Benbella Books The Grand Biocentric Design: How Life Creates Reality

In 2017 I read the most important book of my lifetime: 'Biocentrism' (2009) by renowned scientists Robert Lanza and Bob Berman. It deserves to have an impact at least as great as Immanuel Kant’s 'Critique of Pure Reason' in the 17th century. And the main message is very similar: space and time are tools of the animal mind. Only how the authors reach their conclusions is different. Kant by brilliant philosophical reasoning. Lanza by backing up these insights by evidence from modern physics and astronomy.In this third entry in the 'Biocentrism' series, Lanza wisely added a physicist to his writing team: Matej Pavšič. Also, there is no longer a reference from Deepak Chopra on the cover like there was on the previous books. This ‘name-dropping’ was understandable from the publisher's position: Chopra can definitely add to the commercial success of any book that challenges the materialistic paradigm. But the science minded crowd is already extremely skeptical of any reference made to consciousness in relation to physics. So, the authors will have to be as credible as they can be to persuade the ones that may be persuaded.I was already convinced by the first book. Not because of the credentials of the authors - that are extremely impressive - but because of the arguments presented. In the years after reading the mind blowing revelations of the first 'Biocentrism book', I tried to find counter arguments, but never found them. At least not arguments that cannot be easily refuted (which in this book, the authors do in one of the appendixes). Lanza and his co-authors successfully make their scientific perspective totally compatible with the findings of quantum mechanics and other unsolved mysteries of science.The core of biocentrism is that consciousness is equivalent to reality itself. It is absolutely fundamental and cannot be reduced. If we accept this fact, everything falls into place. Quantum mechanics reveals that the physical world arises not from interactions, but the awareness of interactions. The mind computes the where and the when objects appear in relation to the observer. An observer with a functioning brain and memory is therefore crucial for the universe to be there. These authors make the case completely obvious.The first two books were an exploration of how science in the past hundred years has been steadily moving towards this paradigm shattering realization. That conscious life and the cosmos are one and the same and cannot be separated. In the third book Lanza and his co-authors go further to explain how the mind manages the impressive feat of creating reality. The subject matter is complex, but through lucid writing the authors manage to make these ideas understandable for a wide audience.Also some previously unexplored scientific topics are looked at through biocentric glasses, like Libet’s famous free will experiments that get a completely different interpretation than the usual ‘we are our brains’. They also offer fascinating insights on topics like animal consciousness and dreams. It is really great stuff.Towards the end, Lanza and co give the readers a good sense of how this new perspective may impact science and what spectacular possibilities it offers for future science. Time travel is just one of them. Lanza and his co-authors did it again. They further improved my understanding of this ’mental thing’ that we’re all a part of. But no matter how much one reads about it or meditates on it, it remains mind-bending stuff. If you want to learn why the exploration of the universe must start within ourselves, this is your definitive guide.

I like Robert Lanza and enjoyed immensely his previous 2 books.. I do, however have a bone to pick with this book regarding page 14.. the contradictionary nature in which he dismisses a certain group of people who "refuse to believe the evidence before them" beggars belief.. it is for the very reason that the "evidence before them" doesn't exist and cannot be quantified in any way, shape or form that we people refuse to believe the laughable "evidence before them".. it was my arrogant ego that made me look into said subject to be able to dismiss it without much intellectual effort that made me realise that I could not. So therefore Mr Lanza should keep the ad-hominem attacks to himself.. curb his ego.. and if he is able, maybe write a few books rebutting the multiple questions raised by Mary Bennett and David Percy in the book DARK MOON, also maybe rebut the many intriguing questions raised in ZETECTIC ASTRONOMY by Parallax.. or maybe find some answers to the many issues raised by Edward Henrie in the book THE GREATEST LIE ON EARTH.It's a shame as I really like the subject matter and Mr Lanza states on page 2 how he " continues to encounter intolerance to new ideas".. Well the very short, undetailed and intellectually lazy way mr Lanza tried to discredit a large, educated, well organised and motivated group of true grass root scientists (who actually go out in the world and do real experiments and are receptive to major reveltions based on observations and experimentation ((for that is what biocentrism is)), in their own time with their own money without payment) discredits him. He should have left that silly attack out of this book.

Christmas gift for my Dad, he wanted some books from this author. He's enjoying reading the 1st one, and pleased to recieve 2 of the others to go with the collection.

There is continuing debate about where the divide lays between the classical world and the quantum world. We have a purely deterministic procedure U (Unitary) governed by the Schrodinger equation and a State vector reduction procedure according to the Born rule R (Reduction). As a pair they are inconsistent as there is no exact law on when to apply the Born rule.The question is, what causes the State vector to get reduced?There have been many philosophical responses to this question Including Many Worlds, Information Decoherence, Qbism, Relational QM, Physical collapse and conscious observer collapse.Robert Lanza puts forward a superb argument for Conscious observer collapse. He rightly argues that reality begins with the conscious observer and everything else must be understood from this perspective.The biological brain is a device that reduces wave functions and in doing so somehow creates feelings and emotions. It is the only device that we know of that performs this function. The brain is continually reducing wave functions emanating from inside the dynamics of the brain. The brain is also wired to senses that reduce wave functions emanating from without the brain. The brain processes information from sight/sound/touch into 3-dimensional space and time which has proved an evolutionary advantage.For example, when a conscious observer decides to measure the polarity of light, they get to choose which orientation to place the polariser. This decision determines the angle of resulting probabilistic detection of the light.An experimental arrangement can measure either the particle nature or a different arrangement can measure the wave nature of light. John Wheeler describes an experiment where the observer can choose the experimental arrangement before the light is observed but after the light has passed through the experimental apparatus. The light will always arrive at the observer adhering to the experimental arrangement last made. This can also be performed with light from distant galaxies.These types of experiments make it difficult to argue that the conscious experimenter making these decisions is not deeply connected to the observations that are observed.I think therefore, I exist. From this perspective if I don’t think then I do not exist. Here are two distinct alternatives. Let’s think of existence as the set containing {Existence} = 1 and non-existence as the set containing {non-existence} = 2. We immediately arrive at the third set {0,1} =3 and a fourth {0,1,2,3} ……. all the way to infinity. From here with simple logic, we naturally arrive at the ‘Whole of mathematics’. Talk about lifting yourself up by your bootstraps. If we ‘think’, then we are trapped into a world of things. Even the concept of non-existence or no-thing is a thing in the world of things. You cannot describe no-thing unless you are comparing it to things. So even zero is a true number with real existence.If you think, then you are part of this mathematical existence. This ‘Whole of Mathematics’ is pregnant with mathematical conscious entities. The logic of mathematics determines your existence.Your existence lays solely within this logical mathematical structure. So when we do anything including experiments these actions must necessary comply with the logical mathematical structure that we inhabit.Eugene Wigner states “the unreasonable effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences”. However, the statement really should read 'that it is unreasonable in science if we do come across some phenomena that does not conform to mathematics and logic'. When we test nature it must conform to logic. If for example we did not come across fossils in the ground then that would leave us searching for a logical explanation of how complex humans came about. We know that the answer must comply with mathematical logic because that is the framework upon which all of existence conforms.Every action that we do is mathematically constrained and directed toward procreation for complex conscious existence.Our existence determines what we can observe and those observations must lead to a logical mathematical consistency describing how it is that we exist. This ‘mathematical consistence’ is a subset embedded in the ‘Whole of mathematics’.The mathematical and logical constraints placed on our existence determines what information we receive from our senses.Fundamental reality consist only of Number, Shape and Constraint (eg if you try to walk through a brick wall that is a constraint.) Everything else is perceptions generated by the brain.Today science has come a long way along the path, using mathematical logic and our natural senses enhanced by man-made instruments, to a mathematical description explaining our existence/consciousness. We are not there yet. But one thing that we can be certain of is that there is a mathematical and logical path that describes our consciousness. We exist in a realm of mathematics and by virtue of our existence there must be a mathematical description of our place within this realm.To date we have made good progress since Galileo and Newton assuming that the observer is separate to observations. Until now this has worked quite well. We needed this separation early on to make tractable progress. However, with the discovery of Quantum Field Theory, we can no longer rely on making progress with this limitation of having the observer as a God-like figure testing nature.We are an integral part of the system.

The theory of Biocentrism is very interesting and perhaps the thing we need in this phase in our evolution and understanding of reality. Intuitively, I think most people are expecting new theories like Biocentrism to take over in years coming years. It's definitely a book I recommend for those interested in the fields of physics, consciousness and the philosophy of how Reality is all connected.