Dr. James Cooke
My guest on this episode is the science journalist John Horgan. John’s work has appeared in Scientific American, National Geographic, Newsweek, The New York Times and Time magazine. He is the author of several books including Rational Mysticism, The Undiscovered Mind, The End of Science, The End of War, and most recently Mind-Body problems which is available for free online at mindbodyproblems.com. He also has a podcast by the same name on meaningoflife.tv. He is the recipient of the Science-in-Society Award from the National Association of Science Writers and two Science Journalism Awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. John is currently the Director of the Center for Science Writings at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. He also writes the “Cross-check” blog for Scientific American. In today’s conversation we talk about whether science can discover objective truths when it comes to issues of human nature like consciousness and free will, the compatibility of science and mysticism as well as the role psychedelics have played in John’s thinking and his thoughts on meditation.
Topics and timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
01:24 From psychedelics and mysticism in the 1960s to science journalism
05:29 The mind-body problem. Are there objective truths about human nature?
15:07 The neuroscience of consciousness
20:28 The challenge of understanding ourselves, from objective truths to postmodernism, the end of science
26:14 Does James think there are objective answers to questions of free will and consciousness?
30:19 Rational mysticism, The Weirdness, psychedelics,
36:37 Did life come from space? Meeting Terence McKenna
40:20 Douglas Hoffsteader, Strange Loops in mystical and psychedelic states
40:43 Meditation and learning quantum mechanics
47:47 Lama Surya Das & Dzogchen
49:39 The downsides of Oneness
54:25 Becoming God while tripping on unknown, experimental military psychedelics
1:00:57 Hindu metaphysics, James’ DMT experience, explaining religious experiences on psychedelics
1:09:10 The importance of community in explaining psychedelic experiences
1:13:17 John’s ayahuasca experiences
1:16:52 Understanding the world beyond science, philosophy and spirituality
1:18:55 John’s perspective on the relationship between matter and consciousness
Welcome to Living Mirrors with Dr. James Cooke. Living Mirrors is a new podcast in which neuroscientist Dr. James Cooke will be interviewing people on topics like consciousness, science, spirituality, meditation and the renaissance in psychedelic research. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts.
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#consciousness #science #philosophy
We live in a world filled with suffering, where attempts to help have been split into largely separate scientific and spiritual communities. As a spiritually engaged neuroscientist I hope to communicate how these seemingly separate world views can be reconciled. I produce weekly videos on topics at the intersection of neuroscience and wellbeing, including consciousness, meditation and psychedelic science.
Dr. James Cooke:
Neuroscientist, writer & speaker, focusing on perception, meditation, psychedelics, mental health and wellbeing.
PhD in Neuroscience, Oxford University
MSc in Neuroscience, Oxford University
MA in Experimental Psychology, Oxford University
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The part where he said that he thought he was God, I've been there! Lol
Man I wish I was brave enough to do DMT. For one, I heard some of the most terrifying trips as well but it seems to happen to those that abuse DMT. And for two, a crazy high on weed is already overwhelming so to think that DMT is 100 times more potent is terrifying to think, especially if the trip is bad. Still hoping I get to one day.
Great work. Thank you for doing these interviews.
This guy John just needs a real guru to coach him. Somebody like Sadhguru because, newsflash, you can actually also half ass spitiruality just as quantum physics
I must connect with this chemist that Mr. Horgan mentions around 55:18
Another great conversation thank you both!
This is a fun and respectful exploration of ideas 🙂 very entertaining
Dr James, how do you reconcile your belief that there's no free will with the revelation in the DMT experience?
absolutely inspiring to hear John deciding to tackle QM and understand it directly himself – that's amazing
just came across your channel Dr James. Big fan of everything John Horgan does, and now a big fan of your work too. Looking forward to listening to more enlightening conversations
John's steroidal lucid dreaming Creator experience triggered by designer psychedelics is an incredible spandrel.
Oneness : – This beautiful presentation resonated for me : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYGCey-Ndx8
What 'on Earth' is going on ?
Love the interview. But I do think that we can have common ground when it comes to consciousness. As u said James, despite all these high mystical states or low emotional lonely states and our interpretations of these events, there is a pristine silent consciousness in the background. In the end, mind is tricky and mind trying to explain its background seem to lead to all these postmodernistic views.
Great watch
You talk a lot about things like having some humbleness and perspective about your own perspectives, and that's something I think about a lot. Pretty much the best you can do is synthesize a perspective from what you know, but you also have to recognize that lots of other people are trying to do that as well and reaching different conclusions. It's so conflicting that you almost have no choice but to trust yourself to some degree to even have somewhere to start with when considering your motivations and what to do, and what to set out to learn if you want to improve your perspective, but no individual really knows enough to trust their own thoughts completely and it's just tragic how much conflict comes from people refusing to even consider that.
Which relates to what I really love about psychedelics, you go into it with only the information that's already in your mind yet find brand new ways of synthesizing a perspective fromit. Even when ideas I have on psychedelics don't hold up it reminds me that there are more ways of thinking that are consistent with the information I have than I had realized, and that anything I believe could be just as consistent with my other beliefs but still incomplete, inconsistent, or inaccurate.
I really enjoyed John. I also liked the bit about humanity, how you ended this conversation with John, now! I appreciate your perspective and enthusiasm on many of the topics, it just long winded on your part and a bit all over the place I'm like "where is this going" However best conversation I've heard between to humans.
Thanks for introducing me to him. Been on the journey and I appreciate the interview, well done!
Excellent conversation. Slightly beyond me but challenging. Wonderful stuff.
Whilst I’m sure that Graeme Hancock researches evidence of ancient civilisations am not confident that Graeme Hancock embraces any alien theory.
I appreciate your work
I found this deeply interesting and very enjoyable
Like minds like minds
This was brilliant, James. Thanks for putting it together
Can you put this on other platforms (spotify, itunes, etc.)?
Utterly fascinating. You both articulated so clearly the many questions that have plagued me for a lifetime and you have now given me some possible answers to think about. Thank you so much.