1. Brain and Consciousness
Dr. Keith Wallace
Chair, Physiology and Health
Dr. Fred Travis
Chair, Maharishi Vedic Science
Director, Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition Center

2. Timeline: 7:45 – 9:00
Sun
Monday
Tuesday
Wed
Thursday
Friday
Sat
Sept
11: Paradigms
13: Brain Develop-ment
Mongolia Conference
27: Sleeping
28: TM and TC
Oct
2: Science and Pseudoscience
4: Other Meditations
9: Cosmic Consciousness
Drfredtravis.com for copy of lecture power points

3. What is the relation of the brain and experience?

4. Brain and Consciousness
Paradigms

5. Wholeness
Paradigms provide the framework to judge individual goals and actions in relation to the larger world view. Paradigms are structured by collective experience. The experience of Transcendental Consciousness is required to change the current materialistic paradigm to a Consciousness-based paradigm.

6. Paradigms are the foundation for conducting science.
Paradigms (Science)
Paradigms are the foundation for conducting science.
Body of accepted theory
Successful applications
Model experiments.
Paradigms guide meaning-making.
Latin: “paradigma” (1) pattern, (2) to show side by side.
Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 1974

7. Patterns of values and standards of conduct are part of cultures and societies. They are shaped by experience and they affect our thinking without us being aware of it.

8. Low Road and High Road
High Road
CEO
Low Road
Emotional Centers

13. Seeing another person in pain (Soccer fans and Red Sox versus Yankee Fans)
If person is part of your team (In-group)
Helping behavior and greater empathy (Anterior Insula)
If person is part of other team (Out-group)
Pleasure circuit (Nucleus Accumbens)
Hein et al, in press, Neuron

14. Republicans and Democrats
…when Republican says a rational point,
…when Democrat says a rational point,
Republican
CEO
Democrat
Limbic System (emotions)
Democrat
Republican

15. Racial Profiling
Policemen will most often see a youth of color pull a gun from their coat; and a white youth pull an ipod from their coat.

16. Paradigm Blindness We ignore facts that contradict our paradigm.
We accept a part of the fact that fits our paradigm.
We accept without critical review facts that fit your paradigm.

17. Travis and Durchholz, (2000) Can an Electronic Device Improve Mood and Well-Being, and Decrease Anxiety? International Journal of Neuroscience, 103:91-99.
Do you think this will work?

18. Travis and Durchholz, 2000

19. John Searle Consciousness is real and irreducible.
All conscious states are caused by neuronal processes in the brain.
Consciousness is a feature, state or process going on in the brain.
Conscious states function causally.
Consciousness is a biological phenomenon.

20. MVS Model of Brain and Consciousness: Gita II 17
It may be made clear here that the omnipresent Being and the spirit within man are not two different entities. They are found to be different because of the different individual nervous systems. As the same sun appears as different when shining on different media, such as water and oil, so the same omnipresent Being, shining through different nervous systems, appears as different and forms the spirit, the subjective aspect of man's personality.

21. Exercise
Compare the Sun/ reflector/ reflection model of Maharishi Vedic Science with John Searle’s model.

22. Main Point
Paradigms determine meaning making; determine values; determine what actions may be considered right or wrong. Maharishi Vedic Science is a new paradigm that locates within the simplest form of human awareness, pure consciousness, the administering intelligence of each individual and all of Nature.