This five disc DVD set on consciousness is what I'm currently watching. I only have disc five left to watch and I can already say that I highly recommend it. It's from 2005, so not completely up to date but still worth watching. Anyone who consistently thinks about life, consciousness, dreams, the brain, etc. should enjoy this. The series isn't biased one way or another so you are free to explore different possibilities of why we have consciousness.
For instance, is this thing we call consciousness something that is produced by our evolved brain? Many scientists are currently researching this. This would seem to imply that we essentially are our brains, and it produces this almost illusory state for us. Or perhaps, consciousness is a preexisting state or being which our evolved brains happen to tap into.
My view falls in between these two sides. I can't help but think of consciousness/spirit as something that underlies the universe. A cosmological constant, if you will. It would seem to be infinite and unending, but who knows, really. And the material world is a sort of virtual reality for consciousness to play in. Remember how the T1000 terminator could melt down and become anything? Now imagine he is consciousness when in this melted blob-like state. But instead of becoming one thing, he becomes all things. Each person, plant, animal, planet, galaxy, etc. Isn't this akin to what most mystics say? That I am you and you are me?
A scientist in the What the Bleep do we Know? movie has an analogy for this that I like to use. She said it may be like consciousness is the cookie dough- the batter where we are all one being/spirit...and we materialize in the physical world of matter with the illusion that we are separate and different, when really we are all just cookies from the same dough. Looking through this lens, our bodies seem to be like clothes we try on for a while then discard.
If this were true, and I believe the evidence is piling up...then we need to retool the way we think about death. Our customs and rituals when it comes to death seem so outdated and hopelessly morbid. Think about it, it's becoming increasingly clear that we don't really die. And yet, we preserve the dead so horridly, lay them out for all to mourn over, then save the damn body! Every time I pass a cemetery, I'm bewildered. George Carlin said that if want to be serious about recycling, we should start in these cemeteries! What are we going to do, fill the whole Earth with our shed skins?
Now let me state that I'm not saying that feelings of sadness over death are unwarranted. It would still remain a sad time when someone you love left this place before you did....we just don't have to go so nuts over it. My older sister died when I was young, and I used to be so angry and depressed over that. Our society leaves children with little else to feel. But now, I look at it like she just took an earlier train home. And I'll take that same train someday and see her again, because we are one in the same anyway.
Also, in my opinion, the "big business industry" of death needs to be torn down. Just think for a second of how fucking expensive it is to die in this country. It's so ridiculous I can't even stand it. I contemplated all of this a few years ago at my Grandfather's wake/funeral. I sat in that funeral home and watched all of the ridiculous customs while feeling so alienated. Not to mention that this society clings to these outdated/voodoo practices so fiercely that you don't dare say these thoughts aloud. You don't dare not wear black...they'll single you out and make you a target. I'll take a second here to say that if you feel even a little bit the way I do about these things, you'll probably enjoy the movie Harold and Maude. That movie changed my life.
