Thought: Exploring and Transcending our Experience of Thought as Linear

Abstract thought emerged together with linear time and alphabetic language. Before that time we experienced reality directly. Thought clearly expanded our capacities at one level, yet when thought is unrooted from experience, and the mind is disconnected from the body, it can wreak havoc. Abstract thought tends to keep us pondering the past or wondering about the future, away from the experience of the present moment. This Merry Musing explores the development and role of linear thought, and some of the limits it has created for us that we need to transcend to transition to a more interconnected and holistic way of living. It includes a description of the place of rational thought in the context of the 28 years of research carried out at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research on the power of intention and consciousness (join the in-person event in the UK November 2021 with Brenda Dunne who ran the Princeton lab).

The talk was part of the Merry Musing series hosted by Ubiquity University. To get academic credits and access more resources on this topic, click here.