What we should infer is that if you're going to find consciousness in physics, it will have to be in this extended physics, which goes beyond relativity theory and quantum theory. Now, you come to the question of what that final theory is. Now, the approach I particularly like invokes hard dimensions, which go beyond the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time, and I could talk about that to some lengths, but I won't unless you ask me to. You will have heard all about superstrings and M theory, where you've got these extra dimensions.

I mean, in M theory, you have seven extra dimensions. So you have the three dimensions of space, one dimension of time, and you have these seven extra dimensions. Now, in the normal picture, these seven extra dimensions are compactified very small, so you don't see them. They're compactified on what's called the plank scale. However, there are other theories and versions of M theory, some of which can be extended. So, for example, the theory I like says, well, we'll take one of these extra dimensions and extend it.

Then what you say is our material world is just like a slice. We call it a brain, B-R-A-N-E, in this five-dimensional bulk, BULK. And so that's an idea coming from mainstream physics. I mean, not everybody believes it, but it's a picture that comes from mainstream physics. And so what I say is, well, if reality is hard dimensional like this, and if the material world is just a slice of this, what else is there? Well, the only things I'm aware of are my mental experiences, my mental space, my dream space, my memory space, my outer body space, my mystical state. So, for me, it seems very natural to say, well, this hard dimensional space of physics can actually accommodate mental and even spiritual experience.

Now. But I'm now coming back to your original question, which is time, because I haven't yet said, I've said that there's no passage of time, but now I want to say how this passage of time can fit into this hard dimensional picture. Well, one way you remember I said that in the simple Einstein picture, four dimensional picture, the future is predetermined and there is no passage of time. One way of representing the passage of time is to say there's an extra dimension, which, if you like, corresponds to mental time. Actually, this is quite an old philosophical idea.

So if you have an extra time dimension, which, of course, refers to mental time, then you can describe the passage of time, and you can explain an evolving future. This is sometimes called the evolving block or growing block universe. Picture the block universe says that past, present, and future are fixed. The growing block universe says, well, the past is fixed, but the future is still open. And so that can be accommodated within this fifth dimension. And so what I like I simply say is, well then, why don't we associate this extra dimension of time with this hard dimension of the brain picture, which I've already referred to.

But that's the first step. This is not mainstream cosmology. I mean, the brain is a mainstream physics view, identifying this extra dimension of the bulk with the past mental time. That's not a mainstream view, but it's my own view. But there's one more component to this model, and this is what's called a specious present. Now, the specious present is the minimum timescale of consciousness. Now, for human beings, that's something like a 10th of a second. By this, I mean that you can't experience anything on a timescale less than a 10th of a second. For example, I often do a demonstration, which I think I can do with Zoom. If I have a light going around in a circle, you'll see it going around as motion. But if it goes around more than 10 times a second, you won't see it as motion. You'll see it as basically a circle.

We can't experience any passage of time in a time less than about a 10th of a second. On the other hand, we can't experience the passage of time on too long a scale either. I mean, what that scale is is a bit vague. It might be something to do with the memory time scale of a thousand seconds. So, our experience of consciousness is only confined to a very narrow range of times. Now, very arrogantly, humans assume that the only consciousness in the universe is theirs. They assume that we are the combination of complexity, the final achievement of evolution. Some people think they are only conscious beings. I think that's very, very arrogant. I don't see why consciousness shouldn't exist on all sorts of different levels, obviously within the animal kingdom. I think I would argue that most animals they seem conscious and have some form of consciousness. Obviously, you argue about how low you go. I mean, do cells have consciousness? But the point is this consciousness will be operating on different timescales. For example, we would assume that a plant, for example, is not conscious, but if you speed up a plant, the form of a plant and its tendrils grow. It looks like it's acting as a conscious being.

I'm not saying plants are conscious, but I'm just saying it looks as though they are. And you look at the cellular level, and people say, well, of course, cells aren't conscious, but then you, that's on a higher time scale. Again, they seem to be operating as though with some sort of purpose, as far as I'm concerned, consciousness could be everywhere in the universe because obviously there are all sorts of different scales of structure in the universe microscopic to the macroscopic. I don't see why consciousness shouldn't exist on all those different scales as well because you just have to have a physical system, which is sufficiently complicated if you like to act as a filter of consciousness and to have a couple, a memory, some form of map of the universe. For example, I don't, in principle, see why a computer couldn't have a consciousness with a species presence of a nanosecond.

I'm not saying it will because that's commercial, and I don't see why there might not be some form of extra-galactic civilization with a specious presence of a million years; who can tell? However, because the point is these different levels of consciousness wouldn't interact with each other in normal consciousness, we would not be aware of these other levels of consciousness on either a much smaller or a much longer time scale. So, the point I'm making is that consciousness, in my view, could exist on all sorts of different timescales, of which the human experience is just one example. So, it's rather like the electromagnetic spectrum.

We know we only perceive humans only perceive radiation over a narrow range of frequencies and visible light. And I would say consciousness is probably like that. We only experience consciousness over a narrow range of timescales, maybe a 10th of a second to a thousand seconds or whatever. But I think consciousness could exist on a much larger scale, on a much wider range of scales, so that you could have a sort of hierarchy of consciousness.

Adam Jacobs: Yes. Just to run with that for a second, you talk about it. No, I appreciate everything that you're saying very much. You talk about a hierarchy of consciousness, and from what I understand, you believe that we are separate on the lowest levels but become more unified on the higher levels. Is that correct?

Bernard Carr: Yes. This is very important. I mean, underlying this, though, I should say, is the idea that consciousness is not generated by the brain, but it's filtered through the brain. Now, this is quite an old idea. It goes back to William James and Berkson and people like that. Of course, 90% of neurosciences are not going to take this seriously. It will be taken as axiomatic that consciousness is produced by the brain. But I would say there's no direct evidence for that.

There is clearly a correlation between what goes on in the brain and what you experience when you are alive or when you're awake, but that doesn't show that the brain generates the consciousness. And the metaphor, which is often used is one of its television. If you look at a television, no one would ever imagine all the little characters on the television screen. It might be your presidential candidates giving their speeches. No one would imagine that the presidential candidates are actually in the tv. We know somewhere else. And so the argument is, well, the brain is like that. The brain your experience is not in the brain, but the experience is merely filtered through the brain.

And it's actually not easy to test that, even though it's a non-mainstream view. There are claims that this is true. For example, it's argued that people having a near-death experience is evidence that you can have consciousness when the brain is flatlined their cases of, for example, terminal lucidity, when people have been suffering from Alzheimer's in their moment of death, when the brain, in some senses, is ceasing to function, then become lucid towards the end. But anyway, if you take that view, what it's really saying is that all our little consciousnesses are just fragments of this bigger universal consciousness. Consciousness, I always say, with a big C.

And so then the question is, what is the relationship between consciousness with a big C and consciousness with a little C? Because what is implicit here is that actually all these little consciousnesses, although we appear to be separate in this world, on this level of reality, you and I are separate. Nevertheless, the idea is that we're all reflections of this unified consciousness so that at a deep enough level, you and I are the same, the one eye, and if you like, Now, that raises all sorts of issues. I mean, if there's only one I, why did it fragment into billions of I’s? I mean, on this planet, at least, there are 8 billion I’s, and maybe throughout the universe, many more billions of I’s.

And so it raises all sorts of fascinating issues like, why am I me and not you, for example? I won't get into that because that's a long detour, but nevertheless, that's the picture I favor: we're all linked by one consciousness. But then you say, what's the evidence? Well, I would say that you can have experiences of mystical experiences when you become aware,

You become aware that you are one, not only with the other consciousness but also with the outside world. You overcome this dualistic picture. You become one with the outside world and one with your lover or whatever. And then you may have another even higher level of consciousness in which you become one with the whole universe and, if you like, with the universal mind. So in my own view, it's not just a matter of little consciousness and little C consciousness and big C consciousness, there is like a hierarchy.

So, for example, you might say there is an individual human consciousness. Maybe there's a planetary level of consciousness. Maybe there's a galactic level of consciousness. Maybe there's a cosmic level of consciousness. So, at each stage, the speech is present, if you like, getting bigger to relate it to the previous conversation. So I would say there is a hierarchy and that in an altered state of consciousness, which obviously not many people have, but in an altered state of consciousness, you might, in principle, get evidence for that connection. And so it's an apathy, for example. I would say that's evidence that two individuals can, in some sense, fuse their consciousness.

Adam Jacobs: Do you believe that it's a singularity? Do you believe that the ultimate consciousness is a oneness?

Bernard Carr: Well, did you say the ultimate reality?

Adam Jacobs: Ultimate consciousness.

Bernard Carr: Yeah. I mean, I would say there is ultimately only one consciousness, but I would also argue that there is only one mind, and then you get into semantic questions of what you mean by mind and what you mean by consciousness. And you have to make a distinction between the contents of consciousness and the actual consciousness itself. I would say in my particular model that when one talks about the contents of consciousness, that is a matter of space. You need an extended space because I argue that most mental experiences and most spiritual experiences involve some form of space that is different from physical space.

And it's that extended space which I'm associated with these high dimensional theories. When you ask about consciousness, that's a deeper question because then you're asking about the nature of time; as I said, because consciousness depends crucially on the concept of a species present and my own approach, there is a link between these hard dimensions and these different levels of time because the hierarchy of consciousness corresponds, if you like, to a hierarchy of times. I mean, I referred before to this mental time as though there's just one mental time.

Actually, in my approach, there is a hierarchy of times, not just one time. There's a hierarchy of times corresponding to a hierarchy of species, presence corresponding to a hierarchy, levels of consciousness, and indeed corresponding to a hierarchy of selves. The point is you and I are separate cells at this level because we're separate cells relative to a species presence of a 10th of a second. If you experience consciousness with a much longer species present, we may be part of the same.

So, for example, you may have a near-death experience, and one of the features of a near-death experience is that you seem to have a life review where you see your whole life instantly. So you don't see a passage of time. Your whole life appears as one moment because you are viewing that from the perspective of a consciousness whose specious presence is more than a hundred years

Now, I have to say, though, that all of this is my wild speculation. I'm not saying this is definitely correct. I don't think most of my physics friends are going to be very happy with this idea of applying M theory to consciousness. So I just say that as a word of caution. It's my particular theory, and neither the scientists nor even the mystics, nor even the parapsychologists necessarily are going to agree with me.

So I mean, I've been working on these ideas for 50 years, and sometimes I feel this has to be right. I feel this is my message for humanity. It must be correct because I've been thinking about these for so long, but other times, I have to confess, I wake up in the middle of the night and think, oh, this is all crazy. What am I doing?

Adam Jacobs: Well, let me pivot. We're coming towards the end of our allotted time, unfortunately, because there is so much rich information here that I am really enjoying mining. But let's talk about the sociological imports of these ideas for a moment.
There's a story that I like. I think this is a Talmudic story of a person who is cutting vegetables, and their right hand inadvertently cuts their left hand. And so it talks about how insane it would be for the left hand to pick up the knife and cut the right one back because, obviously, they're unified on a higher level. They appear to be separate items on the lower level. But if your view of reality were to become widely accepted, which I assume you hope it will be, what do you see as the implications for humanity? Will we be better as a result? Will we respect each other more? Will we have more peace in the world? What might happen?

Bernard Carr: Well, that's a very interesting question, and in a way, I mean, one answer is to say, well, if we appreciate that we're all connected, you might say that means we will act in a more humane way. We'll treat each other better, sometimes called the golden rule. Do as you will be done to because, in some sense, what I do to you is what I'm doing to myself on this higher level. So you could say that if the whole world, but if the whole world were to accept this view that we're all basically one person which, you might want to associate with God.

You might say, well, that means it is going to be a better world. And I do think this is important because the world is facing a crisis. I mean, we've got all these catastrophes, we've got these wars which are wiping out lots of people. We've got got natural dangers, obviously global warming. We've got the threat of nuclear war and the possibility of being hit by asteroids. Well, sorry, let's focus on the things that result from humanity's actions, such as extraterrestrial dangers. I mean, and you might say, well, if people knew this, they would be more aware of the need to be humane and not just to human beings, to preserve the planet.

If you take the view that there is a sort of planetary level of consciousness, you realize that you have to have respect for that and that the planet also needs to survive. I mean, this obviously is rather the Gaia-type language. So you might argue, therefore, that if one were to accept this view, it would make the world more humane and more civilized. I'm not really completely convinced of this. And I have to say, when I have these theories, I'm not trying to change the world. I'm an academic; I'm a theorist. In my professional field is cosmology, so I'm more of a theorist, and I've never argued having this theory of mind and spirit or whatever is going to make the world more spiritual. For example. I mean, I have all these theories about mystical experience and what it corresponds to, but I can't claim or promote. It makes me more spiritual, and I dunno; I'd like it, but in a way, I'd like to think it would eventually, but not for any long time, on any immediate timescale.

I mean, when one talks about this post-materialist paradigm, it's saying you're expanding science to accommodate mental and spiritual phenomena. And that, in some sense, implies that the scientists have to become more spiritual, and obviously, they're going to react to gates. That's one reason why the scientists aren't very happy with this idea. And so I think in the long term, you can have this vision that you are going to have a view of humanity becoming more spiritual. And because I think consciousness, in some sense, in the universe is evolving, and evolution, of course, has been evolving on a physical level. Still, I think you can also envision there being evolution on a mental and spiritual level.

And in some sense, I feel that's the purpose of the universe. We should evolve. But the time skills we're talking about are very, very long. And I would like to think that this spiritual evolution is sort of going, I suppose, in parallel with the evolution of our understanding of nature, if you like our physical paradigm. So you've got your spiritual evolution, and if you like your physical theoretical evolution, our understanding of the world, because these are the three worlds again.

And so they are linked in some way, but I think the timescales are very long, and I certainly don't think the whole evolution of post-material science is only going to take place on the timescale of a hundred years, and I suspect there's a great risk. Humanity won't survive that long anyway. It's rather like people argue that a lot of people believe that our consciousness survives death. Now, it is true that one of the implications of this idea that consciousness is not generated by the brain is that consciousness does not necessarily survive death. We may go on and be reincarnated or whatever version we have of life after death. Well, most physicists tend not to believe in life after death, but humanity does. I mean, billions of people believe there is life after death. And so you might ask, well, has this made people better behave?

Well, actually, I would say not. I mean, you look in those countries where they believe that this life is just one of many, well, say somewhere like India, for example, where most people believe in reincarnation. Does that mean they behave better? I don't think it does necessarily. In a certain way, it cheapens life, you know what I mean? Because you think, well, you get another shot at it. It doesn't matter if I kill you now because you'd be reborn. It doesn't matter if you have a million people. They're all going to be reborn and probably in a better world. So, it's not always obvious that adopting a spiritual worldview is necessarily going to make the world better because, often, adopting a spiritual view makes you demean the material world.

I'm also against that because although I'm arguing that one has to go beyond the material domain, one shouldn't actually underestimate the importance of the material domain. We're clearly here for a reason. Whatever the reason is that the universe exists and our consciousness is embedded in the physical world, it clearly has a reason. And so, it's rather a convoluted answer to your question, but it involves many different issues. And I mean, this even happens in the presidential election, which you're having right now because you've got the three worlds there. You've got issues with material, domain issues in the mental domain, and issues in the religious domain. So it comes in there as well.

Adam Jacobs: That's fascinating. That is a really interesting answer to that question. It wasn't the one I was expecting, but I think it's very honest and opens up a whole different can of worms, which, unfortunately, we don't have time for now. But I just wanted to take a moment and thank you for your time and for your work, which I'm thoroughly enjoying. And I do have a secret hope, which I'm sure you do too, that maybe once this information gets out there and people learn how to use it in the best way possible to integrate it in such a way that it does create better behavior and more satisfying lives for more people, then I think it'll be doing a very important service. Either way, it's fascinating, and I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me today.

Bernard Carr: My pleasure. And I agree with what you just said, but every discovery in science has always had positive and negative aspects. Maybe that's even true of this new paradigm I'm talking about. It may have positive and negative aspects.

Adam Jacobs: We will see.

Bernard Carr: We will see.

Adam Jacobs: Yes. Thank you so much.

Bernard Carr: I've much enjoyed the interview.

Adam Jacobs: Likewise. Alright, have a great day.

Bernard Carr: Thank you.