Life - The Chopra Foundation

Artificial Intelligence, False Gods, and Driverless Everything

By Deepak Chopra, MD and P. Murali Doraiswamy, MD

Artificial Intelligence (A.) has succeeded by being far-seeing; it’s a field where proponents began by envisioning a computer that can take over functions of the human brain, like computation and logic. Today the field has progressed to the point where algorithms can recognize photos, speech and emotions, fly a drone or drive a truck, spot early signs of diabetes or cancer, and play chess and poker at a championship level. Now, in a leap that could be futuristic, absurd, or life-changing (nobody can predict which), the vision is of a robotics religion that worships an AI godhead.

Anthony Levandowski, known for his contribution to driverless cars and a pioneering visionary of AI, gained wide media attention by actually forming an AI church named The Way of the Future. He is searching for adherents, and foresees an AI godhead as not ridiculous but inevitable. As he told an interviewer from Wired magazine, ““It’s not a god in the sense that it makes lightning or causes hurricanes. But if there is something a billion times smarter than the smartest human, what else are you going to call it?”

What saves The Way of the Future from being a very smart techie’s lampoon is the enormous impact that AI is going to have everywhere. “Levandowski believes that a change is coming—a change that will transform every aspect of human existence, disrupting employment, leisure, religion, the economy, and possibly decide our very survival as a species.”

Humanists are likely to worry about an AI future populated by false gods, but not before other doom scenarios might befall us. A super computer almost certainly would be weaponized into a super hacker capable of doing immense harm, from disabling security defenses to wrecking the banking system. Techies, on the other hand, foresee more utopian outcomes, one of which is the driverless car, which if perfected could reduce or eliminate the accidents caused by sleepy or drunk drivers. An AI god would be enlisted to solve every problem in a rational, efficient, logical way, and as more problems are eradicated, humans would have more reason to replace traditional religions, rife with mythology and irrationality, with a cleaner model.

But between doom and Utopia there is a third way. Leave aside the scenarios of a false machine god and a world where computers do all the work, call it Driverless Everything. The third way is based on something more modest but just as radical: relating to a machine as an equal. In the popular BBC television series Humans, which began airing in 2015, the premise of robots who have self-consciousness has come true. As an online blurb for the show says, “In a parallel present where the latest must-have gadget for any busy family is a ‘Synth’ – a highly-developed robotic servant that’s so similar to a real human it’s transforming the way we live.”

Reality has already begun to catch up with this notion of a relatable robotic, in the form of robot cats and dogs that help the elderly feel less lonely and isolated. If a robot simulates human behavior closely enough, our nervous systems quickly adapt and accept it as, if not our equal, something we can consider humanoid. This prospect should excite humanists rather than frighten them, because one can foresee interactions with machines that would improve our psychology and even raise our consciousness.

Here are a few possibilities to consider that are well within reach.

A successful strain of therapy uses the tactic of getting patients to change their negative beliefs into positive ones. Cognitive therapy, as it is known, asks people to look at unrealistic notions they keep returning to and proving that other, more realistic notions will actually alter their wellbeing. For example, a self-defeating notion might be “Nothing ever works out for me.” The therapist would have the patient think about things that actually worked out in their lives, throwing the blanket belief in failure into question. Then it could be replaced with a positive idea like “I don’t actually know how things will turn out. Since some things turn out well, I will concentrate my efforts in that direction.”
Why not replace the once-a-week therapist with a version of Amazon’s Echo, a little gadget that you can turn to every time you have a negative or self-defeating thought? You’d tell the gadget your thought and then ask for three realistic replacements that are supportive of your well-being.
Wearables keep expanding in function every year, and someone has already conceived of a device that would monitor an array of mind-body variables to detect when a person is physically and psychologically in a state of bliss. Using biofeedback, the wearable could signal someone that they are in bliss, or out of it, and then the brain could be trained automatically to maintain this peak function.
In terms of consciousness, a device could be designed to detect when the brain is in a meditative state, using biofeedback to maintain and deepen this state. Bio-meditation might even get to the point where a super computer, instead of roughly monitoring delta, alpha, and theta waves, would zero in on every neural connection at any given moment, providing totally individualized meditation.

A.I. as an enhancement of human consciousness is barely in its infancy, but the third way, the territory between doom and Utopia, has no limits. A robo-guru in the form of a super search engine, could store the sum of human wisdom and dispense it to fit a specific situation. Type in any spiritual tradition, East or West, ask a spiritual or existential question, and the robo-guru could offer advice as reliable, and informed, as a human.

But does this mean that one day we will actually relate to machine intelligence as the equal of humans? There will always be dividing lines. Asking a computer how its mother is doing at the retirement home or what it does when it’s having a bad day would instantly expose the non-human aspect of AI. And yet there are halfway stages that stop short of full humanity. For example, it’s been shown that people age better and have better health when there is a support system in place.

In his book Love and Survival, Dr. Dean Ornish, the leading authority on lifestyle changes as the key to preventing and reversing heart disease, has quantified how people who have from 3 to 4 social support systems fare much better in recovery from heart attacks and other major health issues than people with 0 to 1 means of social support. One can imagine “friending” a computer who is part of a social networking system that also includes human friends. This particular friend would interact with emails and texts that are concerned, informed, and personal. Over time, probably a matter of days, the difference between the robo-friend and human friends would begin to melt away.

The entire field of positive psychology could benefit from relatable AI, and it’s within reason that AI could be useful in expanding human consciousness long before a super computer qualifies for divine status. Each person will have to decide where the limits lie, and using AI to enhance human spirituality and consciousness is barely in its infancy. But the territory between doom and Utopia, is wide open.

Deepak Chopra MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation and co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing and Jiyo.com, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism.  He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists and Clinical Professor at UCSD School of Medicine. Chopra is the author of more than 85 books translated into over 43 languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers along with You Are the Universe (February 2017, Harmony) co-written with leading physicist, Menas Kafatos. Other recent books include Super Genes co-authored with Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D. and Quantum Healing (Revised and Updated): Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine. www.deepakchopra.com

Murali Doraiswamy, MBBS is a professor in the departments of psychiatry and medicine at Duke University Health System where he is also a senior fellow at the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development. He is also an affiliate faculty in the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University.

The AI Paradox: How Computers Will Make Us More Human

By Deepak Chopra, MD

Various scientific fields over the course of history have hoped to master nature for the benefit of humankind. At the top of the heap right now is artificial intelligence (AI), which has allied itself with the technology of robotics. Between them AI and robotics are having a sizable impact on the work force as more and more jobs get automated. Advocates of AI are both supremely optimistic and nervous. Both relate to the possibility of a super-intelligent machine that would far surpass human intelligence.

If you are an optimist, this so-called Singularity, as the hypothetical machine is called, would become self-improving. Its software would become free of human constraints, and in a “runaway reaction,” it would keep improving its knowledge and the technology that knowledge creates. The result would be a revolution in human civilization—or its demise. The worriers are nervous that the Singularity could initiate global war on its own, or perhaps turn on us as its inferior and deal us some other kind of fatal blow, for the good of life on Earth.

But these scenarios depend upon an unanswered question: are machines intelligent to begin with? Computers are essentially logic machines that process digital information. But in a recent paper entitled “The Emperor of Strong AI Has No Clothes,” physicist Robert K. Logan in Toronto and Adriana Braga in Rio de Janeiro argue that the dream of a super intelligence has limits that its adherents choose to ignore. (“Strong” AI foresees a machine that is at least as smart and capable as the human mind.) the point that Logan and Braga make is fundamental: human intelligence is far from machine-like, and in addition, our illogical minds are our strength, not a weakness.

The things the Singularity will never get right amount to a long list, to quote the two researchers: “… curiosity, imagination, intuition, emotions, passion, desires, pleasure, aesthetics, joy, purpose, objectives, goals, telos, values, morality, experience, wisdom, judgment, and even humor.” A clever programmer can figure out how to get a computer to answer human questions like “How is your mother feeling?”, “What does chocolate taste like?”, and “Don’t you just love fresh snow?” But having no actual mind, much less a human mind, the machine will be faking it to come up with answers.

I wrote a book with Rudy Tanzi of Harvard Medical School, Super Brain, that touches upon the whole issue of how the brain isn’t the same as the mind. Our position runs counter to AI theorists but also neuroscientists, whose entire field is based on the simple equation Brain = Mind. It’s quite strange to believe that everything on the Logan-Braga list could be performed by any machine, including the brain, which neuroscience views as essentially a thinking machine made of cells. The confusion over this point relates to something even stranger about human life: we don’t understand our mind.

It seems simple enough that even a grade-schooler wouldn’t mistake the brain for the mind. If you ask a third-grader “What do you want for Christmas?” he would never answer “I haven’t made up my brain yet.” If one child falls in love with music while another falls in love with soccer, it’s clear that their brains didn’t make those choices. One obvious fault with computers is that they never pay attention to things they like. They have no attention in the human sense of “paying attention.” Being machines, computers are either switched on or off, while we humans occupy a spectrum of attention from total denial to daydreaming, being distracted, focusing in like a laser beam, and growing bored.

But if AI operates on the false assumption that machines can be intelligent, there’s an unseen cause for enormous optimism that comes from an unexpected direction. Let’s jump ahead to the day when robotics have taken over every job that a machine could perform and super-computers handle information far beyond the capacity of the human mind. The big question, it seems to me, is what people would decide to do next? Hordes of humanity, starting in the developed countries, would face a kind of perpetual mental vacation. This could lead to a lotus-eater’s life of dullness, perpetual distraction, and pointless pleasure-seeking.

But there’s another path. To the Logan-Braga list of what distinguishes human intelligence, I’d add “transcendence.” This is actually our unique gift. Given any situation, we are not bound by circumstances imposed on us but can look with fresh eyes, the eyes of self-awareness. To be self-aware is to transcend physical boundaries, including those imposed by a conditioned brain. It’s sadly true that many people live like biological robots, following the conditioning, or mental software, that turn them into non-thinkers. To be ruled by your mental software diminishes the mind’s potential to wake up, to be renewed, to see the world through fresh eyes, and to discover your true self.

The human potential movement has been active for several decades, and yet progress has been slowed for countless people by the practical demands of going to work, earning a living, and carrying out every day’s mundane duties and demands. If AI takes over those things, the obstacles to human potential would be radically lessened. This could amount to a leap in the evolution of consciousness. Such a leap is non-technological, or to put it another way, our future evolution depends on developing a technology of consciousness.

The riddle that has remained unsolved for centuries, “What is the mind?”, might become fascinating and compelling to people in their everyday lives. After all, it’s a question no less intriguing than “What is God?” Humanity has spent millennia pondering that question, and at the same time a much smaller band of sages, saints, artists, and savants has been confronting the intimate issues of the world “in here.” It would be ironic if the flaw in strong AI made us more human rather than less. Yet that could very well turn out to be what happens.

A Surprising Answer to “Who Am I?

By Deepak Chopra, MD

Not many people reflect philosophically on the age-old question, “Who am I?” For practical purposes, everyday life depends on accepting the self that gets up in the morning, eats breakfast, and goes off to work. This makes it seem as if “Who am I?” is a given. But in fact, it isn’t. You are shifting unconsciously from one persona to the next all the time. There is tremendous importance in this fact, because the shifting self isn’t the real you.

The shifting self can be divided into three general identities, three versions of “I.”

The outward self: This is the social persona, which you identify with if your focus is on socially-approved things like money, career, the right neighborhood, an impressive house, etc. “I” is attached to labels that relate to those things, so that “WASP surgeon with a Park Avenue practice, a socialite wife, and a major portfolio” defines a very different self than “Latino working-class single mother living on food stamps.”

The private self: This is who you are behind closed doors. The private self identifies with feelings and relationships. The values that matter most include a happy marriage, satisfying sex life, children to love and be proud of, etc. On the downside are the private trials and miseries that come into every life. “I” is attached to the hopes and fears of everyday existence, which for some people means an existence of insecurity, anxiety, depression, and dashed hopes that seem inescapable.

The subconscious self: This is the self that lies beneath the surface, where repressed feelings, old wounds and traumas, and various hidden forces live. This is a shadowy region that many find dangerous to enter. But here there is also creativity and intuition, so the subconscious self isn’t only about lower or darker impulses. Unlike the outward and private self, there is no well-defined “I” in the subconscious. Most people are unaware of their deepest drives, desires, and fears because unless there is a sudden outbreak from here, they’d rather keep the subconscious self hidden, even from themselves.

The “I” you identify with is like a magnifying glass gathering the sun’s rays to a point. Your “I” interprets every experience and makes it personal. “I” is a bundle of hopes, fears, wishes, and reams. “I” harbors memories no one else has, and in the compartments of memory are stored habits, beliefs, old traumas, and past conditioning. This multiplicity is bewildering, which is why the teaching of “Know thyself” is actually the point of being alive—until you know where “I” came from, you cannot discover who you really are.

In the world’s wisdom traditions, the three versions of “I” are called the divided self, and a person can be trapped inside it for a lifetime. But the divided self serves as a disguise from the real self, which is sometimes known as the higher self or simply the Self with a capital S. The secret to the Self is that it is made from the same “stuff” as the divided self, the stuff of consciousness. It only takes awareness for the mind to exist, going about its business of thinking, feeling, and sensing the world. But with the divided self, this “stuff” is constantly taking shape. We mistake our thoughts, feelings, and sensations as the whole story.

Yet if you take away all the shapes that consciousness turns into, the is another kind of experience, of inner silence without any content. This alone deserves to be called the Self. It is the pure experiencer, devoid of mental or physical activity, needing nothing to identify with except its own being. It’s odd that this is who we are, and people need convincing, because the allure of the divided self is powerful; in addition, it’s the only self–or three selves–we’ve been used to all our lives.

Yet if the Self is the correct answer to “Who am I?” it must be present here and now. Which means that the higher states of consciousness that is our birthright, the source of love, compassion, creativity, intelligence, and evolution, can’t simply be faraway ideals. They are attributes of who we really are. This is the main teaching of the worlds wisdom traditions, and the seers, saints, sages, and spiritual guides revered in every culture are no more than people who found the right answer to “Who am I?” In that light, there is only one discovery to make along the spiritual path, the discovery that the Self is intimately present at every moment. Being the source of everything, it cannot change. It cannot come and go.

The only thing that changes is our perception and understanding. The three selves we identify with right this moment are only perceptions, constructs or models we hold in our heads. Abandon the constructs, and what is left is the “real” reality, the field of pure consciousness. In the practice of meditation perception shifts closer to the source of awareness. That is the open door through which the self is glimpsed, and with time and attention, the divided self melts away leaving only the unified Self. In that process lies the whole story of answering “who am I?”

Deepak Chopra MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation and co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. Chopra is the author of more than 80 books translated into over 43 languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His latest books are Super Genes co-authored with Rudy Tanzi, Ph.D. and Quantum Healing (Revised and Updated): Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine. www.deepakchopra.com

Grounding the Human Body for Health :

By Marty Zucker, Gaetan Chevalier, PhD, Clint Ober, Paul J. Mills, Deepak Chopra, MD
The Earth is like a gigantic battery that contains a natural, subtle electric charge—a special kind of energy present in the ground. For safety and stability, almost everything in the electrical world is connected to the ground, whether it is an electric power plant or your refrigerator. That’s what the term “grounded” means.

Being grounded also applies to people. When you are electrically grounded, when you maintain your body at earth’s electric potential, you feel:

· Centered

· Solid

· Strong

· Balanced

· Less tense

· Less stressed

Overall, you feel good. If you have pain, you have less of it, or maybe none at all, when electrically grounded to the earth.

Increase in Illness

Many people live with daily pain and constant stress, anxiety, depression, and fatigue. They feel out-of-sorts, not centered, strong, or solid. Doctors often can’t find the cause and resort to prescribing medications that produce side effects like fatigue, poor mood, and headaches.

There has been an increase in the number of people suffering from autoimmune diseases in the U.S. Fifty million people in the U.S.—75 percent of whom are women—are suffering from:

· Multiple sclerosis

· Lupus

· Inflammatory bowel disorders

· Rheumatoid arthritis

Researchers don’t know the specific causes behind the steep increases in a diversity of illnesses. Some say it is because people are eating more unnatural foods than ever and that the ingredients in these foods could be harmful, others point to increased exposure to environmental pollutants.

While certain lifestyle approaches such as meditation and yoga can help, there are limitations to their effectiveness for many of these illnesses.

The Art of Grounding

We are bioelectrical beings living on an electrical planet. Our bodies operate electrically. All of our cells transmit multiple frequencies that run our heart, immune system, muscles, and nervous system.

With the exception of humans living in industrialized societies, all living things on our planet are connected to the ground’s electrical energy. In industrialized societies, we rarely go barefoot outside or

wear natural leather shoes that allow us to absorb the ground’s energy. For the last 50 years or so, most people have been wearing plastic soled shoes that act as a barrier to the Earth’s energy, insulating them from electrical contact with the Earth. People also generally don’t sleep on the ground anymore. They live and work above the ground, even far above the ground in high-rises.

The truth is, we are disconnected, ungrounded, out of touch with the Earth. Might this disconnection be a factor in the onset of some illnesses?

Healing Benefits of Grounding

Scientific research over the past decade indicates that our bodies can be protected and helped—and that we feel better—when we are electrically connected to the Earth. That is, when we are grounded. Here are three examples of benefits that have been reported in scientific research studies (these studies are listed at the end of this article):

1. Decreased Levels of Inflammation and Pain

Being grounded can help relieve inflammation. In a small pilot study of 12 subjects, results indicated that grounding the human body during sleep reduces night-time levels of cortisol and resynchronizes cortisol hormone secretion more in alignment with the natural 24-hour circadian rhythm profile. In one case, medical thermal imaging was used to image a 44-year-old woman with chronic back pain. Images taken after being grounded while sleeping for four nights, as compared to before grounding, showed a reductions in inflammation, at which time the woman also reported:

· 30 percent reduction in pain

· 70 percent reduction in pain interfering with sleep

· 30 percent reduction in morning stiffness and soreness

After four weeks of continued grounding while sleeping, she reported:

· 80 percent reduction in pain

· No sleep interference

· 70 percent reduction in morning stiffness and soreness

By eight weeks, she reported that her pain was gone.

2. Reduced Stress Levels

When grounded, the diurnal rhythm of the stress hormone, cortisol, begins to normalize. Cortisol is a vital part of our body’s stress response system and helps control blood sugar levels, regulate metabolism and inflammation, and assist with memory formulation. A study that examined the diurnal rhythm of cortisol after sleeping grounded showed a normalization of the rhythm. In addition to a normalization of the rhythm, participants in this study also slept better and woke up feeling more refreshed.

3. Improved Circulation

When we are grounded our circulation improves, aiding in the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the tissues in the body, including better blood flow to the face. These were findings of a study that used a laser speckle contrast camera to quantify facial blood flow in response to one hour of grounding.

How to Reconnect to the Earth

While the research on grounding is relatively new, the practice is timeless. Past societies went barefoot or wore leather footwear made from hides that allowed the energy of the Earth to rise up into their bodies. They were grounded.

In modern society, most of us have lost our electrical roots, so to speak. We are disconnected and this disconnection may be a seriously overlooked cause of human pain and discomfort and the steady rise of chronic illness worldwide.

The good news is we can easily get grounded. Weather and schedule permitting, go barefoot for a half-hour or more, go outside and see what a difference that makes on your pain or stress level. Sit, stand, or walk on soil, grass, sand, or concrete. These are all conductive surfaces from which your body can draw the Earth’s energy. Wood, asphalt, and vinyl are not conductive.

For many people, however, there isn’t time in their busy days to go out barefoot. There are, fortunately, indoor options. Investing in grounding products, such as grounding mats or chairs, can be used to remain electrically grounded to the earth while sleeping, relaxing, or working.

Ideally, you want to sustain the grounding experience and make it a part of your daily routine.

Further Reading and References to the findings discussed in this article.

1. Grounding after moderate eccentric contractions reduces muscle damage.

Brown R, Chevalier G, Hill M. Open Access J Sports Med. 2015 Sep 21;6:305-17. doi: 10.2147/OAJSM.S87970.

2. The effects of grounding (earthing) on inflammation, the immune response, wound healing, and prevention and treatment of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.

Oschman JL, Chevalier G, Brown R. J Inflamm Res. 2015 Mar 24;8:83-96. doi: 10.2147/JIR.S69656.

3. The effect of grounding the human body on mood.

Chevalier G. Psychol Rep. 2015 Apr;116(2):534-42. doi: 10.2466/06.PR0.116k21w5.

4. Earthing (grounding) the human body reduces blood viscosity-a major factor in cardiovascular disease.

Chevalier G, Sinatra ST, Oschman JL, Delany RM. J Altern Complement Med. 2013 Feb;19(2):102-10. doi: 10.1089/acm.2011.0820.

5. Earthing: health implications of reconnecting the human body to the Earth’s surface electrons.

Chevalier G, Sinatra ST, Oschman JL, Sokal K, Sokal P. J Environ Public Health. 2012;2012:291541. doi: 10.1155/2012/291541. Review.

6. The biologic effects of grounding the human body during sleep as measured by cortisol levels and subjective reporting of sleep, pain, and stress.

Ghaly M, Teplitz D. J Altern Complement Med. 2004 Oct;10(5):767-76.

7. Grounding the human body improves facial blood flow regulation: Results of a randomized, placebo controlled pilot study.

Chevalier G. Journal of Cosmetics, DermatologicalSciencesandApplications. 2012;4:293-308. doi: 10.4236/jcdsa.2014.45039

AUTHORS

Martin Zucker

Marty has written extensively on natural healing, fitness, and alternative medicine for nearly 40 years and has co-authored or ghostwritten more than a dozen books during that time, including Earthing (Basic Health Publications, 2014, second edition), co-authored with Clint Ober and cardiologist Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D. His previous books include Reverse Heart Disease Now (John Wiley & Sons, 2006), Natural Hormone Balance for Women (Pocket Books, 2002), and The Miracle of MSM (Berkley Trade, 1999). He is a former Associated Press foreign correspondent in Europe and the Middle East.

Gaétan Chevalier, PhD

Gaétan has his PH.D. in engineering physics and specializations in Atomic Physics and Laser Spectroscopy. He spent four years of researching plasma physics and nuclear fusion at UCLA, and then served as a professor at the California Institute for Human Science (CIHS). Dr. Chevalier is currently lead faculty at CIHS, visiting scholar in the Department of Family Medicine & Public Health, School of Medicine, UC San Diego.

Clint Ober

Thirty-year veteran of the cable television industry, Clint pioneered cable modem and satellite distribution of digital services via cable to personal computers. In 1998, he began investigating the effects of electrically grounding the human body to earth. He has promoted and supported 20 research studies that collectively demonstrate how maintaining the body at earth’s electrical potential reduces inflammation and promotes normal functioning of the body’s electrical systems. Clint is currently President of Earth FX Inc. in Thousand Palms, CA.

Paul J. Mills

Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health and Director of the Center of Excellence for Research and Training in Integrative Health at the University of California, San Diego. He is Principal Investigator of the Self-Directed Biological Transformation Initiative, a randomized trial that is examining the psychosocial and biological effects of whole-systems medicine approaches to wellbeing.

Deepak Chopra, MD

Founder of The Chopra Foundation and the Chopra Center for Wellbeing, and Co-Founder of JIYO.COM, which sells grounding products. Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego.

Why You Aren’t Who You Think You Are

By : Deepak Chopra

Each of us perceives reality through the filter of a personal self, an “I” that is unique in the world, thanks to the unique experiences we’ve had since birth. We rely on “I” to be able to navigate through everyday situations, not realizing how limiting “I” actually is. It’s fair to say that few people realize how unstable and distorted their sense of self actually is. To begin with, each of us filters out an enormous portion of the input we receive at a given moment.
Part of the filtering is unavoidable–human eyesight is limited to the visible wavelengths between ultraviolet and infrared, human hearing between the frequencies of 20 and 20,ooo Hz (vibrations per second). In cosmic terms the visible universe, along with the universe detectable with scientific instruments, is a fraction of the total matter and energy in creation–perhaps as little as 1% to 4% depending on how “dark” matter and energy are computed, along with invisible interstellar dust.
On the personal level, the human brain has all kinds of limitations, including its dependence of a macro level of space, time, matter, and energy. At other levels of nature, including the quantum, ordinary clock time, the familiar three dimensions of space, the solidity of physical matter, and so on change entirely and at a certain point disappear. The fact that “something came out of nothing” during the big bang destabilizes common-sense reality in radical ways.
Most of our filtering, however, occurs as a result of the experiences we assimilate all our lives. A collection of past wounds, conditioning, and beliefs forces us to go into denial about ourselves and the world around us. The phobic who is deathly afraid of spiders seems extreme, but every strongly held belief shuts out other viewpoints, and in the process the world we don’t want tot see becomes invisible. The input we receive as raw information might not be entirely suppressed, but it still gets examined in the process of interpreting what’s happening to us. At a crude level we interpret every experience as good or bad, hurtful or pleasurable, something we like or dislike, etc. Depending on how judgmental you are, you fall somewhere between extremely close-minded and extremely open-minded. Depending on how empathetic you are, you fall somewhere between compassionate and cruel.

One we take into account the ways that “I” gets shaped–through filtering, interpretation, beliefs, memories, and all types of social conditioning–it’s inescapable that “I” is a rickety structure that we ourselves didn’t build of our own free will. With most people, “I” reflects forces outside their control since birth. Still, we all defend “I” and go to great lengths to identify with it. But a closer examination reveals that “I” doesn’t have a secure perch on reality, because instead of a stable structure, the self is constantly bounding around. At a minimum we have three versions of “I”:
The outward self: This is the social persona, which you identify with if your focus is on socially-approved things like money, career, the right neighborhood, an impressive house, etc. “I” is attached to labels that relate to those things, so that “WASP surgeon with a Park Avenue practice, a socialite wife, and a major portfolio” defines a very different self than “Latino working-class single mother living on food stamps.”

The private self: This is who you are behind closed doors. The private self identifies with feelings and relationships. The values that matter most include a happy marriage, satisfying sex life, children to love and be proud of, etc. On the downside are the private trails and miseries that come into every life. “I” is attached to the hopes and fears of everyday existence, which for some people means an existence of insecurity, anxiety, depression, and dashed hopes that seem inescapable.

The unconscious self: This is the self we do not know in waking life. It is governed by instincts and drives that most of us don’t want to bring to light. At its most menacing, the unconscious self has been called “the shadow,” where the worst human traits of anger, violence, envy, revenge, and deep-seated existential fear reside. “I’ can be attached to two different projects: keeping the dark side of the unconscious self hidden or converting it to the light. Artists, musicians, and poets do the latter. They approach the unconscious self not as a fearful domain but as a source of creativity waiting to be born.

On any given day, that the one thing we cannot live without—a self—is shifting and unreliable. We may not be aware of it, but we are constantly changing our loyalties. The external self claims us at work or enjoying ourselves at a party or buying a new house. The private self claims us in matters of the heart, in moments of depression and anxiety, and in our family life. The unconscious self does whatever it wants to, and hard as we try to keep it at bay, everyone knows the experience of sexual appetite, raging fury, and nightmares—perhaps nightmares are our purest encounters with the dark side of the unconscious.

The world’s wisdom traditions have seen through the illusion of a stable, reliable, realistic “I” and unmasked it as a grossly imperfect guide through life. In its place we need to identify with what is often referred to as a higher self, which is independent of the random forces, inner and outer, that distort reality.

The higher self is the self that aspires to rise above everyday conflicts and confusion. Experience tells us that the other versions of the self—the outward, private, and unconscious self—are constantly in conflict. This is why civilization is so discontented, to use Freud’s term. Eruptions from the unconscious bring war, crime, and violence. Private misery overshadows public success. The arts point to immense possibilities for creativity, but too few people are able to take advantage of them. In the world’s wisdom traditions, the struggle between so many conflicts can’t be won at the level of struggle. “I” must surrender every claim of the ego, whether public or private, to seek a higher state of consciousness.

For most people, this analysis leads to an untenable conclusion, because it seems inconceivable to give up the everyday “I” for a higher self that may be simply a fantasy, a product of mysticism, a religious tenet, or simply wishful thinking. Standing against this doubt and skepticism are centuries of descriptions from seekers, safes, saints, and spiritual teachers who validate that the higher self, far from being alien, is the core or true self, the source of consciousness. The choice to encounter your higher self is always open. At the very least, we need to be clear about the present situation. The “I” we take for granted is deeply flawed, and therefore we don’t really know who we are.

Deepak Chopra MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation and co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, Clinical Professor UCSD Medical School, researcher, Neurology and Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. The World Post and The Huffington Post global internet survey ranked Chopra #17 influential thinker in the world and #1 in Medicine. Chopra is the author of more than 85 books translated into over 43 languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His latest books are You Are the Universe co-authored with Menas Kafatos, PhD, and Quantum Healing (Revised and Updated): Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine. discoveringyourcosmicself.com

Artificial Intelligence, False Gods, and Driverless Everything

The AI Paradox: How Computers Will Make Us More Human

A Surprising Answer to “Who Am I?

Grounding the Human Body for Health :

Why You Aren’t Who You Think You Are

Overview

Active studies