PowerPoint Presentation (Principal Slides)

See Also: The Primacy of Consciousness The Awakening of Consciousness (Audio Stream)

Summary of Talk

What is consciousness? Modern science, which has enjoyed so much success in furthering our understanding of the material world, has singularly failed to account for consciousness. Yet without consciousness there would be no science. As far as the contemporary scientific worldview is concerned, consciousness is one big anomaly.

Integrating leading edge ideas in physics, psychology, and philosophy, Peter Russell challenges science's assumption about the nature of reality. Rather than trying to account for consciousness in terms of the material world, he proposes that consciousness is as fundamental as space, time, and matter - perhaps even more so - with many close parallels to the physics of light.

This leads to a radical new understanding of mystical and religious teachings, and to a new worldview in which science and spirituality are no longer in conflict, and God takes on new meaningÑnot the Almighty, father-figure God of classical religion, but the God of which the mystics have always spoken, the Godhead shining within us all as the light of consciousness.

This talk is based on themes of Peter Russell's book From Science to God.