The Grand Biocentric Design: How Life Creates Reality

I really love reading this book and have gifted a copy to my son, who is also enjoying it. Robert Lanza explains complex quantum mechanics concepts in layman's terms and though I don't need science to prove that we are all connected, I love that it does!!!

This book is well written with excellent science to support the principles of Biocentrics.It is an impressive work on an even more impressive concept: That your consciousness is the source behind your reality! The experimental results combined with quotes from the towering intellects that uncovered and advanced Quantum Theory and Relativity make the principles of Biocentrism logical and difficult to dismiss.Amazingly, this is done without any challenging math, making it accessible to all.If you are interested in science, consciousness, metaphysics, or are seeking science-based explanations of reality, then this book is a must read.

It will bend your mind, reframe your life, and inspire you to think hard about your place in this crazy universe. Written by a stem cell biologist and theoretical physicist with a firm grasp of the science behind their words, it brings into question some of our most basic assumptions about ourselves and our world. This book is a continuation of Lanza and Berman’s two prior books on Biocentrism—the idea that biology is fundamental to the universe.”You are actually creating space and time, not just operating within it like a character in a video game.”Ironically, the worldview that emerges from this book reminds me very much of one video game in particular: Minecraft. Players wander around collapsing the quantum wave function of infinite possibilities and bringing entire chunks of the landscape into reality by the mere act of observation. In Lanza’s world, just as in Minecraft, death is merely a gateway to an alternate version of yourself, where you wake up in bed with different memories.”When we die, we do so within a matrix of inescapable life.”Personally, I couldn’t buy into the multiverse-afterlife bit. But the book also presents a wealth of incredible ideas that complement my hard-won, mystical worldview.Space and time are emergent properties arising within the mindNot just space and time, but “reality” too, is relative to the observerMatter, like the past, exists as a blurred quantum foam until observed in the presentThe universe seems fine-tuned for life, possibly because it has to be for us to be hereIon dynamics in the brain might be the key to understanding the quantum properties of consciousnessIndividual separation is an illusion. Everything and everyone is connected.The universe is “a web of information floating above the void of nonbeing””We are not separate from the things we see, hear, and contemplate. Rather, we—nature and the observer—are some sort of inseparable entity.”It’s a feast of the sort of quantum mysticism I have heard physicists cringe at, yet it’s presented reasonably and convincingly, with surprising support drawn from most of the original founders of quantum theory (like Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and others). Along the way, we are treated to bite-sized history reviews and comprehensible summaries of the key experiments in quantum mechanics.”Solipsism and the belief in universal oneness—”only self” and “no self”—aren’t as easy to separate as you might think. After all, in a way, one leads to another. They’re like the twisted strands of a single piece of thread.”The authors present our world as a product of our individual consciousness. That’s a problem for me. Returning to the Minecraft analogy: each player indeed contributes to the world, but the whole thing is running on transistors and code that are completely inaccessible to even the cleverest players. The hardware, for us, is whatever this universe is built on—and I agree with the authors that mind is ontologically primary (matter is just our working model)—but it can’t all be generated by the individual brains of living creatures, as I think is claimed here.The authors flirt with the concept of interconnectedness and oneness (as in the beautiful excerpt above), but they stop short of exploring its implications. If All is One, as the ancient mystics claim, and consciousness is ontologically primary, then the One is an unimaginably vast and powerful conscious Being. The yogis and Buddhists and mystics of all religions who have studied this One describe it with words like fundamental awareness, world soul, and great spirit. To me, it seems more fulfilling (and feels more true) that we rejoin this One when we die and our ego’s dream is over, rather than to live the same life endlessly through the multiverse (doomed to be ignorant of our cosmic prison). No. As part of the Mind-At-Large, what would I think of my human life? Probably nothing. I’d be too wrapped in the bliss of Simply Being.To me, it makes more sense to view the brain as an island of consciousness dissociated from the Whole. Yes, it creates its own reality, but not from scratch. It is subconsciously shaped by evolution and environment and history and culture to define a unique but constrained reality that will largely match the reality experienced by its human neighbor. What most of these brains cannot fathom is that they are merely transient alters of the Mind-at-Large—they are momentary whirlpools in the river of the One which allow self to dance with Self.Instead, the authors focus exclusively on our individual consciousness as originators of the cosmos. Humble mammalian brain ascends to god-like heights, plants are ignored, and all of nature bows to the centrality of the sensing, remembering, self-reflective organism. It’s biocentrism as advertised. It left me feeling—wrong—until I could write it all out like this.I’d recommend this book to my fellow seekers, but only with the disclaimer above.

What a mind-boggling book is Robert Lanza's 2020 book with physicist Matej Pavsic.! Called The Grand Biocentric Design: How Life Creates Reality, it follows the publication of two bestselling books about biocentrism, the centuries-long culmination, it would seem, of the scientific theory of quantum physics. Critics accuse Lanza of merging, indeed contaminating, metaphysics or philosophy with real physics, but are they simply behind the times?Not that there is in reality time, except what is created by our minds to help us navigate the world of senses we live in.Before we delve into this most provocative book, I think we must make sure that you understand what a theory refers to. It is not misinformation, fake news, or a story to amuse or confuse you. It is not proposed for your entertainment. Here is a definition found online“A theory is a set of accepted beliefs or organized principles that explain and guide analysis and one of the ways that theory is defined is that it is different from practice, when certain principles are tested. ... This word is a noun and comes from the Greek theoria, which means "contemplation or speculation."In other words, scientific theories like quantum physics and biocentrism are serious, constructive ideas tested numerously for validity or invalidity by dozens, if not hundreds, of serious scientists.I was trying to explain the premise of the book with a devout Christian and she was not buying it at all, but laughed at he idea that we collectively as conscious beings created our universe through our contemplation of and participation in it. Not only are we not mere passive observers, but active designers who allowed the 500 forces of nature, the foundational laws of physics, to be set in exactly the right way for life to flourish.This is so not about thinking of ourselves as a god. It's about understanding the power of our minds, which are more than our physical brains. You could consider it as soul, but not the religious kind.Quantum particles and waves have been found repeatedly and consistently for over a century by acclaimed scientists to be unformed probabilities until they are observed by scientists. Upon observation, a wave collapse function occurs that permanently transform it into form or matter.Lanza and Pavsic explain at length the twelve principles of biocentrism throughout the book (and more in depth of the first seven in their previous books) to help us understand why this theory makes perfect sense. It addresses the big questions humans have pondered throughout history without dismissing us as separate from nature and inactive observers or the universe as coming incredibly from nothing.Though a heavy read that challenged my patience, plus my brain cells, I loved the book.I've long been an atheist after a mystical religious perspective lost any meaning for me. Biocentrism is not solipsism or navel-gazing or about the need for redemption and a white, male savior. It respects you as a free agent who chooses to do good and not fear death because consciousness as energy never dies but creates another world where we continue to live, although I'm doubting this is physical life.Please, though, don't just take my word for how much biocentrism, and quantum physics (quantum mechanics, quantum gravity etc) make sense. I only broadly outlined the science revealed in the book, including the appendix.I hope you'll take a chance on this book!

Definitely not a world view that is accepted by the still materialist dominated culture that prevails in western academic institutions. As a former brain scientist I’m very aware of how dogmatic and frankly unscientific many scientists have become. This work will be a stretch too far for many of them but I think these kinds of ideas and this way of thinking is what we will need as we further develop our scienctifitic pursuits and let go of the dogmatic BS that is obviously not keeping up with the facts of the scientific process.

as a psychiatrist this book validates my experience with patients and the fact it is their experience of reality that causes problems , not anyone else's .

Si tienes interés en la física quántica te va encantar.

This book will challenge everything you think you know about time, space, consciousness, and the nature of the universe. Despite the complex matter, written in easily understandable language. You don't really need any previous in-depth physics knowledge to understand the theory, however a very open mind and then it will blow your mind. Very intriguing read.

I love the books – and they are excellent if you want to meditate on the nature of perception as well!!

Hands-down one of the best thinkers of our time. I have read the previous two biocentrism books and they transformed my life. Robert Lanza and Bob Berman explain the fundamental fabric of reality in a way anybody can understand. There is magic in the universe and this book shows you how to see it and experience it.

There is continuing debate about where the divide lays between the classical world and the quantum world. We have a purely deterministic procedure U (Unitary) governed by the Schrodinger equation and a State vector reduction procedure according to the Born rule R (Reduction). As a pair they are inconsistent as there is no exact law on when to apply the Born rule.The question is, what causes the State vector to get reduced?There have been many philosophical responses to this question Including Many Worlds, Information Decoherence, Qbism, Relational QM, Physical collapse and conscious observer collapse.Robert Lanza puts forward a superb argument for Conscious observer collapse. He rightly argues that reality begins with the conscious observer and everything else must be understood from this perspective.The biological brain is a device that reduces wave functions and in doing so somehow creates feelings and emotions. It is the only device that we know of that performs this function. The brain is continually reducing wave functions emanating from inside the dynamics of the brain. The brain is also wired to senses that reduce wave functions emanating from without the brain. The brain processes information from sight/sound/touch into 3-dimensional space and time which has proved an evolutionary advantage.For example, when a conscious observer decides to measure the polarity of light, they get to choose which orientation to place the polariser. This decision determines the angle of resulting probabilistic detection of the light.An experimental arrangement can measure either the particle nature or a different arrangement can measure the wave nature of light. John Wheeler describes an experiment where the observer can choose the experimental arrangement before the light is observed but after the light has passed through the experimental apparatus. The light will always arrive at the observer adhering to the experimental arrangement last made. This can also be performed with light from distant galaxies.These types of experiments make it difficult to argue that the conscious experimenter making these decisions is not deeply connected to the observations that are observed.I think therefore, I exist. From this perspective if I don’t think then I do not exist. Here are two distinct alternatives. Let’s think of existence as the set containing {Existence} = 1 and non-existence as the set containing {non-existence} = 0. We immediately arrive at the third set {0,1} =2 and a fourth {0,1,2} ……. all the way to infinity. From here with simple logic, we naturally arrive at the ‘Whole of mathematics’. Talk about lifting yourself up by your bootstraps. If we ‘think’, then we are trapped into a world of things. Even the concept of non-existence or no-thing is a thing in the world of things. You cannot describe no-thing unless you are comparing it to things. So even zero is a true number with real existence.If you think, then you are part of this mathematical existence. This ‘Whole of Mathematics’ is pregnant with mathematical sentient entities. The logic of mathematics determines your existence.Your existence lays solely within this logical mathematical structure. So when we do anything including experiments these actions must necessary comply with the logical mathematical structure that we inhabit.Eugene Wigner states “the unreasonable effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences”. However, the statement really should read 'that it is unreasonable in science if we do come across some phenomena that does not conform to mathematics and logic'. When we test nature it must conform to logic. If for example we did not come across fossils in the ground then that would leave us searching for a logical explanation of how complex humans came about. We know that the answer must comply with mathematical logic because that is the framework upon which all of existence conforms.Every action that we do is mathematically constrained and directed toward procreation for complex conscious existence.Our existence determines what we can observe and those observations must lead to a logical mathematical consistency describing how it is that we exist. This ‘mathematical structure' that we inhabit (living entities) is a subset in relation to the ‘Whole of mathematics’.The mathematical and logical constraints placed on our existence determines what information we receive from our senses and in turn the Mathematical Structure of the 'Physcial Universe' that the physicist's are searching for in their 'Theory of Everything', through experimentation.Fundamental reality consist only of Number, Shape and Constraint (eg if you try to walk through a brick wall that is a constraint.) We are living in a 'Mathematical Structure'. Everything that we percieve is generated by the brain including our perception of time and space.Today science has come a long way along the path, using mathematical logic and our natural senses enhanced by man-made instruments, to a mathematical description explaining our existence/consciousness. We are not there yet. But one thing that we can be certain of is that there is a mathematical and logical consistancy that describes our consciousness. We exist in a realm of mathematics and by virtue of our existence there must be a mathematical description of our place within this realm.To date we have made good progress since Galileo and Newton assuming that the observer is separate to observations and there is a hard, hot, smelly, tasty physical world out there seperate to our internal thoughts . Until now this has worked quite well. We needed this separation early on to make tractable progress. However, with the discovery of Quantum Field Theory, we can no longer rely on making progress with this limitation of having the observer as a God-like figure testing nature.We are an integral part of the whole system.