What Is the Mind?

The Brain’s Dependency on Consciousness

Talk about a question for the ages: does the brain create consciousness (and the mind)? Or, hear us out, does the brain simply filter, channel, or display consciousness (and the mind)? Spiritual and esoteric communities seem to agree that the brain is simply hardware. It acts more like a switchboard allowing the mind to interact with planes/realms of existence. 

Consider this fellow souls. Consciousness contains all of the information of the universe simultaneously. Carl Gustav Jung (Psychologist, 1875 – 1961) refers to this collection of patterns and information as the collective unconscious or objective psyche. This collection of shared psychological patterns and information is said to be common to all human beings or cultures, perhaps genetically inherited. It isn’t learned or shaped by our personal experiences. Imagine how difficult it would be for us to survive in this world with such a high volume of information coursing through us every second. What if the brain puts a VR headset on us cutting off 99% of this information? When we meditate, the flow of consciousness can finally break through that barrier. 

This suggests that the brain is dependent on consciousness and the mind to function, meaning consciousness exists before and after the brain. There does seem to be evidence of this, specifically through near-death-experiences (NDEs) and out-of-body experiences (OBEs). During an NDE, the brain often shows zero electrical activity (flat EEG). Yet, most patients report the most vivid, lucid, and structured consciousness of their lives.

The mainstream scientific community still seems to assert that the mind and consciousness are byproducts of the brain, maintaining a materialistic point of view. Specifically, they believe consciousness is an emergent property of complex neural firing. To them, when the neurons stop firing, the light of the mind simply goes out. But, think about that for a second. If this were true, a dying brain should produce static, not hyper-clear experiences like with NDEs. Even the best materialist scientists admit they have no clue how chemical signals in the brain turn into the feelings of seeing colors or being in love. This is famously known as the hard problem of consciousness, coined by David Chalmers (Philosopher).

The Brain As a Prediction Processor

There are those in the mainstream scientific community who are starting to challenge the idea that the brain creates consciousness, as mentioned on Disclosure (S3:E1-3) with Rupert Sheldrake (Biologist & Parapsychology Researcher). Consider this fellow souls. Could the brain be a prediction/perception processor — meaning we predict our world into existence as controlled hallucinations or simulations, as mentioned by Anil Seth (Neuroscientist)? This is synonymous with Aditya Prasad’s (Software Engineer) suggestion that all matter is a cognitive hallucination, even the brain. It’s also consistent with Karl Friston’s (Neuroscientist) work, which suggests that our brain doesn’t passively receive sensory data. 

Karl Friston suggests that the brain actively predicts what we see based on past patterns, then checks incoming data against predictions. This suggests that most of what we see is actually prediction rather than direct observation. Could optical illusions prove this? This is consistent with our esoteric resources which explain that past experiences create mental formations or karmic impressions (samskaras) that condition our future perception. These templates sit in our mind waiting for new sensory data to come in. Then our intellect matches it against our existing templates creating a closed loop cycle — an echo chamber of reinforced beliefs that feel like our destiny. This would suggest that we perceive the world through increasingly narrow filters. 

By this logic, we’ve never actually seen this material reality because every single thing we’ve perceived has been a construct of our minds. Or perhaps only newborns experiencing their very first incarnation — with no memories or samskaras — are the only ones who’ve truly perceived this material reality.