Physics and the Indian Spiritual Tradition

Speaker 1

On behalf of Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, I welcome you all to this evening’s Achinto Kumar Tapadar Memorial Lecture. Tradition, before the lecture starts, we read out a small life sketch of Ochitokuma Tapadar. Accordingly, I read it.

Speaker 1

Ochintakuma Tapadar was born in a reputed family in the year 1938 at the Micha village of Asansol in the district of Badwan. He had a religious background from both the sides of his father and mother. His father, Jogesh Chando Tapadar, was a musician and his mother Bola Debi was a pious lady, encouraging her children constantly to realize the ultimate falsity of worldly life that was finally renounced by her children.

Speaker 1

Since his boyhood, Ochinto was quiet and intelligent and gentle boy. who had his early education at Shiyar Sol Raj High School. During his studies in Asansol College, Ochinto had come in contact with Sami Vishudhanandaji Maharaj. who finally initiated him. Maharaj did also inspire him to join the order. His father, Jogesh Chandra, could not however accept the proposal since Ochinto was his only son.

Speaker 1

After having completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies under the University of Calcutta, Ochinto took up teaching assignment but nothing could put an end to his contact with Belur Mot. He was fortunate enough to come in contact with many distinguished monks of the order, including Swami Madhavanandaji, Swami Virasharanandaji, Swami Abhayanandaji, Swami Bhuteshanandaji, Swami Atasanandaji.

Speaker 1

As a since This year devotee Ochinto worked hard to spread the teachings of the Holy Trinity Among students and young boys and girls at Asansol, where he had been working. Thus, in 1985, Raniganj Vivekananda Service Center was formed. He was associated with the centre throughout his life.

Speaker 1

He was also a member of the general body of Beloonmat and a managing committee member Of the Asansol Mission till death. Monks and Brahmacharins of the order were his kith and kin. He and his sisters lawfully donated their inherited and Wealth to the Ramakrishna Mott, Belur Mot. Ochintokumar passed away in 2011 at the age of 71.

Speaker 1

Today, Ochintokumar Tapadar Memorial Lake. Will be delivered by Dr. Gilio Pesco. He will speak in English on physics and Indian spiritual tradition.

Speaker 1

Before we start our lecture, first of all, First all, I request Ams Nupur Munshi to come on the stage to say something about Dr. Prisco, who is the Indian coordinator of this chapter. And then I request Shamul Babu to come over the stage and felicitate our speaker. Thank you. Shamul Babu will come first to first will felicitate our speaker. So, Shamal Babu will hand over a small memento to him.

Speaker 2

Namoshkar, good evening and a warm welcome to our distinguished audience members to an epoch making episode of understanding the relationship between science, spirituality, truth and eternity perhaps here at the Shivananda Hall of the Ram Krishna Mission Institute of Culture. Kolkata, India.

Speaker 2

It’s a beautiful bonding that I have set up with RMIC and to have been bestowed upon the blessing to stand on this pedestal under the divine presence of Swami Vivekananda. Kananda is perhaps a supreme achievement in India and I am deeply, deeply grateful and thankful. to Srimad Shami Shupan Nanandaji Muharaj, Revered Secretary, Ram Krishna Mission Institute of Culture, for your blessing. My heartfelt gratitude to Srimad Shami Pragatmanandaji Maharaj, the Center for Indological Studies and Research. And the Cultural Activities Department here at the RMIC and the whole of the Ram Krishna Mission for your support and inspiration for me to learn and work.

Speaker 2

To some of us, this is a beginning of a learning journey. Our aspiration would be to understand and then to communicate how the insights of Indian spiritual. Tradition can be made compatible and mutually reinforcing with those of modern physics.

Speaker 2

Revered Shami Shupondanandaji Maharaj once said to me that the universe around is manifestation of God. So you serve this universe very lovingly by selfless service outwardly through science and inwardly through meditation, and explained the need of convergence of science and spirituality as a need for attainment of fulfilment in a way of blending The external and the internal.

Speaker 2

We are really happy and honored to have Dr. Gilio Frisco, founder of Turing Church, a theoretical. Physicist, former systems engineer at the European Space Centers.

Speaker 2

We and I am honored to also announce that our Global Community Touring Church have set up India Awakens from India, and we are looking forward to be working in India with the blessings and guidance of Ram Krishna Mission to continue our journey.

Speaker 2

We want to fondly remember our dear sister late Mrs. Roomjoom Munshi Pandit as our inspiration, or maybe our sister is here with us to day. Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings, nor in the future shall any of us cease to be, says the sacred Gita.

Speaker 2

In future of our Artificial superintelligences, science may uncover more and more the mysteries of the mind and the universe. And may find for us our sister Room Jhoom are all our loved ones we lost from the fabric of fundamental reality.

Speaker 2

Dr. Prisco believes that a cosmic divine mind, embedded in the fabric of fundamental reality itself, and of which individual minds are but Pale reflections could shape the becoming of space, time particles, fields, matter, energy, life forms. The mind could remember the memory of the universe.

Speaker 2

Almost like what Tagore says, Chokhir Dakha Praner Kotha Sheikhi Bhula Jai. Abhardhakha judi holo shakha, praned majhe ai. And nothing is uh complete without Tigore in Bengal, another small line, at the immortal touch of of thy hands, my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable. Thank you. Dr. Gilo Prisco.

Giulio Prisco

Thank you very much, Nupur, for your beautiful introduction. I’d like also to thank all the organizers at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture. It’s really an honor for me to be here. And last but not least, I’d like to thank you all for taking the time to come and listen to me.

Giulio Prisco

I am expected to talk about physics and the Indian spiritual tradition, but I have to say that I don’t know and don’t understand Indian spiritual tradition that much. I’m basically here to learn.

Giulio Prisco

And I will mention a lot of things in the relatively Short time that I had that I have. That means that, of course, I won’t have the time to go into much detail. At the same time, well, you can read all that on my website. Site which is here, which is touringchurch. net. My name is Giulio Prisco, and you have also my email address here. And I will be delighted and Honored if you write to me with whatever observation, questions, or comments that you may wish to bring to the table. Looking forward to being in touch. With you all.

Giulio Prisco

Ah, yes, I should explain what that strange symbol means, but that will come later. And as Nupur explained, this talk is dedicated to the memory of Rumjum Monchi Pondi Tomai. I hope I pronounced that well. mention some things that concern all of us, life and death issues, like what happens when we disappear, where, when, who, what do we become, And uh as I formulate these questions and uh try to formulate uh tentative answers, I’ll have room zoom in mind. Where is? Ron’s own when is run shown who or what. I’m I’m not going to move that one. Thank you very much.

Giulio Prisco

We have different concepts of divinity in Western and Eastern uh traditions. I’m going to oversimplify very much, of course, but I can say that uh in most uh Western Religions, especially Christianity, God is personal. We in the West tend to have a personal concept of God, but As I understand, in the Eastern tradition, God is more perhaps diffuse, is the correct word. A God that is entangled and entwined with diffuse. Physical universe without necessarily having any personal attributes that our own consciousness can relate to.

Giulio Prisco

And the same applies to our concepts of self and afterlife. We have different ideas and different concepts of afterlife in Eastern And Western spiritual traditions, reincarnation, resurrection, nirvana, different things. And again, oversimplifying, I will. Say that we in the West are very much emotionally attached to the idea of self. Mm we’re not happy thinking that uh after death we’ll just uh emerge into the Universe at large, but we want to think that something of our own personality and individuality will persist after that. So we want to be here. Uh oh.

Giulio Prisco

Before moving on to other things, I want to mention that Also in Western philosophy recently, we are starting to become more and more closer to some concepts that we know. From Eastern traditions. For example, we have a theoretical framework called open individualism, which has been described by By Daniel Kolak, an American philosopher, in a book named I Am You. And the central thesis of the book is that we are all the same person, which I believe is uh a concept that uh many people from Eastern spiritual traditions can relate to. We are all the same person.

Giulio Prisco

That makes scientific sense, I believe, and I like to call this open individualism a minimalist theory. Theory of reincarnation because it doesn’t make many assumptions on the nature of either human consciousness or the universe at large and gives an essentially acceptable in a psychological sense of uh the biggest uh questions that we ask ourselves how can we think to persist in the afterlife. We persist in the afterlife because everyone is the same.

Giulio Prisco

The mental metaphor that I like to use to think of these concepts is uh to think of a windows open on the world. Here we see that there are many windows and the the point of view from this okay Point. The point of view from this window is not exactly the same from here. There are differences. Here I see sound. Here I see something slightly different. Here I see something slightly different. And that reflects the difference between different persons. Okay, I am me, and you are you. different persons.

Giulio Prisco

But what we have in common we are all alive on the planet Earth in year twenty eighteen. And this thing that we have in common is perhaps more important than uh the uh things that uh separate us. So we have uh uh many windows that show different things. But we can think that There is one person looking from behind the windows.

Giulio Prisco

So, what happens if what we see here disappears? For example, if we pull the Curtain and make this specific point of view disappear. What happens? You could say, not not Nothing really too unpleasant happens because I still have this point of view and I still have this point of view. So from the perspective of the one mind who is looking simultaneously at all The windows, it’s not really that much of a deal if the content of one window disappears, because we still have all the others. This, I believe, is a nice A metaphor to think of this minimalist idea of resurrection. Okay, now let’s.

Giulio Prisco

Let’s move on to physics, which is advancing spectacularly indeed. And to illustrate this concept, I have chosen a book that was written almost ninety years ago. Book called Mysterious Universe, published in 1930. The author mentioned the spectacular revolution that happened in physics in the first 30 years of last century with the development. The first developments of Einstein’s general relativity and the beginning of quantum physics.

Giulio Prisco

Today we could add a couple more things. Example, the development of quantum field theory and the standard model developments in condensed matter physics. But one thing seems equally valid. today as ninety years ago when uh James Jeans pointed out that physics is not yet in contact with the ultimate reality. I think we can still say that, and I’m not going to tell you what the ultimate reality is. I don’t know that, of course. But I’m going to show you some uh examples and some um intriguing uh concepts that can show how we are still far from uh having An idea of what the ultimate reality is, and perhaps the ultimate reality is nothing that we could imagine at this very moment.

Giulio Prisco

Besides science, we have uh engineering. And we have technology, which is also advancing exponentially. Every day we read in the news of some new technology development, and some technology development is becoming Really like science fiction. We can do now things that would have been considered as science fiction from one generation before us. This is a magic machine, and everyone has one in their pocket. With this little machine in my pocket, I can do things that my grandfather would have considered as a magic. My grandfather wouldn’t have had other words for it but magic. All this uh appreciation and enthusiasm for uh what technology has done and what technology

Giulio Prisco

will probably continue to do, is um described in the literature of a philosophical movement called transhumanism. I don’t really have the time to define all the terms that I’m going to use, just Google things. For example, this uh transhumanism philosophy is uh outlined in an anthology. called the transhumanist reader. I very much recommend reading it. I very much recommend reading all the books that I am mentioning here.

Giulio Prisco

Transhumanists think that there is no a priori limit that can be placed on the development of technology and science. And uh using technology, future generation will be able to make the world a a magic place. just like our world would have been considered as a magic place from the people of a couple of generations before. So science is ad is advancing and technology is advancing. We will come back to the integration between science and technology.

Giulio Prisco

Now I want to mention a New camera in scientific theology, which is called the simulation hypothesis, is the idea that some of you may be familiar with in its naive. formulation that basically says that our world and our reality is a video game which is being run on some kind of hypercomputer. In a hyper-reality higher dimension, or something like that. There are much less naive ways to formulate the concept, and I’m going to come back to this later.

Giulio Prisco

I want to mention the Fact that you know, Elon Musk, the guy, the very famous technology entrepreneur who last week sent his sport car to outer space. I’m sure many. Of you have watched the launch of Falcon Heavy. So, Elon Musk, who is a star technologist and one of the best-known people in the technology.

Giulio Prisco

Word once said that he very much believes in the simulation hypothesis based on accounting arguments. I mean, you just have to Google that. Basically, he said. That uh the number of uh possible simulated realities is uh much bigger than the number of possible physical realities, and therefore the probability that we live. in a simulated reality is much higher. I don’t really buy that argument, but uh you know, when somebody like Elon Musk says something, at least he deserves being uh listened to.

Giulio Prisco

The point that I want to stress here is that the simulation hypothesis is completely equivalent to a Western religion, in particular. It is completely equivalent to Christianity. It’s not similar, not a little bit like, not very much like, no, it’s exactly the same thing as Christianity.

Giulio Prisco

We have creators who have created a universe and can run the universe according to the universe. according to their intentions. They can, if they want, violate uh the physical laws of their simulated universe, which are not necessarily the same laws of their home universe. But they could do whatever they want acting in our reality, which from their point of view is a computation, and in particular, they could uh grant everyone an afterlife according to any framework they can think of. So we have a Creator, who is presumably omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, and this is the simplest formulation of the Western religion of Christianity. We can think of simulation theology. Again, my message here is that this family of uh speculative theologies is exactly equivalent to Christianity. And very similar to other religions. Now let’s uh make an example of what I mean by simulation.

Giulio Prisco

Simulation, computation I mean, we are all familiar with video games in which we can Create realities, but let’s consider something simple. Let’s consider a simple cellular automata, like the well-known game of life, invented by British mathematicians. John Conway.

Giulio Prisco

Here we have some very simple rules of evolution which say what will happen to one cell. For example, we have a White cell here. At the next time step, the cell can stay white or can become a black. This is a simple universe of black and white cells. And the is a very simple mathematical way to compute the future from the past. In fact, this is the symbol that I had on uh my very first ViewGraph, which is A life pattern that evolves in time growing to infinity is an infinite growth pattern. It starts chaotic, then it starts moving and leaves behind a wake that could be seen as a DNA-shaped helix. very much desirable because it has all the things that it has really all the things that I’m discussing.

Giulio Prisco

And That’s also the evolution of biological life. We can have a very simple simulated physics able to generate Something that looks like life. And in fact, John Conway himself. thought that given a life mathematical space which is big enough, it is perfectly plausible to think that intelligent life could evolve in this simulated universe. Eventually intelligent species might evolve from the same sort of selective uh Pressures that operated on Earth.

Giulio Prisco

The modern science of cellular autonomy. has been developed by many mathematicians. Most notably Stephen Wolfram has written a very thick book. The book is literally that thick. about fifteen years ago, called a new kind of science. But uh he thinks that uh cellular automata could be a model for how fundamental physics works. In the sense that the machinery behind space time and the structure, the fabric of reality, could be something that looks like a cellular automata or a more sophisticated version, perhaps based on graph and network theory.

Giulio Prisco

These two people that I mentioned here: American mathematician Ralph Abraham and the United States. Indian physicist Sishir Roy have frequently visited the Ramakrishna Institute and they have written A book a few years ago called Demystifying the Acacia, where they elaborate on a concept similar to Walfram’s idea to look for a Discrete cellular automata-like model behind the scenes of everyday reality, as we know. What’s interesting here is that The model seems to leave enough room for the concept of a Permanent memory of the universe, some information store where all the information that has ever been produced in the universe continues. To be stored, and it is the concept that you teach me that has been called akashic records in ancient traditions.

Giulio Prisco

So, physics. Physics is beginning somehow to move toward that. This is one of the main concepts that I’m mentioning tonight. Physics is beginning to. to move toward the different forms of ancient wisdom.

Giulio Prisco

For example, quantum physics. We have been we have known of quantum physics for almost 120 years now. But quantum physics is still mysterious and Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman says once that if you don’t think that quantum physics is mysterious, that means you don’t understand it.

Giulio Prisco

For example, is something a particle or a wave quantum Particles sometimes appear as particles and sometimes they appear as waves, waves in ways that no one is able to understand intuitively. How can something be both a square and a circle? Well, as a matter of fact, something can be both a square and a circle because a three-dimensional object, meaning something. more uh complex than what can be captured in two dimensional geometry, can have both a square and a circular projection. And this is a good metaphor to think of quantum physics I mean, it’s not a particle, it’s not a wave, it’s something else, but it’s something that our two-dimensional imagination is not able to visualize. This is a way to make sense of the fact that quantum physics is mysterious. It is mysterious because we are we are not

Giulio Prisco

One of the most uh frequently Mention mysteries of quantum physics is entanglement. That is that phenomenon which creates Instant correlation between things separated far away. Instant correlation that seems to propagate faster than light, even though it can be demonstrated that it is impossible to exploit. Entangle the correlation to actually exchange information. So, causality and relativity is still safe, but the correlations are still there. and they have been found not only theoretical but also experimentally in many labs around the world.

Giulio Prisco

This is a metaphor that helps us think of entangled correlation. This is an example due to physicist David Baum. One of the founding fathers of the second wave of quantum physics development. So there is a magic fish.

Giulio Prisco

A magic Couple of fishes, and what is magic is that when the first fish does something, the second does the same thing, can be turning right or turning left. The two fishes are correlated and this correlation is independent. of the distance and seems to optuate faster than light. Uh this seems very mysterious, but as a matter of fact, this whole setup is not mysterious. because the two fishes that we thought of initially as different fishes are actually two images of the same fish. We had just one fish two video cameras looking at both and showing the fish on two different screens from two different points of view. So if this one Turns left. Of course, this one will also turn left because they are one and the same fish. And this is a useful way to think of some situations that we encounter in quantum physics.

Giulio Prisco

And I’m sure many of you people must have heard about uh many words like interpretations of quantum physics. Since quantum physics does not really decide exactly what will happen in a given physical situation. It only offers uh probabilities, not definite outcomes. We can think that uh many different realities coexist, like, you know, different sheets of paper, each with a different history written on it. And uh The universe could be a multiverse with many different realities existing in parallel, or it could be one single universe, one single sheet of. Paper, but in this case, then we would have to have an idea of how the decision is made and who makes that decision.

Giulio Prisco

And here let me quote another founding fathers, but this time of the first wave of quantum physics, Erwin Schrödinger. Who said that the choice is made by mind, but at this point the question becomes: whose mind? My mind, your mind, it can’t be. In fact, the choice is made by the one mind, of which our individual minds are reflections. Well uh I didn’t have too much space so I only made

Giulio Prisco

Schroedinger here, but as a matter of fact, a lot of the founders of quantum physics said exactly this. And it boils down to a concept that uh I believe is uh commonplace in uh Indian spiritual traditions that uh at man the Personal self and Brahman, the omnipresent. All comprehending eternal self are essentially the same thing. And I only mention Schrödinger for short, but a lot of scientists are. Saying that more and more.

Giulio Prisco

Okay, let’s come to one of the newest family of the family. Of scientific theories that is developing very fast is the theory of condensed matter systems like you know superfluid and superconductors, exotic matter, which can be considered as a quantum matter because these are systems where long range coherent quantum effects become important and you can think that all the constituents of quantum A matter and know what all the rest of the material is doing by entanglement.

Giulio Prisco

Look at this picture. You see some small things like arrows and The organized behavior of these small things gives Rise to big things. Matter of fact, I mean, nobody, not everyone, has glasses, but now I can see the small things. If I take my glasses out, I can only see. big things which makes us think that uh perhaps what we see with And what our scientific instruments, the big things, are something that emerge from the organized behavior. Of something smaller.

Giulio Prisco

And there are theories that that’s exactly how our brain works: the process of memory and consciousness. Formation in the brain is a result of quantum behavior, intrinsically quantum behavior, of the matter that constitutes the brain. So the brain can be considered as a form of quantum be Quantum matter.

Giulio Prisco

There are some physical theories which seem to say that space time itself could be considered as quantum matter. As a matter of fact, the concept is not as strange as it could seem. It has been known for decades that there are some very strong similarities and analogies. Between condensed matter physics and fundamental physics in the vacuum.

Giulio Prisco

A very highly recommended book called The Universe in a Helium. uh droplets makes a very convincing case that uh the physics that we see could be nothing but the behavior of a microphysical world that we don’t see yet. And this unknown microphysics of the quantum vacuum could make empty space-time itself. behave as a quantum matter.

Giulio Prisco

Now look at this picture. We see uh ghosts big ghosts and we see small things here. The idea is that this the a ghost world is our world what we see at these uh ghost-like formations. particles and fields, the gravitational field itself. All this emerges from an underlike substrate for microphysics that we do not perceive at this moment. So the fabric of space-time, empty space-time itself, could behave like quantum matter.

Giulio Prisco

Which means that we have if all these ideas are correct, we have similar physics in the brain and in the vacuum and we could have mind-like processes in the quantum vacuum itself. I’m not going to focus on this point. Just let me mention the fact that the chain doesn’t have to end here. We can have one level of reality below another level of reality and one more below. and all uh new forms of matter all the way down. But let’s come back to the point.

Giulio Prisco

If the same physics happen in the vacuum as it happens in the brain, Then we could have intelligence in the fabric of space-time itself. And this intelligence could become super-intelligence very fast. All these things Quantum fields and particle physics is much faster than biology. So it is plausible to think that evolution could take place much faster in this realm.

Giulio Prisco

Lead to the emergence of a god-like mind in the very structure of space-time itself, of which our mind is a part. Our small mind is a part of the big mind encoded in the structure of reality, and that gives a plausible answer to the question of what Happens after that. After that, our mind leaks back into the big mind of which it really always was a part. And this seems like a logically very sound solution to the question of what comes after that.

Giulio Prisco

Only that, as I said at the beginning, for us in the West it doesn’t uh it doesn’t sound that good. I don’t want to think that I will continue to live as uh a part of a supermind, I’d like to think that I will continue to live as myself. And perhaps also many of you feel uh the same way. There is this concept of uh

Giulio Prisco

an abstract impersonal God encoded in the fabric of space-time. Here there is a a local A very famous scientist born in Kolkata named Mani Baumek, I hope I pronounced it right, is a very famous person and he wrote a very good book. Where he basically describes the same idea that I just described of an impersonal Mind encoded in space-time. Well, of course, he wrote it much better than I could ever hope to do. But this is still an impersonal God. Something abstract. something diffuse is not a gold that we can relate to emotionally.

Giulio Prisco

But perhaps the cosmic gold can learn from life. This is a concept that is explained very well. Is one of the masterpieces of science fiction literature either. This Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon. I cannot give you a synopsis of the book in a couple of minutes. But what happens at the end of the book is that a gold starts learning from experi his creations and becomes also a personal God. Now I want to make an analogy here, and I hope my analogy is not too disrespectful.

Giulio Prisco

The management is that perhaps the relation between God and man Is the same kind of relation that we have without dogs. A dog is not at home in this city environment with cars and things. which a dog is not prepared, but men take care of dogs. I’m much more complicated than my dogs. They won’t understand anything of what I’m saying now. For example, they don’t understand my word. But having had dogs for a long time, I have learned how to make myself understood from dogs.

Giulio Prisco

So even if they came Rise to my level. I know how to descend to their levels and make myself understood to them. I can understand my dog within some limits, and my dog understands. understands me within some limits.

Giulio Prisco

So if the God of the cosmos becomes a personal God, and if He loves us, Then perhaps a personal, loving and caring dog could provide a personal afterlife. Just think that God carries a little door for a dog to go out. And this little dog is you and I, and perhaps there is a god that does that.

Giulio Prisco

No, I think I have talked too much of science and forgot uh engineering, which is also one of the main topics of this talk. And uh well, one of the symbols of uh Western technology. Is Nicola Tesla, who said that the day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries. Of course, I have to qualify one of Tesla’s statements. Non-physical phenomena

Giulio Prisco

does not mean phenomena that cannot be studied by physics. It means phenomena that cannot be studied by physics as we know The idea is that uh physics will permit understanding more and more of the world, including those aspects of the world that we can only call non-physical today.

Giulio Prisco

Uh I think this uh quest for Akashic Engineering how I called it, to use uh engineering to I don’t want to say uh invade to use engineering to become Closer to fundamental reality is, I believe, an ideal fusion of Eastern and Western thinking.

Giulio Prisco

And perhaps our condensed matter. Engineers will be able to build real worlds into new forms of quantum matter. Which is something that uh is very much discussed in uh

Giulio Prisco

A Mormon theology that is this contemporary Mormon scholar We say that the end point of engineering knowledge may be diving knowledge. We will learn how to understand God and uh within limits we will learn how to act like a God through science and technology.

Giulio Prisco

In Mormon theology, I mean, there is a difference between God and man, but that difference is not as huge as in other theologies, basically in Mormonism God was once like man, is today, and conversely, man could become like God.

Giulio Prisco

Mormonism is not uh well known even in uh even in Europe and even in most of the United States. As a matter of fact uh most Mormons Live in Utah around Salt Lake City. Now, let me mention you that I arrived in Kolkata two days ago and I noticed that there is a part of Kolkata. That is called Salt Lake City, I believe. And I was like, whoa, that I’ve been to Salt Lake City many times to speak at

Giulio Prisco

conferences organized by the Mormon Transhumanist Association. That’s the first serendipity that I want to mention. Another interesting data point is that uh my good friend uh my good friend Lincoln Canon, who is one of the founders of this Mormon Transhumanist Association, once said that if he wasn’t a Mormon, he would be a Hinduist and And uh he says that he still thinks that because he can see many fundamental parallels between Mormonism and Hinduism. Interesting to think and speculate about that.

Giulio Prisco

I think I’m coming to the end, and I only have five minutes left, so I want to rush a bit, but there is this. This very intriguing philosophy that was developed between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century by a group of thinkers known as Russian cosmists. The uh one of the best known is uh Nikolai Fedorov, but even better known is his uh student, Konstantin. Known as the father of modern astronautics in Russia and in the rest of the world as well.

Giulio Prisco

The Russian Cosmists can be seen as Christian transhumanists and the main themes in cosmist thought include the active human role in human and cosmic Evolution, the creation of new life forms, and the physical resurrection of the dead. So, seeing resurrection as a scientific objective that could be achieved through engineering is the big gifts that the Russian cosmists have done to humanity.

Giulio Prisco

And I think that they were a real uh precursor to today’s transhumanist movement. But much more than that. As a matter of fact, the cosmists were much more radical and visionary than today’s transhumanists.

Giulio Prisco

So, putting all together, the idea Is that through science and technology we will gain access to deeper reality, a breaking out from the sphere of reality in which We have been confined so far and gaining access to another part of reality that we do not perceive right now. But that we will perceive in the future.

Giulio Prisco

And within this deeper reality, there will be the Answers to the big questions that we ask ourselves today, including the question: where is Rongjean? The idea

Giulio Prisco

is that using science and technology, we will become cosmic engineers in God’s control room, transform the universe and resurrect the dead and I think we are finished exactly on time I would like to thank you very much and remind you that uh my website and my emails are written here. I’ll be very happy to receive uh comments and questions from everyone, but perhaps we do have uh a little bit of time for questions now, in which case I will be delighted to do my best to answer. Thank you very much.

Speaker 5

Hello, hello. Thank you very much for this thought-stimulating talk. Thank you very much. Now it’s open for questions and interactions for the next few minutes. So if you have any questions, please raise your hand. Your hand, we’ll try to pass on the microphone to you so that your questions are heard by everybody. Yes, please.

Speaker 4

Thank you for your talk, Dr. Briscoe. Now you have to do that. said that Nikola Tesla has talked about non-physical aspects. By non-physical, does he mean metaphysical? This is my first question. And yes.

Giulio Prisco

I don’t know what he meant, but I have offered my own interpretation. Of what he meant. And knowing what I know about Nicola Tesla, I think my interpretation is correct. By non-physical, he just meant things that physics doesn’t understand today. But I believe, as most scientists, he did not Place an arbitrary limit on what science can or cannot understand. And I guess he thought that if science doesn’t understand something today, then perhaps. Science will understand it tomorrow, I think.

Speaker 4

Second question is, what is the, in physics, what is the correlation between mind, matter, and energy?

Giulio Prisco

Well, of course, you understand that I cannot answer your question because I don’t know. It’s still a work in progress. It’s what scientists are Trying to understand. One thing that one thing that can be said, one thing that should be said. Is that many experts used to think That mind was just a simple mechanical byproduct of a matter that follows uh the deterministic laws, which are basically those of uh Newtonian physics. But Today’s scientists are beginning to understand that things are not probably that simple. And that a mind may not be only a byproduct of matter, but there could be feedback loops between mind and matter that make the whole thing. Things non-linear and not explainable by a simple Newtonian model. So again, is work in progress that we haven’t completed yet, but the answer promises to be very interesting.

Speaker 6

See, as per Indian tradition, we have got the idea of supermind. Now, as you as we have seen that God’s control. You just say it again. No, we have got a tradition of supermind. Supermind. Supermind. Which is beyond mind. I mean, that will come in due course of evolution, which has not yet come. Now, you are saying that. That God’s control room, where some engineering process will take place. What is exactly that engineering process, and what will be that, I mean, what type of mind will control that process? That I would like to know. that is uh of that nature of supermind?

Giulio Prisco

Yes, it would uh it would have to be something much more advanced than our own mind now, of course. And for this reason is uh I mean, it’s very difficult for us to imagine how a mind more evolved than ours work. Just like for uh a dog, going back to my analogy, it’s difficult to understand our mind. The reality is that uh the vast the what we think and what we do and why we do the things that we do would not be understandable to a dog. And I think that’s it. Uh we will Evolve very gradually or perhaps very fast toward a supermind, but we cannot understand yet what it is like to be a supermind. We will have to get there first, and then we will understand.

Speaker 7

Dr. Prisco, I have studied Mormonism a bit, but I didn’t quite get the relationship we tried to establish between Mormonism and the Indian religion. Can you explain a bit part that please?

Giulio Prisco

I can only repeat to you the explanation that Lincoln Cannon gave to me when I asked him exactly the same question because I also didn’t see very many parallels. Well, first you teach me that Hinduism is a polytheistic religion, right? You have a concept of one God, but we also have concepts of many more gods. So we had both one big god and many little dogs. Oh my, I must have said very stupid things, but I believe you all understand what I mean. And uh in Mormonism there is exactly the same concept, which is uh besides the God with uppercase G of religion, There can be evolved, super-evolved, and exalted beings which are halfway between man and God, and the degree of Godhead can change in time in the process of evolution of the mind. So something Perhaps humanity itself can become like God and uh take a place in this uh hierarchy of gods that exist in the universe.

Speaker 4

More questions? I think in uh in that case just a second. Uh this is not a question but an observation, sir. Uh Bushman says that engineers are trying to create humans who would be able to act like God. But in molecular genetics and also in molecular biology, there are lots of genes who have expressions and these gene expressions cannot be changed by the scientists. It is not possible for them yet. There are lots of things in uh the abiotic world Which cannot be changed or influenced by humans so far. And I don’t know maybe it will continue like this for next hundred years or so. So.

Giulio Prisco

Well, maybe, but I think you said uh yourself the key word, and the key word is yet. No, I didn’t say that before. Yes, you did. You just you just did. Yeah. I I didn’t follow what you s uh had said. Uh uh the key word is yet. As you said yourself, uh we cannot yet do many things. But that doesn’t mean That we won’t be able to do all these things tomorrow.

Speaker 5

Okay. I thank all of you and particular speakers again, you know. Thank all of you, you know, for coming here and the speaker particularly for this very thought-provoking talk. And so we should give him, you know, another big clap, you know.

Giulio Prisco

Thank you very much to you all.