WEBVTT

00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:08.840
♪♪

00:00:08.840 --> 00:00:17.320
♪♪

00:00:17.320 --> 00:00:25.800
♪♪

00:00:25.800 --> 00:00:34.280
♪♪

00:00:34.280 --> 00:00:42.720
♪♪

00:00:42.720 --> 00:00:51.200
♪♪

00:00:51.200 --> 00:00:59.680
♪♪

00:00:59.680 --> 00:01:08.160
♪♪

00:01:08.160 --> 00:01:12.080
[Griffiths] There\'s a deeper
mystery here,

00:01:12.080 --> 00:01:16.240
and it\'s really
the mystery of consciousness.

00:01:16.240 --> 00:01:19.000
And it\'s the mystery of what
we don\'t understand

00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:23.520
about the nature of
this conscious experience

00:01:23.520 --> 00:01:25.160
that we\'re living in.

00:01:25.160 --> 00:01:31.560
♪♪

00:01:31.560 --> 00:01:34.160
There\'s this existential wonder

00:01:34.160 --> 00:01:38.360
about what\'s
really going on here.

00:01:38.360 --> 00:01:39.760
What\'s the meaning of life?

00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:43.280
What happens when we die?

00:01:43.280 --> 00:01:44.760
Why are we awake?

00:01:44.760 --> 00:01:47.600
How is it that we are aware
that we are aware?

00:01:47.600 --> 00:01:54.480
♪♪

00:01:54.480 --> 00:02:01.320
♪♪

00:02:01.320 --> 00:02:04.680
[Gagliano] We\'ve been asking
for millennia, \"What is life?\"

00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:06.520
Isn\'t that what we all
want to know?

00:02:06.520 --> 00:02:08.360
What is life?

00:02:08.360 --> 00:02:09.960
What is consciousness?

00:02:13.560 --> 00:02:15.640
We answer one,
we find the other.

00:02:19.480 --> 00:02:23.560
Consciousness is the essence
of life, to me.

00:02:23.560 --> 00:02:30.200
♪♪

00:02:30.200 --> 00:02:36.880
♪♪

00:02:36.880 --> 00:02:43.520
♪♪

00:02:43.520 --> 00:02:46.200
To think that at one point,

00:02:46.200 --> 00:02:53.000
there was this one
first cell...

00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:59.760
and basically everything that
needed to be known was in there?

00:02:59.760 --> 00:03:04.000
Because from there,
everything else just emerged.

00:03:07.360 --> 00:03:14.800
How did the one little cell
know how to become this?

00:03:18.800 --> 00:03:27.360
You cannot not be in awe of life
in all its forms.

00:03:27.360 --> 00:03:35.840
♪♪

00:03:35.840 --> 00:03:44.360
♪♪

00:03:44.360 --> 00:03:52.840
♪♪

00:03:52.840 --> 00:04:01.320
♪♪

00:04:18.320 --> 00:04:26.800
♪♪

00:04:26.800 --> 00:04:35.320
♪♪

00:04:35.320 --> 00:04:43.800
♪♪

00:04:43.800 --> 00:04:46.640
[Koch] My own personal goal,
before I die, is to understand

00:04:46.640 --> 00:04:48.640
how consciousness
fits into the universe,

00:04:48.640 --> 00:04:52.360
how is compatible with the
laws of physics and biology

00:04:52.360 --> 00:04:53.720
that have been so successful

00:04:53.720 --> 00:04:56.000
at describing
everything else around it.

00:04:56.000 --> 00:05:02.240
♪♪

00:05:06.320 --> 00:05:09.000
I had this
magic-mushroom experience.

00:05:10.840 --> 00:05:13.640
I was sitting here,
just on the beach.

00:05:13.640 --> 00:05:17.760
I was listening
to minimalist music.

00:05:17.760 --> 00:05:20.880
And the rays of the sun
were reflecting off the water.

00:05:20.880 --> 00:05:25.840
And you had these fantastic
hallucinations superimposed.

00:05:25.840 --> 00:05:27.320
Everything slowed down

00:05:27.320 --> 00:05:31.000
until I thought I arrived
at the center,

00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:33.160
at the beating heart
of the universe.

00:05:33.160 --> 00:05:34.640
And I finally understood.

00:05:34.640 --> 00:05:37.960
I understood how it all works!

00:05:37.960 --> 00:05:39.480
But it\'s ineffable.

00:05:39.480 --> 00:05:42.960
Afterwards, you have great
difficulty explaining it.

00:05:42.960 --> 00:05:48.280
And so if you apply the cold,
sodden, wet blanket of reason,

00:05:48.280 --> 00:05:50.400
you have to sort of
question yourself.

00:05:50.400 --> 00:05:53.840
What did you experience,
and what does it reflect?

00:05:53.840 --> 00:05:55.840
Does it really reflect
a different experience,

00:05:55.840 --> 00:05:58.800
a fundamental, different
aspect of the universe,

00:05:58.800 --> 00:06:02.640
or just another intensely
pleasurable experience

00:06:02.640 --> 00:06:04.760
produced by my brain?

00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:09.520
The magic is that you
experience anything at all.

00:06:09.520 --> 00:06:11.200
The magic is that your brain,

00:06:11.200 --> 00:06:14.280
which is a piece of physical
furniture like this boat --

00:06:14.280 --> 00:06:16.080
that a physical object can feel.

00:06:16.080 --> 00:06:18.840
That is the heart
of the mind/body problem.

00:06:24.320 --> 00:06:26.600
I\'m dedicated to cortex.

00:06:26.600 --> 00:06:29.560
That\'s what I have on my body.

00:06:29.560 --> 00:06:31.680
Few scientists have that.

00:06:31.680 --> 00:06:37.920
♪♪

00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:42.360
Consciousness is any experience,
any feeling.

00:06:42.360 --> 00:06:44.120
It feels like something
to be angry.

00:06:44.120 --> 00:06:46.000
It feels like something
to remember something.

00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:48.200
It feels like something
to see red.

00:06:48.200 --> 00:06:50.560
Common to them all
is subjectivity.

00:06:50.560 --> 00:06:58.200
♪♪

00:06:58.200 --> 00:07:05.840
♪♪

00:07:05.840 --> 00:07:08.000
I\'m here to direct
this large institute

00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:09.440
of 300 people focusing on

00:07:09.440 --> 00:07:11.320
trying to understand
the cortex,

00:07:11.320 --> 00:07:13.080
accelerating neuroscience
by building

00:07:13.080 --> 00:07:16.680
these large observatories
to peer at the brain.

00:07:16.680 --> 00:07:23.240
♪♪

00:07:23.240 --> 00:07:26.680
-Hi, DiJon. Howdy, howdy.
-Hey, Christof.

00:07:26.680 --> 00:07:28.920
-How\'s it going?
-Very well.

00:07:28.920 --> 00:07:30.840
Mouse, human?

00:07:30.840 --> 00:07:32.440
[DiJon] This is mouse.

00:07:35.400 --> 00:07:38.280
[Koch] We have this project
at the Allen Institute.

00:07:38.280 --> 00:07:40.600
It\'s a wiring layout
of the brain

00:07:40.600 --> 00:07:43.640
that involves taking
a tiny grain of brain matter,

00:07:43.640 --> 00:07:45.360
literally one cubic millimeter.

00:07:45.360 --> 00:07:48.240
So it\'s like quinoa,
a grain of quinoa,

00:07:48.240 --> 00:07:50.280
one-by-one-by-one millimeter,

00:07:50.280 --> 00:07:53.640
cutting it
into 30-nanometer-thin slices,

00:07:53.640 --> 00:07:56.200
25,000 of them,

00:07:56.200 --> 00:07:58.360
at the level of
electromicroscopy

00:07:58.360 --> 00:08:00.800
and then using modern
machine-learning techniques

00:08:00.800 --> 00:08:04.120
where it can automatically
reconstruct the precise wiring,

00:08:04.120 --> 00:08:06.680
because in this piece
of quinoa grain

00:08:06.680 --> 00:08:09.920
there are roughly 50,000 cells

00:08:09.920 --> 00:08:13.760
and there are
a few kilometers of wiring.

00:08:13.760 --> 00:08:17.040
And once I understand
which neuron is wired to which,

00:08:17.040 --> 00:08:19.320
I really understand
a whole lot more

00:08:19.320 --> 00:08:22.520
about what makes
this matter so special.

00:08:28.160 --> 00:08:29.440
So those are all mitochondria?

00:08:29.440 --> 00:08:31.160
Yes, it\'s mitochondria.
This is a --

00:08:31.160 --> 00:08:32.800
And that\'s a micrometer,
or what?

00:08:32.800 --> 00:08:34.280
A half a micrometer?

00:08:34.280 --> 00:08:37.840
This will be a micrometer
or something like that.

00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:41.920
And can you go all the way
to layer one here?

00:08:41.920 --> 00:08:45.000
-Yes.
-How does layer one look?

00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:47.600
Gosh, it looks beautiful
everywhere!

00:08:47.600 --> 00:08:50.720
At this point it is not clear,
whether at this level

00:08:50.720 --> 00:08:54.880
you can distinguish whether it\'s
a human brain or mouse brain.

00:08:54.880 --> 00:08:57.080
And the point I always make
is that the basic hardware

00:08:57.080 --> 00:08:58.840
of all of us is the same.

00:08:58.840 --> 00:09:01.320
Whether we are a mouse or a dog
or a monkey

00:09:01.320 --> 00:09:02.800
or a human or a whale,

00:09:02.800 --> 00:09:06.440
at this level,
it\'s all very similar.

00:09:06.440 --> 00:09:09.400
The brain
is the most highly organized

00:09:09.400 --> 00:09:13.480
and complex piece of matter
in the known universe.

00:09:13.480 --> 00:09:16.840
I always say
I get a shiver down my back.

00:09:16.840 --> 00:09:19.520
Yeah, because you see just vast
untold complexity

00:09:19.520 --> 00:09:21.520
upon complexity upon complexity.

00:09:21.520 --> 00:09:23.600
And each brain is unique
and different, right?

00:09:23.600 --> 00:09:26.920
And you can go back
to a famous example

00:09:26.920 --> 00:09:30.000
when it comes to consciousness
that Leibniz made,

00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:33.840
in his mill example
350 years ago,

00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:35.960
because he said you can
never find consciousness.

00:09:35.960 --> 00:09:38.240
And even if you go into a mill,
as it were --

00:09:38.240 --> 00:09:40.200
that was his analogy
at the time --

00:09:40.200 --> 00:09:41.680
and you zoom in inside the mill,

00:09:41.680 --> 00:09:44.080
you see nothing
but levers moving.

00:09:44.080 --> 00:09:46.280
And the same thing here
with respect to consciousness,

00:09:46.280 --> 00:09:48.480
you go inside, you say,
\"Where is consciousness?

00:09:48.480 --> 00:09:50.080
I don\'t see consciousness.\"

00:09:50.080 --> 00:09:52.720
I see synapses
and I see mechanisms, right?

00:09:52.720 --> 00:09:56.360
That was the point of Leibniz.
All I see is mechanisms.

00:09:56.360 --> 00:09:59.320
And somehow out of this
emerges consciousness.

00:09:59.320 --> 00:10:08.280
♪♪

00:10:08.280 --> 00:10:17.200
♪♪

00:10:17.200 --> 00:10:26.160
♪♪

00:10:26.160 --> 00:10:35.200
♪♪

00:10:35.200 --> 00:10:40.520
What is it about this piece
of goo, of gray goo,

00:10:40.520 --> 00:10:42.880
that gives rise
to the feeling of love?

00:10:42.880 --> 00:10:45.240
Because if I look at in --

00:10:45.240 --> 00:10:48.120
in physics, if I look at
the foundational theories

00:10:48.120 --> 00:10:50.160
of physics,
quantum mechanics, relativity,

00:10:50.160 --> 00:10:51.800
there\'s no \"love\" there.

00:10:51.800 --> 00:10:54.200
There is no experience.
There is no pain and pleasure.

00:10:54.200 --> 00:10:56.760
If I look at the periodic table
of the elements, again,

00:10:56.760 --> 00:10:58.440
there\'s no
\"consciousness\" in there.

00:10:58.440 --> 00:11:02.560
There\'s no feelings and love
and hate and dreams and desires.

00:11:02.560 --> 00:11:05.320
If I look at the endless
ATGC chatter in my genes,

00:11:05.320 --> 00:11:06.880
there isn\'t anything there.

00:11:06.880 --> 00:11:09.000
But here, every day,
I open my eyes in the morning

00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:12.440
and I have feelings --
of love, of pain, of sadness.

00:11:12.440 --> 00:11:15.000
And so the big question,

00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:18.160
the heart of this ancient
mind/body problem is really,

00:11:18.160 --> 00:11:19.520
how do you make --

00:11:19.520 --> 00:11:21.920
how do you turn the waters
of the brain

00:11:21.920 --> 00:11:24.600
into the wine
of our conscious experience?

00:11:24.600 --> 00:11:33.360
♪♪

00:11:33.360 --> 00:11:42.120
♪♪

00:11:42.120 --> 00:11:50.880
♪♪

00:11:50.880 --> 00:11:59.600
♪♪

00:11:59.600 --> 00:12:08.360
♪♪

00:12:08.360 --> 00:12:17.120
♪♪

00:12:17.120 --> 00:12:25.880
♪♪

00:12:25.880 --> 00:12:29.160
[Ricard] Consciousness is,
before everything,

00:12:29.160 --> 00:12:30.760
an experience.

00:12:30.760 --> 00:12:40.160
♪♪

00:12:40.160 --> 00:12:42.720
I think most neuroscientists
who work on consciousness,

00:12:42.720 --> 00:12:44.240
they know very well --

00:12:44.240 --> 00:12:47.040
You could
track to the last neuron

00:12:47.040 --> 00:12:48.600
of the hundred billion neurons,

00:12:48.600 --> 00:12:52.080
made a complete map
of everything that takes place

00:12:52.080 --> 00:12:54.320
when you see red
or feel anger or love.

00:12:54.320 --> 00:12:55.320
Fine.

00:12:57.040 --> 00:12:59.040
But unless you know
what experience is

00:12:59.040 --> 00:13:00.840
by the first person,

00:13:00.840 --> 00:13:04.720
it tells you nothing about what
it is to be and to experience.

00:13:04.720 --> 00:13:06.320
Nothing.
Zero.

00:13:15.480 --> 00:13:18.640
Sometimes people ask me,
\"You were a scientist.\"

00:13:18.640 --> 00:13:21.320
I did a PhD
in cell genetics.

00:13:21.320 --> 00:13:23.880
\"Why suddenly
you left all that?\" --

00:13:23.880 --> 00:13:26.480
Seems supposedly
a promising career.

00:13:26.480 --> 00:13:28.880
I don\'t know, might have been
a complete flop, but anyway,

00:13:28.880 --> 00:13:33.320
was going okay
until I finished my PhD --

00:13:33.320 --> 00:13:35.560
to become a Buddhist
practitioner first,

00:13:35.560 --> 00:13:39.520
and then when I was 30
I became a monk, yes.

00:13:39.520 --> 00:13:42.600
Well, first of all, I didn\'t
slam the door on science.

00:13:42.600 --> 00:13:45.280
I didn\'t left science
because, for me,

00:13:45.280 --> 00:13:50.200
science is the rigorous pursuit
of knowledge.

00:13:50.200 --> 00:13:52.520
I was trying to know more
about the mind

00:13:52.520 --> 00:13:57.720
and what it is to achieve inner
freedom from mental poisons.

00:13:57.720 --> 00:14:00.320
Different science.

00:14:00.320 --> 00:14:04.400
After so many years,
I\'m certainly not enlightened,

00:14:04.400 --> 00:14:08.720
but I have a real clear picture
of how the mind works.

00:14:08.720 --> 00:14:12.600
So I just changed
the field of application.

00:14:17.200 --> 00:14:18.720
[people chanting
in native language]

00:14:24.200 --> 00:14:26.480
[music playing]

00:14:51.280 --> 00:14:54.200
We speak of a horizon
that cannot be reached.

00:14:54.200 --> 00:14:58.400
It is the idea of studying
consciousness from the outside.

00:14:58.400 --> 00:15:02.920
Now, from the inside,
there\'s no such problem.

00:15:02.920 --> 00:15:04.920
Because we are not trying to
step out of consciousness,

00:15:04.920 --> 00:15:09.200
you go so deep
within consciousness

00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:11.320
that actually
you can experience

00:15:11.320 --> 00:15:16.760
pure consciousness --
the bare faculty to know.

00:15:16.760 --> 00:15:19.560
There is something
at the depth of consciousness

00:15:19.560 --> 00:15:22.680
that is pure awareness.

00:15:22.680 --> 00:15:25.000
You can\'t get deeper than that.

00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:30.040
♪♪

00:15:30.040 --> 00:15:35.040
♪♪

00:15:35.040 --> 00:15:38.360
Meditation aims at getting
an aspect of the mind

00:15:38.360 --> 00:15:41.720
that is perfectly lucid,
perfectly clear,

00:15:41.720 --> 00:15:46.200
where there\'s no gap
between perception and reality,

00:15:46.200 --> 00:15:50.280
where you see phenomena as
appearing yet empty of reality,

00:15:50.280 --> 00:15:52.840
as impermanent,
as interdependent.

00:15:52.840 --> 00:15:55.320
Where you see beneath
the movement of thought

00:15:55.320 --> 00:15:59.920
is pure self-illuminating,
nondual awareness

00:15:59.920 --> 00:16:04.080
so that you require
the maximum clarity,

00:16:04.080 --> 00:16:05.560
limpidity of the mind,

00:16:05.560 --> 00:16:09.720
like a blue,
perfectly immaculate sky.

00:16:09.720 --> 00:16:12.160
It\'s getting to the very core

00:16:12.160 --> 00:16:14.720
of the basic nature
of consciousness.

00:16:14.720 --> 00:16:22.520
♪♪

00:16:22.520 --> 00:16:30.280
♪♪

00:16:34.200 --> 00:16:43.040
♪♪

00:16:43.040 --> 00:16:44.960
[Koch] The key difference
between the Western way

00:16:44.960 --> 00:16:47.040
of looking at consciousness
and the Buddhist way,

00:16:47.040 --> 00:16:50.000
is that they have primarily
focused on the inside view.

00:16:52.240 --> 00:16:53.800
We, by in large in the West,

00:16:53.800 --> 00:16:56.720
since particularly Galileo,
scientific revolution,

00:16:56.720 --> 00:16:59.520
we said, \"Let\'s remove
subjective from the world.\"

00:16:59.520 --> 00:17:01.440
That was the step of Galileo.

00:17:01.440 --> 00:17:03.560
And that gives rise to science,
because let\'s just focus

00:17:03.560 --> 00:17:06.360
on the objective things
we can all agree on.

00:17:09.360 --> 00:17:12.160
I now realize as a mature man
much better

00:17:12.160 --> 00:17:14.640
why I first became interested

00:17:14.640 --> 00:17:17.840
as a scientist
to study consciousness.

00:17:17.840 --> 00:17:21.080
And ultimately I think
my reason was to rebel against

00:17:21.080 --> 00:17:23.760
this feeling
of cosmic indifference.

00:17:23.760 --> 00:17:26.560
I felt that consciousness

00:17:26.560 --> 00:17:31.800
ultimately could not
be explained by science.

00:17:31.800 --> 00:17:33.880
I have two conflicting impulses,

00:17:33.880 --> 00:17:36.080
\"Zwei Seelen, ach,
leben in meiner Brust.\"

00:17:36.080 --> 00:17:37.600
Right?
Very much so.

00:17:37.600 --> 00:17:39.880
So, on the one hand,
I was very much a scientist.

00:17:39.880 --> 00:17:41.120
I love science.

00:17:41.120 --> 00:17:42.960
I love looking
and finding confirmation

00:17:42.960 --> 00:17:45.480
of order
in the natural universe.

00:17:45.480 --> 00:17:47.120
That\'s why I\'m a scientist,
ultimately,

00:17:47.120 --> 00:17:49.600
because I do believe
that by rational process

00:17:49.600 --> 00:17:52.080
we can understand what
this universe is made out of

00:17:52.080 --> 00:17:54.680
and what we are we made out of
and why we are here?

00:17:54.680 --> 00:17:57.920
On the other hand, I grew up
as a devout believer

00:17:57.920 --> 00:17:59.240
and I wanted to reconcile --

00:17:59.240 --> 00:18:00.600
those are obviously
conflicting things

00:18:00.600 --> 00:18:02.240
and I wanted to reconcile them.

00:18:02.240 --> 00:18:04.960
So, on the one hand, I thought,
well, consciousness --

00:18:04.960 --> 00:18:06.760
you know, science is going to

00:18:06.760 --> 00:18:08.680
not be able to explain that,
finally,

00:18:08.680 --> 00:18:10.200
and then finally
I have a justification

00:18:10.200 --> 00:18:12.040
for why I believe in a soul.

00:18:12.040 --> 00:18:13.600
But then as I did it
more and more

00:18:13.600 --> 00:18:15.040
and thought about it more
and more, I said,

00:18:15.040 --> 00:18:16.920
no, this is --
I don\'t need a soul.

00:18:16.920 --> 00:18:18.920
I don\'t need the classical
sort of,

00:18:18.920 --> 00:18:22.400
you know, traditional
and religious Cartesian soul.

00:18:22.400 --> 00:18:25.560
I think you can explain
the strange aspect

00:18:25.560 --> 00:18:28.680
of consciousness,
you know, the subjectivity,

00:18:28.680 --> 00:18:31.120
using physical, natural laws.

00:18:31.120 --> 00:18:34.840
You have to extend what we know
about the universe a little bit,

00:18:34.840 --> 00:18:36.840
but you can
explain consciousness

00:18:36.840 --> 00:18:39.840
without removing this wonderful
aspect of consciousness,

00:18:39.840 --> 00:18:41.560
that it is a feeling.

00:18:41.560 --> 00:18:45.120
It cannot just be reduced
to my neurons in my brain.

00:18:45.120 --> 00:18:53.840
♪♪

00:18:53.840 --> 00:19:02.600
♪♪

00:19:02.600 --> 00:19:11.320
♪♪

00:19:11.320 --> 00:19:20.040
♪♪

00:19:20.040 --> 00:19:23.960
[Gagliano] There are many --
possibly infinite -- ways,

00:19:23.960 --> 00:19:27.040
of approaching consciousness,

00:19:27.040 --> 00:19:29.920
just like in the story
with the blind men

00:19:29.920 --> 00:19:32.520
and the elephant, where everyone
had a different perspective

00:19:32.520 --> 00:19:34.640
of what this elephant
might be.

00:19:34.640 --> 00:19:42.160
♪♪

00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:45.040
We have learned
over the last few decades,

00:19:45.040 --> 00:19:48.080
that under the ground,
a forest like this,

00:19:48.080 --> 00:19:52.960
these trees will be connected
and will be talking right now.

00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:55.920
Probably whispering about
what I\'m talking about.

00:19:55.920 --> 00:20:02.120
♪♪

00:20:02.120 --> 00:20:08.320
♪♪

00:20:08.320 --> 00:20:11.680
The field of bioacoustics
is just at its infancy,

00:20:11.680 --> 00:20:13.920
and we still know very little.

00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:16.680
But we know that trees
and plants

00:20:16.680 --> 00:20:21.760
are not only able to detect
sounds from their environment

00:20:21.760 --> 00:20:24.480
but would also produce
their own sounds.

00:20:29.320 --> 00:20:32.920
The incredible amount of data
that is emerging

00:20:32.920 --> 00:20:36.200
in the field of plant behavior
and communication

00:20:36.200 --> 00:20:41.520
is obviously pointing
at more uncomfortable questions

00:20:41.520 --> 00:20:44.520
of whether plants
are actually sentient,

00:20:44.520 --> 00:20:46.800
intelligent, conscious?

00:20:46.800 --> 00:20:53.200
To be sentient means that
you are perceiving, sensing,

00:20:53.200 --> 00:20:56.400
responding subjectively.

00:20:56.400 --> 00:21:00.200
And that is the key word.

00:21:00.200 --> 00:21:03.680
We have plenty of data to show
that plants perceive,

00:21:03.680 --> 00:21:05.320
sense, respond.

00:21:05.320 --> 00:21:06.920
So they definitely do that.

00:21:06.920 --> 00:21:12.120
And the real question
that I often ask myself is like,

00:21:12.120 --> 00:21:18.960
can you do this in any other way
that is not subjective?

00:21:18.960 --> 00:21:21.280
Because to do it
nonsubjectively

00:21:21.280 --> 00:21:23.760
means that you\'re
doing it \"objectively,\"

00:21:23.760 --> 00:21:25.720
which really means
that you\'re an object

00:21:25.720 --> 00:21:28.800
but objects don\'t feel,
don\'t perceive, don\'t respond.

00:21:36.800 --> 00:21:38.800
The new lab that
I\'m setting up here

00:21:38.800 --> 00:21:43.440
at the University of Sydney,
it\'s called the B.I. Lab,

00:21:43.440 --> 00:21:47.040
and it stands
for \"biological intelligence.\"

00:21:47.040 --> 00:21:48.880
And really,
it is my little smirk

00:21:48.880 --> 00:21:53.720
to the A.I. people,
so, \"artificial intelligence.\"

00:21:57.680 --> 00:22:01.520
We are kind of comfortable
in considering technology

00:22:01.520 --> 00:22:05.360
as becoming intelligent
and even conscious...

00:22:05.360 --> 00:22:08.120
We talk about robots
as if they are alive,

00:22:08.120 --> 00:22:10.400
and yet we are not prepared
to talk about plants

00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:12.080
as if they are alive.

00:22:12.080 --> 00:22:14.680
It\'s definitely not considering
the question

00:22:14.680 --> 00:22:17.400
of intelligence or consciousness
for these others

00:22:17.400 --> 00:22:19.160
worthy of discussion.

00:22:31.080 --> 00:22:32.680
My pea is out!

00:22:41.880 --> 00:22:44.600
Ohh, I can see the root.

00:22:49.320 --> 00:22:51.080
Excellent.

00:22:51.080 --> 00:22:54.000
The plant is directing the root
into the channel here,

00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:57.600
which is exactly the one
that is taking it to the water.

00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:04.440
So the previous experiment

00:23:04.440 --> 00:23:08.760
with the peas looking for water
using sound

00:23:08.760 --> 00:23:12.760
was quite straightforward.

00:23:12.760 --> 00:23:18.080
The pea was growing
inside a maze,

00:23:18.080 --> 00:23:22.880
which was the shape
of a letter \"Y\" upside down.

00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:28.840
And when I just placed
real water

00:23:28.840 --> 00:23:31.120
at one end of the maze,

00:23:31.120 --> 00:23:34.200
the pea grew its root
straight to it,

00:23:34.200 --> 00:23:35.560
which is not surprising

00:23:35.560 --> 00:23:38.160
because they use
the humidity grading

00:23:38.160 --> 00:23:40.520
to detect the source of water.

00:23:40.520 --> 00:23:45.760
Now, I then did what we do
with animal studies

00:23:45.760 --> 00:23:48.080
and designed
a playback experiment.

00:23:48.080 --> 00:23:51.400
So, I actually recorded
the sound of water in the pipe

00:23:51.400 --> 00:23:54.960
and I played it back
by attaching a little speaker,

00:23:54.960 --> 00:23:58.360
a vibration speaker,
and an iPod

00:23:58.360 --> 00:24:01.440
which would play back
the sound of water.

00:24:01.440 --> 00:24:06.360
And what I found is that
the peas would also be able

00:24:06.360 --> 00:24:11.720
to find the source of \"water\"
through the sound

00:24:11.720 --> 00:24:15.200
even when water
really is nowhere to be found.

00:24:18.320 --> 00:24:20.600
[music playing softly]

00:24:41.680 --> 00:24:43.600
[music plays]

00:24:43.600 --> 00:24:45.880
-[chuckles]
-[woman] Yeah.

00:24:45.880 --> 00:24:47.600
-That\'s touch.
-Okay.

00:24:50.400 --> 00:24:54.320
So, we\'re going to
set up the EPG,

00:24:54.320 --> 00:24:58.160
which is the equivalent
of the EEG, for the little pea.

00:25:01.080 --> 00:25:04.560
Oh, yeah.
There it is.

00:25:04.560 --> 00:25:08.040
-What are you doing? [laughs]
-[laughs]

00:25:08.040 --> 00:25:10.720
I\'m not touching it.
That\'s amazing.

00:25:10.720 --> 00:25:11.920
Yeah.

00:25:11.920 --> 00:25:16.520
I was a few centimeters away.

00:25:16.520 --> 00:25:18.640
So it\'s seeing you.

00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:20.480
Again.

00:25:23.080 --> 00:25:25.280
So one other experiment I did

00:25:25.280 --> 00:25:28.920
is testing
Pavlovian learning in plants,

00:25:28.920 --> 00:25:31.120
specifically, peas.

00:25:31.120 --> 00:25:35.400
And it\'s following
pretty much the same

00:25:35.400 --> 00:25:37.760
testing protocol
that we use in animals,

00:25:37.760 --> 00:25:42.600
and specifically the Pavlovian
protocol with the dog.

00:25:42.600 --> 00:25:46.960
So in the case of Pavlov,
he used a bell

00:25:46.960 --> 00:25:51.360
which was always preceding
the arrival of dinner.

00:25:51.360 --> 00:25:54.080
And in response to that,
the dog would salivate

00:25:54.080 --> 00:25:57.280
because it\'s very excited
about the arrival of dinner.

00:25:57.280 --> 00:26:02.840
By repeating this long enough,
or times enough,

00:26:02.840 --> 00:26:05.120
the bell on its own,

00:26:05.120 --> 00:26:08.120
even when
there is no dinner coming,

00:26:08.120 --> 00:26:11.240
will make the dog salivate.

00:26:11.240 --> 00:26:17.480
Now, plants don\'t salivate
and I didn\'t use a bell.

00:26:17.480 --> 00:26:21.640
But instead of a bell,
I used a little fan.

00:26:24.120 --> 00:26:25.960
And instead of dinner...

00:26:28.160 --> 00:26:31.120
...I used light.

00:26:36.760 --> 00:26:39.280
Now, this is actually blue light

00:26:39.280 --> 00:26:42.800
because the peas
really like that.

00:26:42.800 --> 00:26:47.440
And what they do, a blue light,
they grow towards it.

00:26:47.440 --> 00:26:49.160
So they bend.

00:26:49.160 --> 00:26:52.240
If you repeat this
enough times --

00:26:52.240 --> 00:26:54.320
in this case for three days --

00:26:54.320 --> 00:26:58.840
you will find that
the fan alone,

00:26:58.840 --> 00:27:01.320
without the light even arriving,

00:27:01.320 --> 00:27:05.320
will make the pea bend
in the right direction.

00:27:05.320 --> 00:27:07.360
The fan didn\'t mean anything,

00:27:07.360 --> 00:27:10.360
but the plant somehow
has learned the association

00:27:10.360 --> 00:27:11.360
between these two.

00:27:11.360 --> 00:27:13.840
And just like the dog,

00:27:13.840 --> 00:27:17.600
the pea is passing the test
with flying colors.

00:27:20.280 --> 00:27:27.240
♪♪

00:27:27.240 --> 00:27:34.160
♪♪

00:27:34.160 --> 00:27:41.120
♪♪

00:27:41.120 --> 00:27:45.640
My first experiment was received
with great resistance

00:27:45.640 --> 00:27:48.480
because it was really the first
one to show that, yeah,

00:27:48.480 --> 00:27:50.360
plants can learn

00:27:50.360 --> 00:27:52.520
and they can tick
all the same boxes

00:27:52.520 --> 00:27:55.800
that we would expect
from an animal.

00:27:55.800 --> 00:27:57.440
A lot of the comments
that I received

00:27:57.440 --> 00:28:01.120
were never about the data,
which is, you know,

00:28:01.120 --> 00:28:03.640
that\'s the foundation
of science.

00:28:03.640 --> 00:28:08.360
Nobody ever actually said to me,
\"You did this experiment wrong.

00:28:08.360 --> 00:28:10.200
The data are no good.\"

00:28:10.200 --> 00:28:14.920
It was always about,
\"This cannot be.\"

00:28:14.920 --> 00:28:17.800
That is, the concept,
even the idea

00:28:17.800 --> 00:28:21.360
that a plant could learn,
it was almost disturbing.

00:28:24.200 --> 00:28:28.280
So, what is it about brain
and neurons that is so special

00:28:28.280 --> 00:28:31.320
that without them
you can be conscious?

00:28:31.320 --> 00:28:33.680
What brain and neurons
are really doing

00:28:33.680 --> 00:28:37.240
is passing through signals
of an electrical nature.

00:28:37.240 --> 00:28:40.480
Well, plants are really good
at electrical signaling.

00:28:40.480 --> 00:28:42.960
So does that mean the plants
are more conscious?

00:28:42.960 --> 00:28:45.320
I think that they have
more genes that are coding

00:28:45.320 --> 00:28:49.040
for that kind of exchange
of information internally.

00:28:49.040 --> 00:28:52.120
So does it mean that they are
even better than we are

00:28:52.120 --> 00:28:54.280
at this consciousness business?

00:28:55.840 --> 00:28:59.560
They\'re doing all of the things
that we think you can only do

00:28:59.560 --> 00:29:03.080
if you do have a brain and
neurons, but they\'re doing them.

00:29:03.080 --> 00:29:10.680
♪♪

00:29:10.680 --> 00:29:18.280
♪♪

00:29:18.280 --> 00:29:25.880
♪♪

00:29:25.880 --> 00:29:33.480
♪♪

00:29:33.480 --> 00:29:35.680
[speaking softly]

00:29:35.680 --> 00:29:44.760
♪♪

00:29:47.480 --> 00:29:49.520
[speaking softly]

00:32:51.480 --> 00:32:54.080
[Gagliano] Modern science seems
to be

00:32:54.080 --> 00:32:55.640
coming around in a circle.

00:32:55.640 --> 00:32:58.720
The voices of plants
that the shamans

00:32:58.720 --> 00:33:01.400
have listened to for millennia,

00:33:01.400 --> 00:33:06.080
we can record them now
in a lab with a laser.

00:33:06.080 --> 00:33:08.600
A lot of my research
has been inspired

00:33:08.600 --> 00:33:13.000
by knowledge that was shared
by Indigenous people with me.

00:33:13.000 --> 00:33:17.680
And it was directly opened up by
the experience with the plants.

00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:23.040
Often it comes through dreams.

00:33:23.040 --> 00:33:28.360
And in a traditional indigenous
knowledge perspective,

00:33:28.360 --> 00:33:30.480
this is nothing unusual.

00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:32.800
A lot of shamans

00:33:32.800 --> 00:33:36.120
get their information
through the dream world.

00:33:36.120 --> 00:33:38.280
But for a scientist to get
the information

00:33:38.280 --> 00:33:40.200
from the dream world
looks weird.

00:33:41.240 --> 00:33:46.960
It requires an opening up
to a space

00:33:46.960 --> 00:33:49.040
where intuition lives.

00:33:52.640 --> 00:34:01.760
♪♪

00:34:01.760 --> 00:34:10.840
♪♪

00:34:10.840 --> 00:34:19.960
♪♪

00:34:19.960 --> 00:34:23.920
[Griffiths] When we launched our
first psilocybin study,

00:34:23.920 --> 00:34:28.400
no such study
had been done for decades.

00:34:28.400 --> 00:34:32.680
Psilocybin is
the active principle

00:34:32.680 --> 00:34:36.920
in the so-called magic mushroom.

00:34:36.920 --> 00:34:41.640
And it is a classic psychedelic
or a hallucinogen drug

00:34:41.640 --> 00:34:45.720
used for thousands of years
by Indigenous cultures

00:34:45.720 --> 00:34:50.640
for religious or divinatory
or healing purposes.

00:34:54.520 --> 00:34:59.440
These drugs provide
a very unique window

00:34:59.440 --> 00:35:02.560
into the nature
of consciousness.

00:35:02.560 --> 00:35:10.000
♪♪

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:17.480
♪♪

00:35:17.480 --> 00:35:24.920
♪♪

00:35:24.920 --> 00:35:32.360
♪♪

00:35:32.360 --> 00:35:36.560
[Fritz] The lights
are super bright.

00:35:38.360 --> 00:35:45.040
I\'m seeing kind of like
a metronome keeping time,

00:35:45.040 --> 00:35:47.000
keeping track.

00:35:47.000 --> 00:35:51.600
And as that metronome swings
up and down,

00:35:51.600 --> 00:35:55.240
I\'m bouncing backwards
into time.

00:35:55.240 --> 00:36:03.600
♪♪

00:36:03.600 --> 00:36:11.920
♪♪

00:36:11.920 --> 00:36:20.280
♪♪

00:36:20.280 --> 00:36:24.400
There\'s a woman, a native woman,

00:36:24.400 --> 00:36:29.720
that I know I\'ve encountered.

00:36:29.720 --> 00:36:34.240
She has long dark hair.

00:36:34.240 --> 00:36:35.840
And I can see her face,

00:36:35.840 --> 00:36:41.600
and to me it looks
very familiar.

00:36:41.600 --> 00:36:43.840
She knows me, and I know her.

00:36:43.840 --> 00:36:48.600
♪♪

00:36:48.600 --> 00:36:53.320
♪♪

00:36:53.320 --> 00:36:58.960
I feel very peaceful
and not scared,

00:36:58.960 --> 00:37:05.920
like I\'m being connected to
like a collective knowledge base

00:37:05.920 --> 00:37:10.240
and that I\'m learning
about myself

00:37:10.240 --> 00:37:13.440
and about what is.

00:37:17.960 --> 00:37:22.560
[Griffiths] These experiences
looked like experiences

00:37:22.560 --> 00:37:26.920
that have been reported
over the ages by mystics

00:37:26.920 --> 00:37:28.680
and religious figures.

00:37:28.680 --> 00:37:33.200
There\'s a sense of unity
of all people and things,

00:37:33.200 --> 00:37:37.880
the sense that everything
is interconnected.

00:37:37.880 --> 00:37:41.400
And that\'s accompanied by
a sense of deep reverence

00:37:41.400 --> 00:37:44.280
for that experience.

00:37:44.280 --> 00:37:48.120
Some people describe it
as homecoming --

00:37:48.120 --> 00:37:53.760
There\'s something that they knew
to be true all along,

00:37:53.760 --> 00:37:56.880
and it\'s a remembering.

00:37:56.880 --> 00:38:00.400
And that\'s one of the powerful
pieces of the truth value

00:38:00.400 --> 00:38:02.200
of this experience,

00:38:02.200 --> 00:38:04.960
when we say it\'s more \"real\"
and more \"true\"

00:38:04.960 --> 00:38:07.240
than everyday
waking consciousness.

00:38:07.240 --> 00:38:12.960
♪♪

00:38:12.960 --> 00:38:14.600
[woman] You ready
for a few ratings?

00:38:14.600 --> 00:38:15.680
[Fritz] Yes.

00:38:15.680 --> 00:38:17.120
[woman] Zero, not at all.

00:38:17.120 --> 00:38:19.400
Ten being
the strongest imaginable.

00:38:20.840 --> 00:38:23.320
Distance from normal reality.

00:38:25.120 --> 00:38:27.240
[Fritz] Six.

00:38:27.240 --> 00:38:30.240
[woman] Pure being
and pure awareness.

00:38:32.360 --> 00:38:34.040
Five.

00:38:34.040 --> 00:38:37.880
Fusion of your personal self
into a larger whole?

00:38:37.880 --> 00:38:39.640
Four.

00:38:39.640 --> 00:38:41.880
Everything okay?
Warm enough?

00:38:41.880 --> 00:38:43.240
-Yeah, I\'m warm enough.
-Okay.

00:38:43.240 --> 00:38:45.000
You\'re doing beautifully,
Justine.

00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:46.440
-See you in a little bit.
-Yep.

00:38:46.440 --> 00:38:47.640
Okay.

00:38:49.360 --> 00:38:50.880
-She\'s doing great.
-[man] Great.

00:38:50.880 --> 00:38:52.760
[woman] Yeah, I mean, look at...

00:38:52.760 --> 00:38:55.440
Pure being and pure awareness --
five.

00:38:55.440 --> 00:38:58.960
Fusion of your personal self
into a larger whole -- four.

00:38:58.960 --> 00:39:01.600
Sense of reverence
or sacredness -- five.

00:39:01.600 --> 00:39:02.920
Eight for timelessness.

00:39:02.920 --> 00:39:04.400
So, yeah, so we may have some

00:39:04.400 --> 00:39:06.400
touch of
a mystical experience here.

00:39:08.280 --> 00:39:10.720
[Griffiths]
We brought people back

00:39:10.720 --> 00:39:13.560
a month later
or two months later

00:39:13.560 --> 00:39:15.680
and interviewed them.

00:39:15.680 --> 00:39:18.600
We have anywhere from

00:39:18.600 --> 00:39:23.040
70% to 80% of people
saying that this is

00:39:23.040 --> 00:39:27.960
in the top five most meaningful
experiences of their life.

00:39:27.960 --> 00:39:31.520
With respect
to spiritual significance,

00:39:31.520 --> 00:39:35.000
in our first study,
we had 30% of people

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:36.680
saying it was the single most

00:39:36.680 --> 00:39:38.640
spiritually
significant experiences

00:39:38.640 --> 00:39:40.720
of their entire life.

00:39:40.720 --> 00:39:43.640
And when you\'d ask,
\"Well, what does that mean?

00:39:43.640 --> 00:39:46.280
You know, you\'re saying
this is in the top five.

00:39:46.280 --> 00:39:48.560
What does that really mean
to you?\"

00:39:48.560 --> 00:39:50.680
people would kind of look off
and say,

00:39:50.680 --> 00:39:54.560
\"You know,
when my first child was born,

00:39:54.560 --> 00:39:56.720
that changed my entire life.

00:39:56.720 --> 00:40:00.920
You know, my life
would never be the same.

00:40:00.920 --> 00:40:03.240
And my father
recently passed away,

00:40:03.240 --> 00:40:05.920
and that\'s hugely moving.\"

00:40:05.920 --> 00:40:08.680
They\'d say, \"You know,
it\'s kind of like that.\"

00:40:08.680 --> 00:40:11.000
And so that\'s the metric
that they\'re using,

00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:17.800
these huge experiences
that everyone has,

00:40:17.800 --> 00:40:24.680
but this is occurring
in a single six-hour session

00:40:24.680 --> 00:40:28.600
in a session room
at Johns Hopkins.

00:40:28.600 --> 00:40:30.120
[laughs]

00:40:30.120 --> 00:40:35.400
I have worked at Johns Hopkins
for over 40 years.

00:40:35.400 --> 00:40:37.480
I work long hours.

00:40:37.480 --> 00:40:40.000
And I work
more than five days a week.

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:43.720
And I can\'t say I\'ve had
one of the most, you know,

00:40:43.720 --> 00:40:47.920
top-five experiences
in my life there at Hopkins.

00:41:00.240 --> 00:41:06.320
[Fritz] In one of
my most meaningful sessions

00:41:06.320 --> 00:41:08.040
that I had in the study,

00:41:08.040 --> 00:41:14.480
I felt the energy of people
that have been close to me

00:41:14.480 --> 00:41:16.000
that have passed away

00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:20.080
in a way that
is maybe hard to describe

00:41:20.080 --> 00:41:23.560
but it was
very convincing to me

00:41:23.560 --> 00:41:26.000
that it was these
certain people.

00:41:27.800 --> 00:41:33.520
So that\'s one way that
it really strengthened my belief

00:41:33.520 --> 00:41:37.680
in the afterlife,
whatever that means.

00:41:37.680 --> 00:41:40.200
Whether that means

00:41:40.200 --> 00:41:42.520
that your energy
cannot be ever destroyed.

00:41:42.520 --> 00:41:45.880
And that\'s a part of that
connective thread

00:41:45.880 --> 00:41:51.520
that is binding
all of us in the world,

00:41:51.520 --> 00:41:53.000
all people and things.

00:42:00.880 --> 00:42:04.120
I felt as though the experience

00:42:04.120 --> 00:42:09.040
was preparing me for things

00:42:09.040 --> 00:42:12.320
that I know will happen
in my life, that will be tough.

00:42:12.320 --> 00:42:15.160
♪♪

00:42:15.160 --> 00:42:20.560
I\'m being pushed on a gurney
down a hallway.

00:42:20.560 --> 00:42:25.440
What I can see is ceiling tiles

00:42:25.440 --> 00:42:30.360
going by very, very quickly,
and industrial lights,

00:42:30.360 --> 00:42:34.360
and I know
that I\'m in a hospital.

00:42:34.360 --> 00:42:38.520
And something is not right.

00:42:38.520 --> 00:42:42.720
I can smell
the anesthetic hospital smell,

00:42:42.720 --> 00:42:46.760
and things are
very chaotic around me.

00:42:46.760 --> 00:42:51.000
Just commotion, concern.

00:42:51.000 --> 00:42:54.920
But all I can feel is safety

00:42:54.920 --> 00:42:58.120
and a loving feeling

00:42:58.120 --> 00:43:01.160
that\'s cradling me
in that moment.

00:43:01.160 --> 00:43:06.520
♪♪

00:43:06.520 --> 00:43:12.040
And I know I\'m learning now

00:43:12.040 --> 00:43:14.840
for an experience in the future

00:43:14.840 --> 00:43:19.200
and that
I\'m being prepared that,

00:43:19.200 --> 00:43:23.320
when that happens,
when that moment happens,

00:43:23.320 --> 00:43:27.760
I\'ll remember this,
remember that I\'m safe,

00:43:27.760 --> 00:43:31.640
and it will be okay.

00:43:31.640 --> 00:43:41.000
♪♪

00:43:41.000 --> 00:43:50.360
♪♪

00:43:50.360 --> 00:43:59.720
♪♪

00:43:59.720 --> 00:44:01.400
[Griffiths]
Since we began this work,

00:44:01.400 --> 00:44:07.560
we have conducted research
in over 600 psilocybin sessions.

00:44:11.800 --> 00:44:15.120
Just recently,
our group at Johns Hopkins

00:44:15.120 --> 00:44:18.120
and a group
at New York University

00:44:18.120 --> 00:44:21.520
copublished studies
in which we administered

00:44:21.520 --> 00:44:24.320
a moderately high dose
of psilocybin

00:44:24.320 --> 00:44:28.120
to cancer patients
who met clinical criteria

00:44:28.120 --> 00:44:32.640
for very significant anxiety
or depression.

00:44:32.640 --> 00:44:34.680
And most importantly,

00:44:34.680 --> 00:44:40.480
the measures of depression
go markedly down.

00:44:40.480 --> 00:44:42.520
And for the most part,

00:44:42.520 --> 00:44:45.720
people felt
much more comfortable

00:44:45.720 --> 00:44:49.920
with the prospect
of facing death.

00:44:49.920 --> 00:44:53.120
And these effects
appear to endure.

00:44:54.720 --> 00:44:58.160
People do not come out
of that experience saying,

00:44:58.160 --> 00:45:01.760
\"Oh, now I believe in heaven,\"
you know,

00:45:01.760 --> 00:45:05.520
\"Now I believe in life
after death.\"

00:45:05.520 --> 00:45:11.240
But it\'s not uncommon
for people to come out

00:45:11.240 --> 00:45:13.760
entertaining, in a way
that they perhaps

00:45:13.760 --> 00:45:17.240
didn\'t previously,
that there\'s --

00:45:17.240 --> 00:45:21.600
there could possibly
be continuity of something.

00:45:21.600 --> 00:45:30.400
♪♪

00:45:30.400 --> 00:45:39.200
♪♪

00:45:39.200 --> 00:45:48.040
♪♪

00:45:48.040 --> 00:45:56.840
♪♪

00:45:56.840 --> 00:46:05.640
♪♪

00:46:05.640 --> 00:46:13.680
♪♪

00:46:13.680 --> 00:46:15.960
[people speaking native
language, music playing]

00:47:02.640 --> 00:47:04.880
[Ricard] Sometimes when Western
visitors come here,

00:47:04.880 --> 00:47:07.320
they expect that
all our young monks

00:47:07.320 --> 00:47:09.400
in the school would meditate.

00:47:09.400 --> 00:47:10.800
But, basically, meditation

00:47:10.800 --> 00:47:14.480
is not considered something
for beginners.

00:47:14.480 --> 00:47:17.640
You don\'t go to
a mindfulness course here.

00:47:28.960 --> 00:47:32.480
\"Meditation\" means
\"cultivating\" in Sanskrit --

00:47:32.480 --> 00:47:37.080
cultivating altruistic love,
loving kindness, compassion.

00:47:37.080 --> 00:47:39.920
So it\'s not just sitting there
and looking in the sky

00:47:39.920 --> 00:47:41.520
and emptying your mind.

00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:50.920
Meditation actually comes
pretty late

00:47:50.920 --> 00:47:54.360
because it\'s dealing with
the basic nature of your mind.

00:47:54.360 --> 00:47:57.000
And if you\'re not prepared,
what are you going to do?

00:50:42.920 --> 00:50:45.200
[music playing]

00:51:13.400 --> 00:51:14.960
[Ricard] When you see
the sacred dance,

00:51:14.960 --> 00:51:17.520
the rituals are not
just magic rituals.

00:51:17.520 --> 00:51:20.400
They are actually
guided meditation.

00:51:20.400 --> 00:51:22.840
First, there is a dance
to purify the ground

00:51:22.840 --> 00:51:25.840
from all graspings
and mental clinging.

00:51:31.960 --> 00:51:35.360
When you see a dancer with
a sword that cuts an effigy,

00:51:35.360 --> 00:51:37.960
it\'s just cutting
the clinging to ego.

00:51:47.200 --> 00:51:52.200
Grasping to the self could be
a source of hatred,

00:51:52.200 --> 00:51:56.240
obsessive craving,
arrogance, jealousy,

00:51:56.240 --> 00:51:58.960
distortion of reality.

00:51:58.960 --> 00:52:00.520
What would be
the result of that?

00:52:00.520 --> 00:52:01.840
Suffering.

00:52:06.920 --> 00:52:11.280
So unless you deconstruct
the notion of ego,

00:52:11.280 --> 00:52:13.280
those things
will continue to appear.

00:52:35.960 --> 00:52:40.920
♪♪

00:52:40.920 --> 00:52:45.880
♪♪

00:52:45.880 --> 00:52:48.400
[Griffiths] Meditation is
the tried-and-true course

00:52:48.400 --> 00:52:51.080
for understanding
the nature of mind,

00:52:51.080 --> 00:52:53.680
and psilocybin
is the crash course.

00:52:57.160 --> 00:53:01.600
We often speak in terms of \"ego\"
and \"self\"

00:53:01.600 --> 00:53:05.120
being dissolved acutely
by psilocybin

00:53:05.120 --> 00:53:08.520
and some of these
meditation practices.

00:53:08.520 --> 00:53:13.120
That\'s actually the objective
of most Buddhist practices,

00:53:13.120 --> 00:53:16.960
to recognize that
you are not the self

00:53:16.960 --> 00:53:19.760
and that so often
in our cultures

00:53:19.760 --> 00:53:22.880
that we\'ve come
to identify ourself

00:53:22.880 --> 00:53:26.720
with that voice in our head
that says, \"I\'m going to get up.

00:53:26.720 --> 00:53:29.040
I see the morning.\"

00:53:29.040 --> 00:53:33.920
As one meditates more deeply,
it becomes very apparent

00:53:33.920 --> 00:53:37.040
that that sense of self
can drop away.

00:53:37.040 --> 00:53:41.360
And that experience alone
can be totally transformative.

00:53:44.360 --> 00:53:46.680
So we\'ll have this top
over your head.

00:53:48.120 --> 00:53:49.680
It\'s like an antenna.

00:53:54.520 --> 00:53:55.520
Okay.

00:53:55.520 --> 00:53:57.000
[Griffiths] Hey, Jane -- Roland.

00:53:57.000 --> 00:53:59.680
Just wanted to know
how you\'re doing in there.

00:53:59.680 --> 00:54:02.480
[Jane] I\'m doing great, thanks.
It\'s actually pretty comfy.

00:54:02.480 --> 00:54:05.880
[laughs] Okay.
That\'s what we want to hear.

00:54:06.800 --> 00:54:10.240
[Man] It\'s like a spa.
[chuckles]

00:54:10.240 --> 00:54:13.920
[Griffiths] One perspective on
what happens with psychedelics,

00:54:13.920 --> 00:54:17.720
from a neuroscience
point of view,

00:54:17.720 --> 00:54:21.080
is the influence
of psychedelics

00:54:21.080 --> 00:54:24.520
on something called
the default mode network,

00:54:24.520 --> 00:54:27.840
a function of brain
that underlies ego

00:54:27.840 --> 00:54:29.600
or sense of self.

00:54:31.760 --> 00:54:38.520
People with clinical depression
have increased sense of ego,

00:54:38.520 --> 00:54:41.160
and one of the things
that psychedelics do --

00:54:41.160 --> 00:54:43.200
psilocybin and LSD --

00:54:43.200 --> 00:54:47.960
is to decrease function
in the default mode network,

00:54:47.960 --> 00:54:50.840
in other words,
decrease egoic function.

00:54:50.840 --> 00:54:53.160
There can be a sense
of the melting away

00:54:53.160 --> 00:54:57.800
of a sense of self
or personality, if you will,

00:54:57.800 --> 00:55:01.560
and a merging with
something greater than that.

00:55:01.560 --> 00:55:08.480
So, acutely you\'ll get decreases
in the sense of self,

00:55:08.480 --> 00:55:14.000
but concurrently a much greater
interconnectivity in the brain,

00:55:14.000 --> 00:55:19.200
and the opportunity for rewiring
and new connections forming

00:55:19.200 --> 00:55:23.000
is really quite substantial.

00:55:23.000 --> 00:55:25.120
One of the common features
of this

00:55:25.120 --> 00:55:27.160
decreased sense of self

00:55:27.160 --> 00:55:32.760
is just a greater openness
and a greater freedom of choice.

00:55:32.760 --> 00:55:36.720
And so that emerges
from psychedelics.

00:55:36.720 --> 00:55:40.640
It emerges in meditation because
one of the characteristics

00:55:40.640 --> 00:55:42.200
is an open-mindedness

00:55:42.200 --> 00:55:46.160
and a freedom
from habitual response.

00:55:46.160 --> 00:55:50.160
And it looks very much
like patterns that we see

00:55:50.160 --> 00:55:53.280
in childhood before
those narratives get locked in,

00:55:53.280 --> 00:55:55.440
and that sense of self
gets locked in.

00:55:55.440 --> 00:56:01.640
So this openness has
huge implications for healing.

00:56:08.440 --> 00:56:10.200
[Boothby] I wouldn\'t hesitate
a second to say

00:56:10.200 --> 00:56:11.560
that the Hopkins experiment

00:56:11.560 --> 00:56:14.360
was a completely
life-changing experience.

00:56:21.280 --> 00:56:25.600
Why would something synthesized
by mushrooms

00:56:25.600 --> 00:56:27.960
do something so dramatic
to the human brain?

00:56:27.960 --> 00:56:32.040
And, in fact, \"What does it do?\"
was the question, in part.

00:56:32.040 --> 00:56:35.960
I participated about
10 years ago in a study

00:56:35.960 --> 00:56:41.080
which gave a small number
of subjects like me

00:56:41.080 --> 00:56:43.880
various concentrations
of psilocybin

00:56:43.880 --> 00:56:46.440
in a very controlled environment
in which we were coached

00:56:46.440 --> 00:56:51.440
to be open to whatever
happened in our brain.

00:56:51.440 --> 00:56:55.760
Ten years later,
I still regard it as --

00:56:55.760 --> 00:56:57.840
in fact,
even more so regard it

00:56:57.840 --> 00:57:01.920
as the most significant
experience I\'ve ever had.

00:57:10.120 --> 00:57:11.720
At the time I did this,

00:57:11.720 --> 00:57:16.240
I was in the more or less
immediate aftermath

00:57:16.240 --> 00:57:19.160
of a really tragic death.

00:57:19.160 --> 00:57:22.080
My son died by suicide.

00:57:22.080 --> 00:57:26.440
He went through different forms
of drugs,

00:57:26.440 --> 00:57:33.040
from alcohol to Ecstasy to LSD
to cocaine to heroin.

00:57:35.360 --> 00:57:38.760
And one night I just got a call

00:57:38.760 --> 00:57:41.320
that he had
shot himself to death.

00:57:50.080 --> 00:57:53.440
My son\'s death
had left me so raw

00:57:53.440 --> 00:57:58.680
and so in need of working
through certain things.

00:57:58.680 --> 00:58:03.760
So I regarded the whole
psilocybin experiment

00:58:03.760 --> 00:58:05.720
as at least potentially a way

00:58:05.720 --> 00:58:09.880
to come to some further terms
with that.

00:58:16.480 --> 00:58:19.200
I went into it with a good deal
of skepticism.

00:58:19.200 --> 00:58:21.600
I wasn\'t in any --

00:58:21.600 --> 00:58:24.320
certainly not in any
institutional way religious,

00:58:24.320 --> 00:58:28.360
nor really a believer
in much of any sense.

00:58:31.000 --> 00:58:34.400
As a philosopher,
as a professor of philosophy,

00:58:34.400 --> 00:58:36.480
I knew a lot
about the history of theology

00:58:36.480 --> 00:58:40.320
but didn\'t feel a great deal
of personal participation in.

00:58:40.320 --> 00:58:43.120
So I went into the whole thing
quite prepared

00:58:43.120 --> 00:58:47.440
for a big zero
on the spiritual side.

00:58:52.120 --> 00:58:54.040
Okay. So...

00:58:55.120 --> 00:58:57.360
All right.
Get a sheet.

00:58:58.440 --> 00:59:02.000
[Boothby] Roland and Mary
coached me a lot,

00:59:02.000 --> 00:59:03.800
regarding the whole experience

00:59:03.800 --> 00:59:06.520
as a kind of space traveler,
a kind of astronaut,

00:59:06.520 --> 00:59:08.320
where you\'re going
to get blasted out

00:59:08.320 --> 00:59:14.120
into some possibly scary place
by yourself.

00:59:15.640 --> 00:59:22.200
Okay, so, Rick, just begin by
taking a couple deep breaths.

00:59:22.200 --> 00:59:26.320
♪♪

00:59:26.320 --> 00:59:28.600
And out.

00:59:28.600 --> 00:59:33.880
♪♪

00:59:33.880 --> 00:59:36.640
And in and out.

00:59:36.640 --> 00:59:43.680
♪♪

00:59:43.680 --> 00:59:50.720
♪♪

00:59:50.720 --> 00:59:52.640
[Boothby] It really felt like
a journey

00:59:52.640 --> 00:59:58.080
through some kind of
cosmic roller coaster.

00:59:58.080 --> 01:00:02.760
A deep-sea diver descending
into the ocean depths.

01:00:04.400 --> 01:00:08.720
I even had the illusion
of pressure and darkness.

01:00:08.720 --> 01:00:15.000
♪♪

01:00:15.000 --> 01:00:20.680
And I was so gratified to feel
the touch of Mary\'s hand,

01:00:20.680 --> 01:00:25.640
although it felt as though
she\'s in some little boat

01:00:25.640 --> 01:00:29.440
hundreds of feet,
if not miles, above me.

01:00:31.920 --> 01:00:36.200
But even that didn\'t suffice
to orient me.

01:00:36.200 --> 01:00:39.160
I seriously wondered,
\"Am I alive or am I dead?\"

01:00:39.160 --> 01:00:41.600
I couldn\'t make out.

01:00:41.600 --> 01:00:44.960
And at one point I thought,
\"Oh, my God,

01:00:44.960 --> 01:00:48.520
I have become
a heroin addict myself.

01:00:48.520 --> 01:00:51.880
In some kind of mania
of sympathy and grief

01:00:51.880 --> 01:00:56.840
for Oliver\'s death,
I have experimented with drugs

01:00:56.840 --> 01:01:00.520
and here I am
in some kind of overdose.\"

01:01:00.520 --> 01:01:06.680
♪♪

01:01:06.680 --> 01:01:12.840
♪♪

01:01:12.840 --> 01:01:17.520
But I maintained a weird clarity
of mind at the same time,

01:01:17.520 --> 01:01:20.840
as though I was able to observe

01:01:20.840 --> 01:01:25.480
from some position
that was undisturbed

01:01:25.480 --> 01:01:30.720
while the rest of
my entire reality fell apart.

01:01:30.720 --> 01:01:34.640
I felt at times as though

01:01:34.640 --> 01:01:38.240
I was hearing music
for the first time.

01:01:38.240 --> 01:01:42.280
It felt like the heartbeat
of reality itself.

01:01:46.000 --> 01:01:50.000
And it became clear
that something like that

01:01:50.000 --> 01:01:54.560
is the very essence of life --

01:01:54.560 --> 01:01:57.400
that is to say,

01:01:57.400 --> 01:02:03.120
life is about
trying to open oneself

01:02:03.120 --> 01:02:06.720
in a kind of loving acceptance
and an engagement

01:02:06.720 --> 01:02:11.120
or pure openness
to experience.

01:02:11.120 --> 01:02:13.000
That\'s the point.

01:02:13.000 --> 01:02:16.120
Rather than fear and defense.

01:02:16.120 --> 01:02:24.520
♪♪

01:02:24.520 --> 01:02:30.120
[Griffiths] What remains if ego
or self dissolves completely?

01:02:32.400 --> 01:02:36.360
What remains is this sense
of awareness,

01:02:36.360 --> 01:02:41.160
this sense of witness,
the sense of awakenedness.

01:02:41.160 --> 01:02:44.320
And so ego
can dissolve entirely,

01:02:44.320 --> 01:02:47.520
sense of self
can dissolve entirely,

01:02:47.520 --> 01:02:53.400
and yet you can be fully aware
that you\'re aware.

01:02:55.760 --> 01:03:00.920
And there\'s something sacred
about that.

01:03:00.920 --> 01:03:03.840
Some people might describe it
as a void.

01:03:03.840 --> 01:03:07.040
Some people might describe it
as a white light.

01:03:07.040 --> 01:03:10.440
But there\'s this state
of pure awareness...

01:03:12.520 --> 01:03:16.560
...and we\'re leaning deeply --
as deeply as we can --

01:03:16.560 --> 01:03:19.720
into this existential mystery

01:03:19.720 --> 01:03:23.320
of what it is
that we\'re doing here.

01:03:23.320 --> 01:03:32.200
♪♪

01:03:32.200 --> 01:03:41.080
♪♪

01:03:41.080 --> 01:03:49.960
♪♪

01:03:49.960 --> 01:03:55.720
[Gagliano] I changed my research
direction and my career, really,

01:03:55.720 --> 01:03:58.640
because of something
that happened in the field

01:03:58.640 --> 01:04:01.080
with my fish.

01:04:01.080 --> 01:04:02.920
I was trained as
a marine scientist,

01:04:02.920 --> 01:04:08.840
and I did most of my early
research with coral reef fishes.

01:04:08.840 --> 01:04:14.200
And then one day,
as part of my experiment,

01:04:14.200 --> 01:04:17.960
I was in the water,
and after spending months

01:04:17.960 --> 01:04:21.400
with these
particular individuals,

01:04:21.400 --> 01:04:24.280
which I knew personally,
I would say,

01:04:24.280 --> 01:04:29.680
as one-on-one relationship
built over time,

01:04:29.680 --> 01:04:34.320
that day, fish that just
until the day before

01:04:34.320 --> 01:04:35.960
would come inside my hands

01:04:35.960 --> 01:04:38.680
and I could close my hands
around them, and they were like,

01:04:38.680 --> 01:04:40.680
\"We know.
This is just Monica.

01:04:40.680 --> 01:04:43.680
She comes every day,
and it\'s all good.\"

01:04:43.680 --> 01:04:46.400
That day nobody came out.

01:04:46.400 --> 01:04:48.120
And the only thing that
was different that day

01:04:48.120 --> 01:04:50.680
was that I went in the water

01:04:50.680 --> 01:04:55.160
with the thought
of finishing my experiments

01:04:55.160 --> 01:04:58.040
and collecting them all,
which, obviously,

01:04:58.040 --> 01:05:00.160
it wasn\'t a good ending
for them.

01:05:04.400 --> 01:05:07.560
In that moment when nobody
came out to greet me,

01:05:07.560 --> 01:05:11.040
as they did for days and days,
for months,

01:05:11.040 --> 01:05:15.120
I just realized that these fish
knew about me

01:05:15.120 --> 01:05:18.960
much more than I knew about me.

01:05:18.960 --> 01:05:23.240
They showed me
what it really means

01:05:23.240 --> 01:05:26.280
to have empathic relationships.

01:05:28.600 --> 01:05:31.520
In that moment, I realized
that there are no boundaries,

01:05:31.520 --> 01:05:34.640
that we think we have our
private lives inside our minds,

01:05:34.640 --> 01:05:39.040
but in reality
we are immersed in this ocean

01:05:39.040 --> 01:05:43.320
where all boundaries
are quite fictitious.

01:05:45.040 --> 01:05:49.280
That experience for me
changed my entire career

01:05:49.280 --> 01:05:52.360
because I realized
that there was no questions

01:05:52.360 --> 01:05:55.000
that I could ask
that would be important enough

01:05:55.000 --> 01:06:01.120
or special enough to justify me
taking someone else\'s life.

01:06:01.120 --> 01:06:06.320
That\'s when the plants came
and rescued the scientist in me.

01:06:06.320 --> 01:06:14.960
♪♪

01:06:14.960 --> 01:06:18.720
We see the world
as separate from us,

01:06:18.720 --> 01:06:22.320
and we see things, not beings.

01:06:22.320 --> 01:06:29.320
And so the moment we appreciate
what consciousness really is,

01:06:29.320 --> 01:06:32.560
this one big ocean
that expresses itself

01:06:32.560 --> 01:06:34.640
through different forms
and shapes,

01:06:34.640 --> 01:06:38.320
then, as the plants
have taught me many times,

01:06:38.320 --> 01:06:40.160
what you see is just you.

01:06:40.160 --> 01:06:44.720
You wouldn\'t hurt yourself.
You wouldn\'t kill yourself.

01:06:44.720 --> 01:06:47.000
You wouldn\'t destroy anything.

01:06:47.000 --> 01:06:50.280
You wouldn\'t behave as we do
in our environment

01:06:50.280 --> 01:06:52.880
because that is you too.

01:06:52.880 --> 01:07:01.520
♪♪

01:07:01.520 --> 01:07:10.160
♪♪

01:07:10.160 --> 01:07:18.840
♪♪

01:07:18.840 --> 01:07:27.480
♪♪

01:07:27.480 --> 01:07:29.480
♪♪

01:07:41.120 --> 01:07:44.800
♪♪

01:09:35.000 --> 01:09:37.760
[Koch]
I\'m now a \"panpsychist.\"

01:09:37.760 --> 01:09:41.320
So, panpsychist comes from the
word \"pan\" -- \"everywhere\" --

01:09:41.320 --> 01:09:42.840
and \"psyche\" -- \"soul.\"

01:09:42.840 --> 01:09:45.320
And it\'s an ancient faith.

01:09:45.320 --> 01:09:48.760
So, many philosophers in the
Western tradition have had it,

01:09:48.760 --> 01:09:53.720
including Plato and Spinoza
and Schopenhauer.

01:09:53.720 --> 01:09:55.440
But, of course,
it\'s very prevalent

01:09:55.440 --> 01:09:57.480
if you look, for example,
in Buddhist faith,

01:09:57.480 --> 01:10:02.800
that many more creatures
may be en-souled than we think.

01:10:04.480 --> 01:10:07.400
Most people are willing to say,
\"Okay. A monkey is conscious,\"

01:10:07.400 --> 01:10:09.120
and maybe a cat and a dog.

01:10:09.120 --> 01:10:11.520
But it peters out very quickly
after that.

01:10:11.520 --> 01:10:12.680
Bird?
Mnh-mnh.

01:10:12.680 --> 01:10:14.560
A squid?
Probably not.

01:10:14.560 --> 01:10:17.120
Bees? Heaven\'s sake.
They\'re just bugs, right?

01:10:17.120 --> 01:10:20.520
But we really don\'t know.

01:10:21.120 --> 01:10:23.880
A bee has a brain that\'s roughly
a million neurons.

01:10:23.880 --> 01:10:25.360
Far smaller than us.

01:10:25.360 --> 01:10:28.200
However its complexity,
it\'s much denser --

01:10:28.200 --> 01:10:31.240
10 times denser than the neurons
in the human brain.

01:10:42.520 --> 01:10:45.200
Many biologists, particularly
who think about consciousness,

01:10:45.200 --> 01:10:47.720
believe it\'s
an \"emergent\" property.

01:10:47.720 --> 01:10:50.120
The classical one
is wetness of water.

01:10:50.120 --> 01:10:52.720
I can take a liquid like water,
and it\'s wet.

01:10:52.720 --> 01:10:55.800
I can pour it over my clothes,
and I know what \"wet\" is.

01:10:55.800 --> 01:10:58.880
Now, if I ask, is one molecule
of H2O --

01:10:58.880 --> 01:11:00.880
It isn\'t wet. It doesn\'t have
those properties.

01:11:00.880 --> 01:11:02.760
Or two molecules of H2O.

01:11:02.760 --> 01:11:04.760
But at some point, if you put
enough molecules together,

01:11:04.760 --> 01:11:06.440
they have this property,
\"wetness.\"

01:11:06.440 --> 01:11:09.400
They cling to surfaces and
they have tension, et cetera.

01:11:09.400 --> 01:11:11.920
So people think, \"Well,
you have one or two neurons,

01:11:11.920 --> 01:11:14.000
you don\'t get consciousness,
42, you don\'t.

01:11:14.000 --> 01:11:15.760
But if you have a billion,
you get some.

01:11:15.760 --> 01:11:17.880
And if you if you have
two billion, you get more.\"

01:11:17.880 --> 01:11:20.520
So it is just
an emergent property.

01:11:20.520 --> 01:11:22.160
I used to think that.

01:11:22.160 --> 01:11:27.160
But then consciousness
is just too radically different

01:11:27.160 --> 01:11:28.800
from anything else I know.

01:11:28.800 --> 01:11:30.600
Conscious experience,
subjectivity,

01:11:30.600 --> 01:11:32.920
feelings are
too radically different

01:11:32.920 --> 01:11:35.400
from anything else
in the universe

01:11:35.400 --> 01:11:38.600
for me to accept
that it just emerges.

01:11:40.720 --> 01:11:43.600
Max Planck, the father
of quantum physics,

01:11:43.600 --> 01:11:45.440
said in the late \'20s,

01:11:45.440 --> 01:11:48.400
\"I regard consciousness
as fundamental.\"

01:11:48.400 --> 01:11:49.960
I concur.

01:11:49.960 --> 01:11:51.840
It\'s not something
first you have physics,

01:11:51.840 --> 01:11:53.520
and then if you have
enough physics,

01:11:53.520 --> 01:11:55.800
then somehow you get
consciousness.

01:11:55.800 --> 01:11:59.800
Consciousness is a fundamental
feature of the universe.

01:11:59.800 --> 01:12:08.400
♪♪

01:12:08.400 --> 01:12:17.040
♪♪

01:12:17.040 --> 01:12:25.640
♪♪

01:12:25.640 --> 01:12:34.280
♪♪

01:12:34.280 --> 01:12:42.880
♪♪

01:12:42.880 --> 01:12:51.520
♪♪

01:12:51.520 --> 01:13:00.120
♪♪

01:13:00.120 --> 01:13:03.960
[Griffiths] Does the fish know
that they\'re in water?

01:13:05.920 --> 01:13:09.120
Do we really recognize
that we\'re swimming

01:13:09.120 --> 01:13:13.080
in this sea of consciousness
all the time?

01:13:15.680 --> 01:13:19.080
In our culture,
often that\'s not the case.

01:13:19.080 --> 01:13:23.560
We\'re so caught up
in achievement

01:13:23.560 --> 01:13:25.360
and our own stories

01:13:25.360 --> 01:13:31.960
and acquisition of material
objects that define us

01:13:31.960 --> 01:13:35.560
that we lose track of the fact

01:13:35.560 --> 01:13:40.920
that we\'re afloat
in this sea of consciousness.

01:13:42.840 --> 01:13:51.200
Psilocybin is one very powerful
doorway into that recognition.

01:13:52.520 --> 01:13:56.800
Some people are already awake
to the vastness and the wonder.

01:13:56.800 --> 01:14:01.080
But other people,
it\'s their first awakening

01:14:01.080 --> 01:14:03.440
to a different way

01:14:03.440 --> 01:14:07.760
of experiencing
and being in the world.

01:14:07.760 --> 01:14:13.360
♪♪

01:14:13.360 --> 01:14:18.920
♪♪

01:14:18.920 --> 01:14:20.920
[Boothby]
It\'s not the drug.

01:14:20.920 --> 01:14:24.520
The drug helps you
to open the door.

01:14:24.520 --> 01:14:27.440
But the drug isn\'t
what\'s outside the door.

01:14:28.520 --> 01:14:32.360
The question is how much
of reality you can take.

01:14:34.840 --> 01:14:39.200
Ordinarily, the function
of our mental apparatus

01:14:39.200 --> 01:14:42.520
is to close down the opening,

01:14:42.520 --> 01:14:45.240
like closing down the aperture
of a camera

01:14:45.240 --> 01:14:48.160
to the tightest,
most restrictive aperture,

01:14:48.160 --> 01:14:51.920
so that you\'re not flooded,
so you\'re not overwhelmed.

01:14:53.840 --> 01:14:57.240
And psilocybin is
an aperture opener.

01:14:57.240 --> 01:15:02.000
It massively exposes.

01:15:03.080 --> 01:15:05.800
I felt like I was being...

01:15:07.040 --> 01:15:11.560
...miraculously exposed
to my own life.

01:15:11.560 --> 01:15:19.640
♪♪

01:15:19.640 --> 01:15:24.080
I had enormously powerful
experiences visually

01:15:24.080 --> 01:15:28.800
of what seemed to be
an immensity of space.

01:15:30.240 --> 01:15:33.760
Then the experience
would reopen,

01:15:33.760 --> 01:15:37.240
as if you\'re already
at the infinite.

01:15:37.240 --> 01:15:40.520
And suddenly
that would open again

01:15:40.520 --> 01:15:43.680
to an infinite
beyond the infinite.

01:15:45.200 --> 01:15:46.560
And that was the moment

01:15:46.560 --> 01:15:48.480
when the astronaut metaphor
came back.

01:15:48.480 --> 01:15:50.120
And I thought, \"Yeah.\"

01:15:51.480 --> 01:15:54.680
Something like exploration,

01:15:54.680 --> 01:15:56.680
something like
the pure adventure

01:15:56.680 --> 01:16:00.760
of going out
with as open eyes as possible,

01:16:00.760 --> 01:16:04.400
to drink in what is new
and strange.

01:16:04.400 --> 01:16:10.200
That\'s the whole purpose
and aim of our existence.

01:16:11.840 --> 01:16:16.600
Consciousness is nothing
but this openness.

01:16:21.600 --> 01:16:24.480
Traditionally, we think of God
as the end point of the journey.

01:16:24.480 --> 01:16:26.800
God is the destination.

01:16:26.800 --> 01:16:29.560
And it suddenly
rolls over me again --

01:16:29.560 --> 01:16:32.960
No, God is not the destination.

01:16:32.960 --> 01:16:35.280
God is the journey.

01:16:35.280 --> 01:16:40.000
It\'s the openness itself
that is divine.

01:16:42.280 --> 01:16:47.240
Which then led me
to this massive realization

01:16:47.240 --> 01:16:49.960
that God is seeing
through our eyes,

01:16:49.960 --> 01:16:54.200
that God\'s on the adventure,

01:16:54.200 --> 01:16:58.520
that God, in a certain sense, is
the ultimate astronaut Himself,

01:16:58.520 --> 01:17:03.120
that without us seeing
these strange visions,

01:17:03.120 --> 01:17:05.080
He doesn\'t get to see anything.

01:17:05.080 --> 01:17:08.560
And without us feeling things,
He doesn\'t feel anything.

01:17:08.560 --> 01:17:14.040
Without us going through
the experiences of life,

01:17:14.040 --> 01:17:15.880
He doesn\'t go through life.

01:17:15.880 --> 01:17:22.120
In other words, that we are
the proxies for God\'s own life.

01:17:23.800 --> 01:17:29.960
And this was, to me, so new...

01:17:31.360 --> 01:17:35.800
...a perspective that I was
kind of shocked by it.

01:17:37.800 --> 01:17:43.280
And I realized if God
truly grants freedom...

01:17:43.280 --> 01:17:48.200
He doesn\'t know the outcome
of those free acts.

01:17:49.720 --> 01:17:54.240
He is on the adventure
more than anyone.

01:17:55.120 --> 01:17:58.520
The gift of freedom necessitates

01:17:58.520 --> 01:18:03.800
that God is truly open
to whatever\'s gonna come out.

01:18:05.840 --> 01:18:08.360
And it also made me realize,
of course,

01:18:08.360 --> 01:18:13.840
this is the only possible
meaning of love.

01:18:14.760 --> 01:18:17.840
Love is such an adventure
of freedom

01:18:17.840 --> 01:18:24.520
where you take the risk
of openness to the other,

01:18:24.520 --> 01:18:30.240
including the possibility
of being disappointed,

01:18:30.240 --> 01:18:33.120
of being wounded.

01:18:33.120 --> 01:18:39.400
♪♪

01:18:39.400 --> 01:18:45.640
♪♪

01:18:45.640 --> 01:18:48.880
In another rushing over me
of a revelation,

01:18:48.880 --> 01:18:50.880
I thought of my son.

01:18:50.880 --> 01:18:52.920
He came to me.

01:18:53.800 --> 01:18:55.600
And not just his presence,

01:18:55.600 --> 01:19:01.920
but a kind of electric, vivid,
intense presence.

01:19:03.520 --> 01:19:08.640
I could not but imagine it alive

01:19:08.640 --> 01:19:13.760
and imagine it
as his core being.

01:19:13.760 --> 01:19:18.960
♪♪

01:19:18.960 --> 01:19:24.680
In his absence, in this ultimate
absence, I found him again.

01:19:28.840 --> 01:19:31.400
It came to me to realize

01:19:31.400 --> 01:19:36.360
that maybe in this sense,
nothing ever dies.

01:19:42.360 --> 01:19:44.760
His...essence,

01:19:44.760 --> 01:19:49.440
his kind of distilled essence,
could survive death --

01:19:49.440 --> 01:19:51.600
at least in my heart.

01:19:53.440 --> 01:20:00.160
That triggered another whole
wave where I thought to myself,

01:20:00.160 --> 01:20:05.880
\"Maybe this is why this life
is so filled with failures

01:20:05.880 --> 01:20:08.560
and tragedies and losses,\"

01:20:08.560 --> 01:20:13.680
that love requires
these failures,

01:20:13.680 --> 01:20:17.400
its own failures,
its own losses.

01:20:17.400 --> 01:20:22.120
Love perhaps,
in this very mysterious way,

01:20:22.120 --> 01:20:26.120
requires death in order to...

01:20:28.480 --> 01:20:31.240
...sort of purify itself,

01:20:31.240 --> 01:20:33.400
which, you know,
in any other time,

01:20:33.400 --> 01:20:36.840
I would have regarded
as a completely crazy thought.

01:20:38.920 --> 01:20:45.320
Or I would have regarded it
in another time and place as...

01:20:45.320 --> 01:20:48.560
a kind of not just silly
religious thought,

01:20:48.560 --> 01:20:52.440
but maybe almost
a despicable thought.

01:20:54.840 --> 01:20:59.880
A making light
of what is terrible and tragic,

01:20:59.880 --> 01:21:01.600
a sugarcoating it

01:21:01.600 --> 01:21:06.600
and making appear acceptable
what isn\'t acceptable.

01:21:45.960 --> 01:21:49.120
[Gagliano] For me,
the work with psychedelic plants

01:21:49.120 --> 01:21:52.080
is a moment of communion
with the infinite,

01:21:52.080 --> 01:21:53.520
just the same as maybe

01:21:53.520 --> 01:21:57.120
the poets would have written
about it forever.

01:21:58.000 --> 01:22:00.960
Anybody who has had
those experiences

01:22:00.960 --> 01:22:04.960
knows exactly what they are.

01:22:04.960 --> 01:22:10.400
And they touch our soul
so deeply

01:22:10.400 --> 01:22:14.720
that the mind has no chance
to try to explain.

01:22:14.720 --> 01:22:17.520
The heart is listening.

01:22:17.520 --> 01:22:20.000
And the heart already knows.

01:22:30.520 --> 01:22:34.280
When we\'re having
these mystical experiences,

01:22:34.280 --> 01:22:35.880
whether it\'s, like,
through meditation

01:22:35.880 --> 01:22:40.120
or psychoactive plants or yoga,

01:22:40.120 --> 01:22:44.000
the place that we are touching
is always the same,

01:22:44.000 --> 01:22:47.920
because there is
only one place here.

01:22:51.800 --> 01:22:55.320
That\'s what I would call
consciousness.

01:22:55.320 --> 01:22:57.880
It\'s not a thing.

01:22:57.880 --> 01:23:00.200
It\'s a space.

01:23:01.080 --> 01:23:04.800
And that\'s where we go
when we allow it.

01:23:10.560 --> 01:23:14.560
I think this ability
to directly connect

01:23:14.560 --> 01:23:19.120
with this universal...
consciousness,

01:23:19.120 --> 01:23:23.240
whatever we want to call it --
God...

01:23:24.600 --> 01:23:27.560
...it\'s actually
not a special thing,

01:23:27.560 --> 01:23:30.680
but it\'s our heritage.

01:23:30.680 --> 01:23:34.840
It\'s not something that only
some people can achieve.

01:23:34.840 --> 01:23:37.960
It\'s our heritage
as human beings.

01:23:37.960 --> 01:23:41.320
And it is, again,
just a matter of choices.

01:23:41.320 --> 01:23:44.560
But we are all the same.

01:23:44.560 --> 01:23:47.400
We are made of the same.

01:23:47.400 --> 01:23:50.200
We come from the same.
We are the same.

01:23:50.200 --> 01:23:55.520
And so we all have
exactly the same opportunity

01:23:55.520 --> 01:23:58.320
for the same choices
if we want them to.

01:23:59.680 --> 01:24:01.120
Which, of course,

01:24:01.120 --> 01:24:06.000
compared to what
a religious system would offer,

01:24:06.000 --> 01:24:07.920
it would be
exactly the opposite.

01:24:07.920 --> 01:24:14.800
Someone has the control of your
experience of yourself as God.

01:24:24.880 --> 01:24:28.160
I had dreams in my home
in Australia

01:24:28.160 --> 01:24:31.560
pointing to specific places
and people.

01:24:32.280 --> 01:24:35.200
Then I went and looked for them.

01:24:35.200 --> 01:24:38.080
And that\'s how I ended up
working with an elder

01:24:38.080 --> 01:24:41.120
who taught me a lot
about the plants that he uses

01:24:41.120 --> 01:24:43.240
to heal his people.

01:25:00.280 --> 01:25:03.760
I traveled to this
very remote area of Mexico

01:25:03.760 --> 01:25:05.560
to learn from the Huicholes,

01:25:05.560 --> 01:25:08.720
because they are
such an ancient culture

01:25:08.720 --> 01:25:12.600
and their entire culture
is founded and closely related

01:25:12.600 --> 01:25:16.680
to one psychedelic plant --
the peyote.

01:25:22.760 --> 01:25:25.320
The relationship with this plant
seems fundamental

01:25:25.320 --> 01:25:28.360
for them to survive
in these remote regions,

01:25:28.360 --> 01:25:31.120
not just physically
but also spiritually,

01:25:31.120 --> 01:25:36.160
and find the direct connection
to their divine essence.

01:25:36.160 --> 01:25:39.160
[men singing in native language]

01:25:39.160 --> 01:25:48.560
♪♪

01:25:48.560 --> 01:25:57.960
♪♪

01:25:57.960 --> 01:26:07.360
♪♪

01:26:07.360 --> 01:26:16.760
♪♪

01:26:16.760 --> 01:26:26.160
♪♪

01:26:26.160 --> 01:26:35.560
♪♪

01:26:35.560 --> 01:26:44.960
♪♪

01:26:44.960 --> 01:26:54.360
♪♪

01:27:35.720 --> 01:27:39.640
[Gagliano] And now I have to
deal with my conflict.

01:27:41.240 --> 01:27:43.600
I see a stressed animal

01:27:43.600 --> 01:27:46.240
that knows exactly
what is going to happen.

01:27:46.240 --> 01:27:48.240
And...

01:27:49.320 --> 01:27:52.640
And I actually really hope
he is going to fight.

01:27:53.760 --> 01:27:56.440
And it\'s actually interesting,

01:27:56.440 --> 01:28:00.360
because,
just like in our society,

01:28:00.360 --> 01:28:02.160
I don\'t feel I have a choice

01:28:02.160 --> 01:28:07.800
that I can stand just on my own
and stop this.

01:28:07.800 --> 01:28:10.320
It\'s going to happen regardless.

01:28:10.320 --> 01:28:12.120
And I have to let it happen,

01:28:12.120 --> 01:28:15.000
and this is where
my conflict is.

01:28:16.240 --> 01:28:19.080
Under all of these layers,
I\'m actually wearing a T-shirt

01:28:19.080 --> 01:28:26.320
that says, \"Tread lightly,
eat kindly.\"

01:28:26.320 --> 01:28:27.760
It\'s like it\'s --

01:28:27.760 --> 01:28:32.440
This is seriously
a really funny joke from life.

01:28:32.440 --> 01:28:35.840
[men singing in native language,
music playing]

01:28:35.840 --> 01:28:44.720
♪♪

01:28:44.720 --> 01:28:53.600
♪♪

01:28:53.600 --> 01:29:02.440
♪♪

01:29:02.440 --> 01:29:11.320
♪♪

01:29:34.880 --> 01:29:37.840
[men singing in native language,
music playing]

01:29:37.840 --> 01:29:46.880
♪♪

01:29:46.880 --> 01:29:55.880
♪♪

01:29:55.880 --> 01:30:04.920
♪♪

01:30:04.920 --> 01:30:13.920
♪♪

01:30:13.920 --> 01:30:15.440
[cow lowing]

01:30:15.440 --> 01:30:22.000
♪♪

01:30:56.520 --> 01:31:05.760
♪♪

01:31:05.760 --> 01:31:15.040
♪♪

01:31:15.040 --> 01:31:24.280
♪♪

01:31:24.280 --> 01:31:33.560
♪♪

01:31:33.560 --> 01:31:42.800
♪♪

01:31:42.800 --> 01:31:52.080
♪♪

01:31:52.080 --> 01:32:01.320
♪♪

01:32:01.320 --> 01:32:10.600
♪♪

01:32:10.600 --> 01:32:19.840
♪♪

01:32:19.840 --> 01:32:29.120
♪♪

01:32:29.120 --> 01:32:38.360
♪♪

01:32:38.360 --> 01:32:47.640
♪♪

01:32:47.640 --> 01:32:56.880
♪♪

01:33:58.320 --> 01:34:00.000
[Ricard]
There\'s a Buddhist saying,

01:34:00.000 --> 01:34:01.920
which I think physicists
will agree,

01:34:01.920 --> 01:34:06.880
that a million calls
cannot bring to existence

01:34:06.880 --> 01:34:13.520
something that does not exist
in any way out of nothing.

01:34:13.520 --> 01:34:16.400
There\'s always a transformation.

01:34:16.400 --> 01:34:19.720
So, according to a Buddhist way
of seeing things,

01:34:19.720 --> 01:34:23.680
the stream,
the continuum of consciousness,

01:34:23.680 --> 01:34:28.000
can only be beginningless
and endless.

01:34:30.040 --> 01:34:33.480
Now, what will happen
when we die?

01:34:33.480 --> 01:34:36.760
The atoms of my body
will disintegrate,

01:34:36.760 --> 01:34:39.320
but they are not
going to disappear.

01:34:39.320 --> 01:34:42.120
Similarly,
the stream of consciousness,

01:34:42.120 --> 01:34:45.120
made of moment of consciousness,
being a continuum,

01:34:45.120 --> 01:34:48.920
unbroken continuum,
but without entity traveling.

01:34:48.920 --> 01:34:50.840
Me, I\'m traveling there,

01:34:50.840 --> 01:34:53.280
the young Matthieu
now becoming the old Matthieu.

01:34:53.280 --> 01:34:54.760
I\'m going to die,

01:34:54.760 --> 01:34:57.360
maybe reincarnate
in a little cow.

01:34:57.360 --> 01:34:59.000
[chuckles]

01:34:59.000 --> 01:35:01.840
But something is still Matthieu
in that cow and all that.

01:35:01.840 --> 01:35:04.720
Okay.
Buddhism doesn\'t accept that.

01:35:06.960 --> 01:35:11.200
There\'s no \"self,\"
autonomous and permanent

01:35:11.200 --> 01:35:12.960
that travels along
the consciousness.

01:35:12.960 --> 01:35:15.400
There is just the successions
of moments

01:35:15.400 --> 01:35:17.520
that is never interrupted.

01:35:17.520 --> 01:35:19.160
It\'s like a stream.

01:35:19.160 --> 01:35:23.320
The Mississippi River,
the Rhine River --

01:35:23.320 --> 01:35:26.040
There\'s not something at core

01:35:26.040 --> 01:35:28.880
that is really the essence
of the Rhine River.

01:35:28.880 --> 01:35:31.680
It\'s just the endless succession

01:35:31.680 --> 01:35:35.440
of flow of the river
that you call Rhine.

01:35:35.440 --> 01:35:39.000
And rightly so, because it\'s not
the same as the Ganges.

01:36:06.560 --> 01:36:08.960
[Gagliano]
If we see consciousness

01:36:08.960 --> 01:36:12.680
just as this ocean,

01:36:12.680 --> 01:36:18.480
then my essence as me
right now

01:36:18.480 --> 01:36:21.680
is just part of that ocean.

01:36:21.680 --> 01:36:24.240
And in that sense,
I will continue.

01:36:24.240 --> 01:36:30.200
I don\'t die because I\'m already
everything as it is,

01:36:30.200 --> 01:36:33.040
concentrated into
this little drop.

01:36:34.120 --> 01:36:40.960
If I do see myself as separate
from the ocean, then I will die.

01:36:57.280 --> 01:37:04.440
♪♪

01:37:04.440 --> 01:37:11.600
♪♪

01:37:11.600 --> 01:37:14.160
[Griffiths] This question
about the nature of awareness,

01:37:14.160 --> 01:37:17.920
the nature of this sense
of the interconnectedness

01:37:17.920 --> 01:37:19.800
and the sacredness of that --

01:37:19.800 --> 01:37:23.720
This is not going to be answered
in my lifetime,

01:37:23.720 --> 01:37:25.840
and it\'s not going to
be answered

01:37:25.840 --> 01:37:29.040
in my grandchild\'s lifetime.

01:37:29.040 --> 01:37:32.000
This is a much deeper question.

01:37:32.000 --> 01:37:34.640
It may never be answerable.

01:37:34.640 --> 01:37:42.880
♪♪

01:37:42.880 --> 01:37:47.320
But, boy, do I love
contemplating that,

01:37:47.320 --> 01:37:49.840
do I love studying that.

01:37:49.840 --> 01:37:54.320
And I think that
deeper understanding of that

01:37:54.320 --> 01:37:59.240
has very profound implications

01:37:59.240 --> 01:38:02.280
for how we\'re going to end up
treating one another

01:38:02.280 --> 01:38:06.320
and how we\'re going to survive
as a species.

01:38:06.320 --> 01:38:14.080
♪♪

01:38:14.080 --> 01:38:16.680
[Gagliano]
This mechanistic view is dying,

01:38:16.680 --> 01:38:24.600
and we really need to move into
a more unifying view.

01:38:26.000 --> 01:38:29.680
And inevitably, I think
the message is always the same.

01:38:29.680 --> 01:38:36.400
It\'s like, just remember
that you are part of this.

01:38:37.200 --> 01:38:42.320
And your delusion
that you are separate from this,

01:38:42.320 --> 01:38:45.080
it\'s just that -- an illusion.

01:38:45.080 --> 01:38:51.000
And actually, I think what is
really beautiful about it

01:38:51.000 --> 01:38:52.920
is that longing,

01:38:52.920 --> 01:38:59.200
that feeling of aloneness
that most of us carry

01:38:59.200 --> 01:39:02.240
in those moments,
just really disappears,

01:39:02.240 --> 01:39:04.000
because you are not alone.

01:39:04.000 --> 01:39:09.640
You never were,
and you cannot be alone.

01:39:09.640 --> 01:39:19.000
♪♪

01:39:19.000 --> 01:39:28.360
♪♪

01:39:28.360 --> 01:39:37.720
♪♪

01:39:37.720 --> 01:39:47.040
♪♪

01:39:47.040 --> 01:39:56.400
♪♪

01:39:56.400 --> 01:40:05.760
♪♪

01:40:05.760 --> 01:40:15.120
♪♪

01:40:15.120 --> 01:40:24.480
♪♪

01:40:24.480 --> 01:40:33.840
♪♪

01:40:33.840 --> 01:40:43.160
♪♪

01:40:43.160 --> 01:40:52.520
♪♪

01:40:52.520 --> 01:41:01.880
♪♪

01:41:01.880 --> 01:41:11.240
♪♪

01:41:11.240 --> 01:41:20.600
♪♪

01:41:20.600 --> 01:41:29.960
♪♪

01:41:29.960 --> 01:41:39.280
♪♪

01:41:39.280 --> 01:41:48.640
♪♪

01:41:48.640 --> 01:41:58.000
♪♪

01:41:58.000 --> 01:42:07.360
♪♪