you
[Applause]
a few months ago when I just started
coming up with this TEDx talk I had
plans to kind of go into some fun little
philosophical topics and concepts with
you but what I had not planned for at
the time was that I would lose my voice
the day before the presentation so if I
sound a little rushed it’s because I’m
in a lot of pain with talking so right
off the bat in order for us to get to
the conclusion that I want to make in
the time that I want to get there I need
you all to forget everything that your
senses have ever taught you about
reality cool all right moving on
the reason that I want you to do that is
because I believe that our perception of
reality is flawed at the fundamental
level which is why I called my talk
fundamentals
the only reason see we go through our
day-to-day life believing that the world
around us is made up of separate objects
stage chairs papers and this is not the
case see in reality we evolved in such a
way that our senses pick up and discern
separate parts of our environment so
that we could pick up distinct groups of
what might be a danger to us or what we
might be able to eat and in order for me
to continue and for you to feel
comfortable kind of putting this into
your brain I need to make something
clear which is that there are no lines
in the room so you’re good and if you’re
hungry like me you’ll be able to get
food later so you don’t need to be
looking out for that see a thing what we
call a thing is really a unit of reality
it is a single idea attached to a
certain group of molecules and but in
actuality there is never actually any
objective separation between one thing
and another thing it’s all one big group
of molecules and energy and matter
exchanging and moving around
see and that’s a thing that if you think
about for a while becomes part of your
common sense but I know that some of you
might have just been introduced to the
head a few seconds ago so don’t worry
I’ll go into that a bit more right now I
want to go into another concept that
reality and the universe as it exists
outside of our brain is completely
unimaginable because that goes back to
the question the first question that
really made you think about the true
nature of reality when a tree falls in a
forest and there is no one there to hear
it doesn’t make a sound
see the answer to this question is no
because when a tree falls it creates
vibrations in the air molecules which
travel outwards and if there is someone
there to pick up those molecules it hits
their eardrum which sends a signal back
to their brain and then creates the
sensation of sound what the movement of
air particles creates the sensation of
sound a completely unique phenomenon the
brain completely made up its own way to
into to interpret movement and made it
into sound and this logic and train of
thought can get a little bit out of
hands when you go into things like light
because light is a particle called a
photon and a photon in itself doesn’t
really look like anything until it hits
the iris bounces off and doesn’t bounce
off it bounces off of an object goes
into the pupil and then sends a signal
back to the brain creates the
Association of looking like anything
which means that in between you and me
right now the universe smells feels
looks sounds and tastes like nothing and
if you’d like to get a kind of idea of
what looking like nothing is it’s not
darkness because darkness is the human
interpretation of the absence of light
try to look at the back of your head
right now close your eyes and try to see
what it looks like through the back of
your head notice that there is darkness
in
front of you but there is just purely
so we finds that reality is this kind of
big ball of indescribable
wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff its
jiggly it’s just exchanging matter and
energy because if we look at a single
system of things say a plant we call it
a plant say that it is a distinct
organism a distinct part of its
environment but if we look at all the
systems if we look at the energy and the
matter that it uses to make itself has
already been cycling throughout the
environment before it and it will
continue after it and so it’s not really
even a thing it is the unit that we
assigned to this certain group of
molecules that is jiggling around a
little bit slower and so we can look at
things the same way that we do look at
waves because when we look at a wave
it’s not actually a single thing see a
wave is just this body of water that we
call a wave we have a noun for it even
though it’s less of a noun and more of a
process of water rising up moving along
from one second to another it’s never
the same thing and it’s not even
separate from the rest of the ocean like
every other objects that we assign a
name to now this idea includes you
because you it’s a pretty well-known
fact that you know every seven years
every cell in your body is replaced by
things that you’ve eaten or the oxygen
that you’ve Britain breathed and this
include and so when we try to draw the
separation between what we are and what
we are not if we look at a sandwich on a
plate when you eat the sandwich first
you don’t identify it as you but when it
once it enters you nothing inherently
about the sandwich changes may be well
the texture and the the grouping that
makes it does but what does change is
our perception of it
nothing else does its no laws are broken
no rips in the fabric of space/time are
made it’s just the perception the unit
that we assigned to it changes and then
the sandwich becomes us but see this
isn’t what we experience what we
experience are very separate sensation
fields consciousnesses our
consciousnesses don’t like ripple into
each others I’m not experiencing what
you’re experiencing and you’re all
having completely different experiences
from each other I mean you’re all facing
this way but so and I’m going for the
rest of my talk I’m going to be saying
that a consciousness is made of
sensations and I’m using the word
sensations pretty broadly here I’m using
sensations as in anything that is
perceived anything that you feel
including the thoughts that you listen
to in your head when you picture
something or imagine it the vague image
that appears anything that you perceive
I’m calling a sensation because it is a
completely unique phenomenon and
recently neurologists have made a lot of
progress in figuring out which neurons
in their brain are responsible for which
images which ideas when we remember or
picture something and especially in
technologies like machine learning based
analysis of human functional magnetic
resonance imaging patterns or fMRI for
short however you get fMRI from that it
uses AI that recognizes the patterns
certain patterns and charges in the
neurons in your head and can then
project a recognized image onto a screen
it’s not great but it’s really cool this
is literally mind-reading technology
but this is still not a sensation this
is still a physical reaction happening
the world and so neurologists have from
Georgia Tech UCLA have started coming to
the consensus that the brain in itself
cannot create sensations without there
being a previous property of the
universe which does allow consciousness
and the sensations that make it to exist
and so with this in mind with the with
the idea that this property that is
using you to express itself that the
molecules in your brain and body have
already been circling around the
universe before you and will continue on
after you the next statement sounds kind
of mean at first but it gets much better
you created nothing new when you create
when you came into this world no new
forces or laws of nature were made and
yet it feels like there was a beginning
to you it feels like there was a part
that separates what you remember from
what you don’t and the crazy thing about
sensations the crazy thing about that
consciousness that feels like it is a
separate thing is that it’s felt
sensations are the one thing that are
felt and so we have to ask the question
felt by what what is feeling all the
reactions going on in your head
see it’s the universe that possesses the
molecules in your brain and body that
make you and it is the universe that
possesses the properties that allow you
to have consciousness
and so when we ask the question what is
aware that you are thinking right now
the answer is that you are not a single
person experiencing the universe you are
instead the universe experiencing the
phenomenon of a single person at a
single time but you know we kind of want
to feel that you know if we were
everything then we want to be omniscient
omnipotent all-knowing or all-powerful
if we really were everything we would
want to become or be a god but we don’t
feel like that so let me fix that for
you see right now you identify this as
you but even though you identify this as
you you’re not inherently aware of the
millions of incredibly important
interactions going on in it and you’re
also not consciously in control of it in
the same way that you’re not consciously
aware of your breathing but in spite of
that since the beginning of my talk
but you haven’t been thinking about it
but as soon as you do become consciously
aware that you are breathing you can
then take a deep breath or blow all of
your air out and you come can become to
a certain extent consciously aware of it
and you can control it and so we see and
so we see that the lines between what we
are in control and what we are not in
control of are blurred even though we
are not consciously aware of it because
you are circulating the blood in your
veins you are firing off the charges in
your head even though you are not
consciously aware of it you are doing it
using the same laws that exist outside
of your body that are letting you live
inside your body and so there is no
separation between we between what we
are and are not in control and I’m not
saying that means that we’re not in
control of anything and I’m also not
saying that means that we are in control
of everything I’m saying that there is
no difference between the two that your
will is not separate from the natural
processes of the universe all right my
thought experiment is this imagine just
for one second that you are everything
that you are that that’s in that’s your
yearbook picture just everything that
exists everything that will exist
everything that ever has exists
identifies as you but really the only
way that a you like that could
experience anything was through some
biological sensory systems through a
brain that allowed all these processes
to happen and a body that had to be kept
alive and of course this happens
multiple times because the properties
that allow you to exist exist throughout
the entire universe and so there
happened to be a planet where it
happened multiple times and so of you
and so you expand experiencing yourself
from multiple perspectives but if that
were the case if that was what was
happening then wouldn’t our experience
be just a pinpoint inside this vast
ocean of nothing the complete experience
of nothing throughout the rest of the
universe
but what we forget is that the lack of
an experience cannot be an experience it
can only be experienced in contrast to
something that is being experienced like
trying to look out the back of your head
if you try to find the part that
separates what you see from what you do
not see there is no direct line there
there is no definite separation and so
we find that there is no separation
between what we experience and what we
do not experience and wound and so the
universe has two sides it has the
conscious experience made purely of
sensations of freewill made purely of
all of these things that make our
experience so amazing and then the other
side which is made of whatever the
universe is like in its unobserved state
it’s nothing that we can describe or
come close to imagining it’s and so we
find that the that we bring beauty and
meaning and purpose to the universe we
bring this entire auditorium into
existence through our senses not
consciously aware of it but we are doing
it and so we find that the universe is
in us and we are in it and of course it
isn’t us and we are in it and it’s two
sides of the same coin each side needs
the other to be anything at all like the
nothingness in your experience can only
exist in comparison to the something
that is in front of you but we put
ourselves down and we think about things
like how insignificant we are compared
to the vastness of outer space and we
think about how we’re just this tiny
chemical reaction happening on this rock
that doesn’t really mean anything
or we believe that we have our own soul
that secludes us from the rest of
existence or we believe that we are just
off in this corner of the universe that
we’ll never really have any impact on
anything further out than our backyard
and those thoughts and statements can
hurt and they can bring you down
especially when you’re a self-doubting
teen who just wants to try to find more
meaning in life than getting good grades
that we can get into a good college so
that I can find a job that I love so
that I can work love working and then
retire and die in peace
that’s our goal in life the end goal is
the goal we don’t realize that this
moment the sensation fills moment is the
purpose two sides of the universe this
is the point this exact moment I know
you would love to leave but this moment
is the point and so you aren’t God
really in the Western sense of the word
you know there is no separation it’s a
bit more humble than that there’s no
separation between what you are and what
you are not no separation between what
you experience and what you do not
experience and no separation between
what you are in control of and what you
are not in control of and so now that I
have kind of the basics down I think I
so now my presentation starts when you
go outside and you listen as Alan Watts
put it to the Jazz of everything the
people jazz the car jazz the bird jazz
the ants jazz and look at all of it kind
of mixed together and form the life jazz
and then it makes us out into the rest
of the universe and becomes the
everything jazz and realize that there
is no difference between your jazz and
that jazz because you are not a single
person experiencing the universe as I
said you are the universe experiencing
the phenomenon of a single person thank
you you
[Applause]
a few months ago when I just started
coming up with this TEDx talk I had
plans to kind of go into some fun little
philosophical topics and concepts with
you but what I had not planned for at
the time was that I would lose my voice
the day before the presentation so if I
sound a little rushed it’s because I’m
in a lot of pain with talking so right
off the bat in order for us to get to
the conclusion that I want to make in
the time that I want to get there I need
you all to forget everything that your
senses have ever taught you about
reality cool all right moving on
the reason that I want you to do that is
because I believe that our perception of
reality is flawed at the fundamental
level which is why I called my talk
fundamentals
the only reason see we go through our
day-to-day life believing that the world
around us is made up of separate objects
stage chairs papers and this is not the
case see in reality we evolved in such a
way that our senses pick up and discern
separate parts of our environment so
that we could pick up distinct groups of
what might be a danger to us or what we
might be able to eat and in order for me
to continue and for you to feel
comfortable kind of putting this into
your brain I need to make something
clear which is that there are no lines
in the room so you’re good and if you’re
hungry like me you’ll be able to get
food later so you don’t need to be
looking out for that see a thing what we
call a thing is really a unit of reality
it is a single idea attached to a
certain group of molecules and but in
actuality there is never actually any
objective separation between one thing
and another thing it’s all one big group
of molecules and energy and matter
exchanging and moving around
see and that’s a thing that if you think
about for a while becomes part of your
common sense but I know that some of you
might have just been introduced to the
head a few seconds ago so don’t worry
I’ll go into that a bit more right now I
want to go into another concept that
reality and the universe as it exists
outside of our brain is completely
unimaginable because that goes back to
the question the first question that
really made you think about the true
nature of reality when a tree falls in a
forest and there is no one there to hear
it doesn’t make a sound
see the answer to this question is no
because when a tree falls it creates
vibrations in the air molecules which
travel outwards and if there is someone
there to pick up those molecules it hits
their eardrum which sends a signal back
to their brain and then creates the
sensation of sound what the movement of
air particles creates the sensation of
sound a completely unique phenomenon the
brain completely made up its own way to
into to interpret movement and made it
into sound and this logic and train of
thought can get a little bit out of
hands when you go into things like light
because light is a particle called a
photon and a photon in itself doesn’t
really look like anything until it hits
the iris bounces off and doesn’t bounce
off it bounces off of an object goes
into the pupil and then sends a signal
back to the brain creates the
Association of looking like anything
which means that in between you and me
right now the universe smells feels
looks sounds and tastes like nothing and
if you’d like to get a kind of idea of
what looking like nothing is it’s not
darkness because darkness is the human
interpretation of the absence of light
try to look at the back of your head
right now close your eyes and try to see
what it looks like through the back of
your head notice that there is darkness
in
front of you but there is just purely
so we finds that reality is this kind of
big ball of indescribable
wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff its
jiggly it’s just exchanging matter and
energy because if we look at a single
system of things say a plant we call it
a plant say that it is a distinct
organism a distinct part of its
environment but if we look at all the
systems if we look at the energy and the
matter that it uses to make itself has
already been cycling throughout the
environment before it and it will
continue after it and so it’s not really
even a thing it is the unit that we
assigned to this certain group of
molecules that is jiggling around a
little bit slower and so we can look at
things the same way that we do look at
waves because when we look at a wave
it’s not actually a single thing see a
wave is just this body of water that we
call a wave we have a noun for it even
though it’s less of a noun and more of a
process of water rising up moving along
from one second to another it’s never
the same thing and it’s not even
separate from the rest of the ocean like
every other objects that we assign a
name to now this idea includes you
because you it’s a pretty well-known
fact that you know every seven years
every cell in your body is replaced by
things that you’ve eaten or the oxygen
that you’ve Britain breathed and this
include and so when we try to draw the
separation between what we are and what
we are not if we look at a sandwich on a
plate when you eat the sandwich first
you don’t identify it as you but when it
once it enters you nothing inherently
about the sandwich changes may be well
the texture and the the grouping that
makes it does but what does change is
our perception of it
nothing else does its no laws are broken
no rips in the fabric of space/time are
made it’s just the perception the unit
that we assigned to it changes and then
the sandwich becomes us but see this
isn’t what we experience what we
experience are very separate sensation
fields consciousnesses our
consciousnesses don’t like ripple into
each others I’m not experiencing what
you’re experiencing and you’re all
having completely different experiences
from each other I mean you’re all facing
this way but so and I’m going for the
rest of my talk I’m going to be saying
that a consciousness is made of
sensations and I’m using the word
sensations pretty broadly here I’m using
sensations as in anything that is
perceived anything that you feel
including the thoughts that you listen
to in your head when you picture
something or imagine it the vague image
that appears anything that you perceive
I’m calling a sensation because it is a
completely unique phenomenon and
recently neurologists have made a lot of
progress in figuring out which neurons
in their brain are responsible for which
images which ideas when we remember or
picture something and especially in
technologies like machine learning based
analysis of human functional magnetic
resonance imaging patterns or fMRI for
short however you get fMRI from that it
uses AI that recognizes the patterns
certain patterns and charges in the
neurons in your head and can then
project a recognized image onto a screen
it’s not great but it’s really cool this
is literally mind-reading technology
but this is still not a sensation this
is still a physical reaction happening
the world and so neurologists have from
Georgia Tech UCLA have started coming to
the consensus that the brain in itself
cannot create sensations without there
being a previous property of the
universe which does allow consciousness
and the sensations that make it to exist
and so with this in mind with the with
the idea that this property that is
using you to express itself that the
molecules in your brain and body have
already been circling around the
universe before you and will continue on
after you the next statement sounds kind
of mean at first but it gets much better
you created nothing new when you create
when you came into this world no new
forces or laws of nature were made and
yet it feels like there was a beginning
to you it feels like there was a part
that separates what you remember from
what you don’t and the crazy thing about
sensations the crazy thing about that
consciousness that feels like it is a
separate thing is that it’s felt
sensations are the one thing that are
felt and so we have to ask the question
felt by what what is feeling all the
reactions going on in your head
see it’s the universe that possesses the
molecules in your brain and body that
make you and it is the universe that
possesses the properties that allow you
to have consciousness
and so when we ask the question what is
aware that you are thinking right now
the answer is that you are not a single
person experiencing the universe you are
instead the universe experiencing the
phenomenon of a single person at a
single time but you know we kind of want
to feel that you know if we were
everything then we want to be omniscient
omnipotent all-knowing or all-powerful
if we really were everything we would
want to become or be a god but we don’t
feel like that so let me fix that for
you see right now you identify this as
you but even though you identify this as
you you’re not inherently aware of the
millions of incredibly important
interactions going on in it and you’re
also not consciously in control of it in
the same way that you’re not consciously
aware of your breathing but in spite of
that since the beginning of my talk
but you haven’t been thinking about it
but as soon as you do become consciously
aware that you are breathing you can
then take a deep breath or blow all of
your air out and you come can become to
a certain extent consciously aware of it
and you can control it and so we see and
so we see that the lines between what we
are in control and what we are not in
control of are blurred even though we
are not consciously aware of it because
you are circulating the blood in your
veins you are firing off the charges in
your head even though you are not
consciously aware of it you are doing it
using the same laws that exist outside
of your body that are letting you live
inside your body and so there is no
separation between we between what we
are and are not in control and I’m not
saying that means that we’re not in
control of anything and I’m also not
saying that means that we are in control
of everything I’m saying that there is
no difference between the two that your
will is not separate from the natural
processes of the universe all right my
thought experiment is this imagine just
for one second that you are everything
that you are that that’s in that’s your
yearbook picture just everything that
exists everything that will exist
everything that ever has exists
identifies as you but really the only
way that a you like that could
experience anything was through some
biological sensory systems through a
brain that allowed all these processes
to happen and a body that had to be kept
alive and of course this happens
multiple times because the properties
that allow you to exist exist throughout
the entire universe and so there
happened to be a planet where it
happened multiple times and so of you
and so you expand experiencing yourself
from multiple perspectives but if that
were the case if that was what was
happening then wouldn’t our experience
be just a pinpoint inside this vast
ocean of nothing the complete experience
of nothing throughout the rest of the
universe
but what we forget is that the lack of
an experience cannot be an experience it
can only be experienced in contrast to
something that is being experienced like
trying to look out the back of your head
if you try to find the part that
separates what you see from what you do
not see there is no direct line there
there is no definite separation and so
we find that there is no separation
between what we experience and what we
do not experience and wound and so the
universe has two sides it has the
conscious experience made purely of
sensations of freewill made purely of
all of these things that make our
experience so amazing and then the other
side which is made of whatever the
universe is like in its unobserved state
it’s nothing that we can describe or
come close to imagining it’s and so we
find that the that we bring beauty and
meaning and purpose to the universe we
bring this entire auditorium into
existence through our senses not
consciously aware of it but we are doing
it and so we find that the universe is
in us and we are in it and of course it
isn’t us and we are in it and it’s two
sides of the same coin each side needs
the other to be anything at all like the
nothingness in your experience can only
exist in comparison to the something
that is in front of you but we put
ourselves down and we think about things
like how insignificant we are compared
to the vastness of outer space and we
think about how we’re just this tiny
chemical reaction happening on this rock
that doesn’t really mean anything
or we believe that we have our own soul
that secludes us from the rest of
existence or we believe that we are just
off in this corner of the universe that
we’ll never really have any impact on
anything further out than our backyard
and those thoughts and statements can
hurt and they can bring you down
especially when you’re a self-doubting
teen who just wants to try to find more
meaning in life than getting good grades
that we can get into a good college so
that I can find a job that I love so
that I can work love working and then
retire and die in peace
that’s our goal in life the end goal is
the goal we don’t realize that this
moment the sensation fills moment is the
purpose two sides of the universe this
is the point this exact moment I know
you would love to leave but this moment
is the point and so you aren’t God
really in the Western sense of the word
you know there is no separation it’s a
bit more humble than that there’s no
separation between what you are and what
you are not no separation between what
you experience and what you do not
experience and no separation between
what you are in control of and what you
are not in control of and so now that I
have kind of the basics down I think I
so now my presentation starts when you
go outside and you listen as Alan Watts
put it to the Jazz of everything the
people jazz the car jazz the bird jazz
the ants jazz and look at all of it kind
of mixed together and form the life jazz
and then it makes us out into the rest
of the universe and becomes the
everything jazz and realize that there
is no difference between your jazz and
that jazz because you are not a single
person experiencing the universe as I
said you are the universe experiencing
the phenomenon of a single person thank
you you
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