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What Is Love? It's Not What You Think — Scotte Burns on Love, Consciousness, and the Fabric of Reality

What Is Love? It's Not What You Think — Scotte Burns on Love, Consciousness, and the Fabric of Reality

Key Takeaways

  • In a massive research project spanning over 100,000 miles across 48 states and thousands of interviews, researcher Scotte Burns discovered that no two people define love the exact same way.
  • Rather than being a feeling, a choice, or a chemical reaction, love is the creative and purposeful aspect of universal consciousness itself.
  • The brain does not produce consciousness; instead, it acts as a receiver or antenna tuned to a signal that was always already there.
  • Humanity often confuses love with its related emotions, such as romance, longing, and grief, which are actually manifestations and expressions of love rather than love itself.
  • By practicing 'lovefulness'—a concept akin to metacognition—individuals can learn to live from the space of love and experience it in everyday interactions.

What if everything you have ever been told about love is wrong? Not slightly off. Not oversimplified. Fundamentally, scientifically, philosophically wrong. That is the starting point for today's conversation with Scotte Burns, a writer, speaker, and researcher who spent over a decade and more than 100,000 miles riding across America with his wife Toni, asking one question: What is love?

He interviewed quantum physicists, Buddhist monks, Lakota elders, neuroscientists, jazz musicians, and people on death row. He recorded nearly five terabytes of interviews across 48 states. And the answer he came back with is not what anyone expected. Love, Scotte argues, is not a feeling. It's not a choice. It's not a chemical reaction or an evolutionary adaptation. It's the creative and purposeful aspect of universal consciousness itself. And the brain? It doesn't produce consciousness. It receives it, like an antenna tuned to a signal that was always already there.

In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, we cover:

  • Why no two people in thousands of recorded interviews have ever defined love the same way, and what that tells us about love's true nature
  • The critical difference between lust, attraction, attachment, and love, and why science keeps confusing them
  • Why grief is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that love is not biological
  • The concept of aeroplasticity: why love persists beyond its objects and what that reveals about consciousness
  • Why materialist researchers may be permanently locked out of finding the answer they are looking for
This is one of those conversations that will quietly rearrange something in the way you see the world. Part 2 drops Tuesday, and it goes somewhere we genuinely did not see coming.

Connect with Scotte Burns:
🌐 scotteburns.com
📖 The Cartographer's Log on Substack: scotteburns.substack.com

Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. Until then, keep questioning, keep searching, and above all, keep loving out loud.

















The Skeptic Metaphysicians is a spiritual awakening podcast for open-minded thinkers who refuse to check their critical thinking at the door. Each episode explores consciousness expansion, enlightenment, soul purpose, and soul growth through honest, grounded conversation with leading voices in metaphysics, psychic phenomenon, quantum healing, and beyond.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Scotte Burns?

Scotte Burns is a writer, speaker, researcher, and former science and literature teacher who spent over a decade traveling across 48 states to research the true nature of love for his book 'A Map of Souls' and his publication 'The Cartographer's Log'.

What is love according to Scotte Burns?

According to Scotte Burns, love is not a mere feeling, emotion, or chemical reaction, but rather the creative and purposeful fabric of universal consciousness itself.

How does the brain relate to consciousness?

Rather than acting as the source of consciousness, the brain functions similarly to an antenna, receiving and tuning into a signal of universal consciousness that already exists.

What is lovefulness?

Lovefulness is a term coined by Scotte Burns to describe a state of mindfulness where a person actively lives from the space of love, trying to bring that expansive and warm energy into every situation.

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Karen, you know that I love you.

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Yes, you do.

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You know a lot, but the most important part is you know I love you.

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Yes, I do.

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I love you too.

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Well, thank you.

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Now, we've been together for quite a few years, so that would make sense that we would

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love each other, right?

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I won't reveal how many because we got very late in life.

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I really don't want anyone to make it do in the math, right?

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So, but what if I told you that I also love our guest today?

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I think that is great.

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I mean, we should love everybody.

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Okay.

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And what if I went further and dropped that nugget that I actually love our neighbor and

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our leaders and that I actually love, well, everyone, even the people you don't like,

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especially the people I don't like.

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So full disclosure, that's actually the place that we want to get to being able to love

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everyone like that, right?

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But they always say fake it to you, make it right.

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So, I'm doing a bit like him.

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Now, let's take it a minute.

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No, none of with you.

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Now, let's seek this step further and say that love is actually not a feeling.

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It's not even an emotion at all.

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What if it's actually the creative and purposeful aspect of the universal consciousness?

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I think that's exactly what it is.

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I had a feeling you might agree to.

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And what if I said that the brain is not the source of consciousness after all, but rather

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an antenna?

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It activates the love.

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Then you can tune into, see what I'm headed here?

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I do, and I like it.

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Okay, well, today's guests spent a decade riding me hardly across America to answer one question.

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What is love?

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100,000 miles, 48 states speaking with monks in quantum physicists and death row prisoners.

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Wow.

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And the answer that he came back with is not anything anyone expected.

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You think, come back saying love is a feeling or a choice or even a chemical reaction?

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He came back saying that love is the actual fabric of reality.

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And on top of all the questions that that brings up, he also says that he is curious whether

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that means that artificial intelligence can love.

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Oh.

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Which honestly is either the most beautiful question anyone's ever brought up to this show

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or proof that I've completely lost control of my guest list.

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Find out which one in this episode are the skeptic manifestations.

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My name is Will.

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And I'm Karen.

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And unlike Molderen Scully, we've embarked on a journey of discovery.

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We've talked to people deeply entrenched in the spiritual and metaphysical world.

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We've thrown ourselves into weird and wonderful experiences.

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I even joined a covenant with you.

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And, wait, you joined a covenant?

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Yep, all in the interest of finding something that will prove that there's something beyond

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this physical, three-dimensional world we all live in.

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This is the skeptic manifestations.

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Hey there, quick question for you.

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with everything happening in the skeptic manifestations universe.

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Hey there, I'm Will and I'm Karen.

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Welcome back to the skepticmanifosition.

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It's a show where we ruin perfectly good small talk by asking whether the thing you feel

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in the first date is actually the operating system of the entire universe.

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Wow.

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Yeah.

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We've had people on the show who channel the dead, remote view government facilities, even

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have had full conversations with their own past lives.

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But we've never had anyone try to convince us that love is literally the creative force of

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universal consciousness.

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I love that so much.

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I knew you would Scott Burns as a TEDx speaker, a researcher with over 100,000 miles of field

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work across 48 states.

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He's the author of a map of souls and the creative genius behind the wildly popular, the cartographers

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log.

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We publishes essays, stories and reflections on love, consciousness, AI and the search for

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meaning.

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So all the small talk that we're ruining today.

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Scott Burns, we're so thrilled to finally finally be able to welcome you to the skepticmanifosition.

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How are you doing today?

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I am well and I am equally glad to be here and I think I love you already.

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Yay.

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I think it's kind of a territory.

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You kind of have to say that.

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All the research you've done.

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Oh my gosh.

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That's probably an accurate conclusion.

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I don't know about proving that as we go.

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I think that's a good plan forward.

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So before we get into it, I have to know in the introduction you said across 48 states.

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So what was wrong with the other two?

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He could raise Harley.

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Well, okay.

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So who I, I guess that would be, you know, like a Chitty Chitty Bing Bing.

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Right.

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Alaska?

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We have not made it to Alaska yet.

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Although there's a road called the Cam Loops Trail that goes up to Alaska and that is

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definitely on our aspiration list.

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Wow.

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That sounds exciting.

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Yeah.

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I would recommend doing it in the summer.

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We're going to extend some love to Canada because we need to rebuild that bridge.

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Oh my gosh.

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Yes.

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Please.

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Thank you.

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We've got a lot to talk about because love is, it just happens to be Karen's thing.

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Right.

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Love is Karen's thing.

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And apparently it's yours too.

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So when you say that love is the fabric of realities, not really an emotion at all, I mean,

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that's kind of a hard one to wrap my head around.

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So can you help me get to the point where I can actually think about it logically?

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Sure.

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Yeah.

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Logic is going to play a key role in this discussion, I think.

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First, one of the remarkable things that we discovered when we hit the road, you know,

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and now almost five terabytes of recorded interviews, audio and video and text interviews

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that we've done across the country is that when we ask people, when the project evolved

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to the point where we were no longer looking just at, you know, relationships and at the

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origin, nature and purpose of love itself, when we've asked people to define it and we

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usually do that by saying, finish this sentence.

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Love is no two people have ever answered that question the same way in thousands of recorded

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interviews.

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Wow.

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And that was one of the remarkable facts about the work that really created the trail of

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breadcrumbs we've been following ever since.

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So human beings can't universally define love.

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And yet we organize our lives around it more than almost anything else.

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Now that alone suggests that love isn't just a feeling we happen to have, but it's something

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more foundational.

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Right.

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But the endless related emotions that people, you know, oftentimes when we ask people to

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define it for us, they give us synonyms, you know, they'll tell us other feelings, other

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the ways it makes them feel or try to relate it to emotions that they have.

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But again, you know, you think of all the emotions that you can have because you love.

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And the most clunky related ones are the ones that people attribute to it, you know, romance,

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adoration, cherishment, honor.

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But as you have love, you also feel longing and sometimes anger and hope and all these

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different things.

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So those endless related emotions and nonidentical synonyms are too various to be love itself.

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They can't define it.

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So suggesting that suggests that love is a catalyst for all those feelings.

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It's the category and not a member of it.

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And one of the other revelations that we had was what a poor guide feelings are to understanding

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love's nature because we tend to, you know, we conflate love as being these things and

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then we get confused because we think that means there are all these different kinds and

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forms of love, you know.

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Everything you love is somehow this different manifestation of it.

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When love is actually one thing and it's the feelings themselves that are manifestations

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and expressions of it.

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And one of the ways that I get across how misguided our feelings can be in defining it is you

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can think of love.

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Both it's nature and how it works as like the sun.

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Now a long time science teacher.

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At the weird distinction of having spent 25 years as an English teacher and a science teacher.

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And so that told me, you know, what a great vehicle for getting across complex ideas stories

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are.

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But the science is also a great way of sort of showing this paradigm because one of the

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parallels that I draw is you can think of love like the sun.

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We are warmed by the sun, but we don't get any heat from it.

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Now when I say that when I do public speaking people think, well, wait a minute.

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I feel like it does.

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And because I feel that way, that must be the truth.

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You're feeling is misguiding you.

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Because a long time science teacher, there's a little thermodynamics lesson here.

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There's nothing solid in the vastness of space between the earth and the sun for heat to

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conduct.

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There's no way for heat to transfer through material in the 92 million miles between

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the earth and the sun, you know, and for heat to conduct.

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There's not enough gas or liquid out there for it to convect, you know, through differences

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in terms of pressure for it to move.

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Instead, the sun's electromagnetic energy radiates outward from it.

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Through the void of space.

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And when it strikes the earth, it energizes, you know, it's waters, it's land, it's people,

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us, pizza delivery drivers, all these things, the waters, all these things on earth, the

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atoms and molecules of which those things are made are caused to vibrate.

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They're energized.

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And it's the force and friction of that vibration that causes heat to be generated within

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the very matter of which they're made.

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So you can think of love as being much operating much the same way.

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It's radiant in the same sense.

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And we love someone.

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We're awakening and expanding and warming, energizing something that already exists within

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them, just as they do with us.

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Because we have this feeling that we're getting warmth from the sun, we think we're getting

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heat from it because we have this feeling that love is awakened in us.

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We have this impression that somehow we're getting a receiving love from someone else.

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When they're actually only working on something, operating and expanding something that's already

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within us.

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Wow.

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And it's perfect sense.

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I mean, it does, but it flips everything on its head, right?

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You're singing.

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If I understand correctly, that the feelings that we express, the feelings that we feel as

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love is not actually love.

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We're misnaming this emotion that we're feeling because love is much more of a universal

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unity amongst all of us.

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That is who we are at the basic level, right?

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It's intrinsic to consciousness itself.

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You can think of, and this is oversimplifying a bit, but you can think of love as being the

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reason you have feelings, not a feeling itself.

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So one of the ways, when I did my TED talk, one of the ways that I used to express this

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and what I do in my public speaking is you can think of love as like your senses.

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Your senses are intrinsic to you.

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You and I have the same sense of sight.

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It manifests differently.

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We have different acuity, our eyes are shaped differently, our visual cortex processes, things

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differently.

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But we both understand what the sense of sight basically is because it expresses itself differently

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within us, doesn't change what the physical sense of sight is.

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You and I can see the same thing.

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We can interpret it differently.

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We have perspectives on it.

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We might even feel differently because of it.

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The sense of sight, your love as the metaphor, is one thing, and it's one thing within us

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all.

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So interesting.

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And if you think about it, you can think about someone who just broke up out of a relationship

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and they're just so sad and they think this because they don't have any love.

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And then the person right next to them, maybe they haven't been in a relationship for years

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and they're happy as a clam.

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The situation is the same.

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They don't have someone that they're having that interaction with.

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But one person maybe is tapping into that force more fully or recognizing it or something

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where someone else only sees the lack or the feelings caused by that.

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We don't realize they can tap into that.

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I guess based on what Scott says, that other person is causing a reaction inside you that

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makes you feel the love.

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Maybe they're just holding up a little mirror to the little spots of loving you.

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You know, this is hard to talk about, Scott, because now I realize, as I said it, that's

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the wrong term to use.

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It's that you don't have feeling love.

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It's like, "Oh my God, how do we talk about this, then?"

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There's a certain grace that you have to give yourself in discussing love because language

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itself, and pains me to say as an English teacher and a long time literature instructor,

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language itself is very limiting.

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It's very difficult to get across these concepts in a way that language isn't always cutting

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a little short.

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And this is, you know, one, I've interviewed many different people.

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In fact, the man who wrote the four word for the book is Dr. Evan Alexander.

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Oh, he's been on the show.

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Yeah.

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Neuroscientist and a near-death experiencer.

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And one of the, I'm glad you had Evan, a fabulous man.

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And he and his wife, his wife Karen is just as in.

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We had her on as well.

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Yeah.

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He's been on a couple times.

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Okay.

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So, we're family.

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Yeah.

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What do you see?

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There's certain levels of separation.

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Re-reseparation.

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Yeah.

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We've been connected all along.

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We had no idea.

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Look at that.

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One of the things that near-death experiencers are commonly frustrated with is their inability

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to convey what it is that they experience because language is always limiting.

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You know, in fact, you know, some of this touches on religious and spiritual aspects and we

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start talking about, you know, universal consciousness or God or whatever term you want

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to put.

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But God itself is a limiting term because the term itself limits God to being this external

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thing from us.

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It carries the word carries definitions that can't capture the concept.

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So when we talk about love, we oftentimes are having to use a lot of language to get across

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a little bit of the right idea.

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Wow.

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You know, so we're recording this conversation around lunchtime for us.

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And it might bring, it was not ready to function at this level yet.

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Are you saying you would love to have that?

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I mean, you need to go to get a snack break just in.

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This is great.

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And it's, you know, I talk about love a lot and different experiences and thoughts and feelings.

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And one thing that I like to do is sometimes when I'm driving, not from the other day, but

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sometimes I don't drive.

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I'll tell myself, like, I really want to feel love and I'll focus on that.

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And it's almost like this swirling effect and then, like, I can feel, I told you, I can

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feel the edge of my skin and I just feel like I'm something.

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It's like the energy just like about to burst out and then everything else is better.

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Right.

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People are better.

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Everything else is just better.

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Well, that's a good point.

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So is that sky?

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Is that because she's tapping into the universal consciousness of who she is?

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Yes.

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Yay.

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Oh, thank you.

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I can't see.

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Hey, so thanks for joining us.

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Now, what you're describing there is something I actually, you know, we're talking about language,

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is a term that I invent it.

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I think I invented for the book because people, what you're describing is a form of mindfulness.

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You know, in neuroscience or in education, we call it metacognition.

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You're thinking about your thinking.

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In your case, you're trying to feel about your feelings.

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The term I've developed for the book is lovefulness.

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What you're trying to do is you're living in that space.

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You're trying to take all the things that you feel when you experience love, however

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you define it and attach that, I want to say attach them because then we get into attachment,

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which we probably need to talk about too.

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But you're trying to look through that space to see the world around you.

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You're living in the space of your love, that aspect of your consciousness that you feel

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things through and say, why can't I feel all these ways towards everything?

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Because I feel so good when love operates within me, you know, when the first time you look

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into the eyes of your child or you pet your dog, you make a connection with a friend or

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all those things that awaken that sense in us.

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What if you could feel that in every situation?

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So that's what you're trying.

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That's the space you're trying to put yourself in as what I've called lovefulness.

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I like that.

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I love that term.

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I wrote it down because I'm going to steal it.

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I'm just putting it right now.

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I'm just talking about love.

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I'm just talking about talking about love.

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It brings up an incredible point because it's where we want to get to.

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We want to be able to live from the point of loving everything and everyone and have that

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right back at us because, I mean, it changes.

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It doesn't change.

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It really emphasizes the conversation that we've heard all the time.

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The people talk about the fact that we are love.

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That is who we are at our true essence.

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So how does your concept of our brain being an antenna help to solidify that concept that

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we are truly just nothing but big balls of love?

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I think that we're a little bit more than that.

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What I'm trying to get across is that love is an aspect of consciousness itself.

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It doesn't consciousness does not define us, but it's part of who and what we are.

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And love is creative and purposeful aspect.

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It's the reason why I'm arguing.

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It's the reason why consciousness exists.

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I want to loop back to something that you said before though, because you were talking about

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in different terms, you were really talking about how we experience love and lovefulness

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and stay in that state.

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That is, lovefulness is your natural state.

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I know that life and our existence is filled with conflict and there's a reason for that

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that we can debate.

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You look at, there was a neurophysicist, I think he was a neurophysicist named Carl Friston,

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who had been a physicist, but he had developed what he called the free energy principle.

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He showed that all living systems survived by modeling and reaching outside their own

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boundaries.

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That's the natural state of existence.

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A cell reaches toward nutrients, plants reach toward light, babies reach toward a face.

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Animals are mathematically driven to minimize what he called variational free energy.

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There's uncertainty, internal conflict, conflict between us is not our natural state.

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Our natural state is to seek cooperation because it minimizes energy cost.

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This talks to the energy question that you were basically asking.

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Buckminster Fuller, the architect, philosopher, I don't know if you're familiar.

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Sure.

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Fuller.

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His idea of synergetics.

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He said, "I love his terms."

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He divided into killingery, which is weapons and conflict.

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He showed how that wastes immense energy for a living system, for a complex system.

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It doesn't make any sense.

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It's not the natural state.

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The natural state of living systems, he called livingery.

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It was the cooperation between them.

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It's the only mathematically sound way to do more with less energy.

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That leads us back to the question you had before about the receiver model.

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How do we know that consciousness is not an emergent property?

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Meaning the brain doesn't create it.

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You're receiving this pre-existing signal.

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This is something that I got from oddly enough.

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The convergence and the confluence of all these different experts and living experience

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and all these people that I've interviewed has really been more foundational to the work

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than any one religious text or epiphany that I've had.

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One of the people whose voices was key to this, oddly enough, was an electrical engineer.

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He pointed out that your radio does not create symphonies.

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Just think of the incredible amount of energy and time needed to do that.

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From the composer's ideation through the creation of the symphony through all the iterative

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process that it takes, sharing it out with all the musicians, the musician's individual rehearsal

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time, the conductor bringing all those things together.

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Your radio instead takes a tiny trickle of energy and simply receives a pre-existing

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signal and translates it into something that your brain can understand.

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The argument is what if your brain works the same way?

401
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Instead of creating consciousness, a new consciousness with the creation of every brain and the incredible

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amount of energy and time it would take to do that, instead taking a tiny trickle of energy,

403
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it's about 20 watts for a three and a half pound brain and receiving a pre-existing signal

404
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and interpreting it in a way that you can understand.

405
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Because your brain is different, it's filtering.

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You look at Donald Hoffman's work about the filtering brain, conscious agents, you're

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not in because you know Hoffman's work.

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Braining is this individual filtering system that makes a new reality.

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Because we each have that reality filtered in a different way, that's what gives us this

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impression of individuality, of what we call duality.

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I'm in here and everything else is out there.

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That's how we interpret consciousness and the interactions that we have because we have

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that sense of individuality is what defines our relationships, our conscious relationships,

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part of which is love.

415
00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:09,000
So then that's the case.

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In the instance of the sun, the example you used about the heat of the sun, there's nothing

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in space, some odd million miles to get to us.

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What happens is we feel it, because it activates something inside us and we feel like we're

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feeling the warmth of the sun.

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So the brain then receives a signal of love from where?

421
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:41,800
Where does love come from for us to receive it?

422
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:43,360
Where's the love son?

423
00:23:43,360 --> 00:23:44,960
Where's the love son?

424
00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:46,560
Hey, there it's Will.

425
00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:50,560
If you're one of those folks that's waking up to something bigger than what the mainstream

426
00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:56,280
media keeps trying to shout down our throats, you might feel like you're the only one who sees

427
00:23:56,280 --> 00:23:57,280
it.

428
00:23:57,280 --> 00:24:00,640
I'm here to tell you, you're not alone.

429
00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:07,640
See new reality TV is where seekers, skeptics, truth chasers, that's what we all come together

430
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:09,000
for free.

431
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:15,840
On Roku, on Fire TV, on the web, on iOS, or on Android, there's no subscription, there's

432
00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:22,160
no gatekeeping, just real conversations about consciousness, spirituality, and the questions

433
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:25,600
that nobody else is brave enough to ask.

434
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:32,160
Better than anything else, no fear response, no content that's meant to enlist at this fear

435
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:36,600
response that seems to be so pervasive in our world these days.

436
00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:39,680
I'm not talking about background noise.

437
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:44,040
This is a network that you tell your friends about at two o'clock in the morning.

438
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:49,640
Do yourself a favor, search new reality TV on Roku or Fire TV or on the web right now.

439
00:24:49,640 --> 00:24:55,200
You can find it at newrealitytv.com and you will thank me later.

440
00:24:55,200 --> 00:25:00,600
This is a network that gives us the kind of programming that we need.

441
00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:07,560
That's going to raise our consciousness, not try to divide us or try to keep us down

442
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:09,600
while owing in fear.

443
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:15,280
New reality, if you accept it, just got a whole lot bigger.

444
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:19,640
There's not a distinction between love and consciousness.

445
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:25,280
Love is just like you have different perceptive capabilities.

446
00:25:25,280 --> 00:25:28,600
You have sight and hearing and a sense of smell.

447
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:31,000
You have these perceptual capabilities.

448
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:36,880
Love is basically, and if your eyes are the organs of sight, you can think of your consciousness

449
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:38,680
as being the organ of love.

450
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:43,160
That's the instrument through which it operates.

451
00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:48,120
So consciousness itself is universal and timeless.

452
00:25:48,120 --> 00:25:52,520
We can get into the difference between timelessness and universality, but that's going to go

453
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:59,920
away into the weeds.

454
00:25:59,920 --> 00:26:04,160
The interpretation, what's called the Copenhagen interpretation of the double slit experiment.

455
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:06,400
I want to get into that a little bit if we can.

456
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:11,080
It says that consciousness is foundational.

457
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:16,200
It's fundamental in much the same way that gravity or magnetism is fundamental to the

458
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:18,160
structure of the universe.

459
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:21,880
We don't think of those things as having a beginning, middle, and end.

460
00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:25,120
They're just their universal forces.

461
00:26:25,120 --> 00:26:29,320
The interpretation of the quantum physics is bringing us to is that consciousness is

462
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:34,280
foundational to the universe and it pre-exists.

463
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:38,080
It's a matter of energy, you're basically just information and consciousness is the source

464
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:39,080
of that information.

465
00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:40,080
Right.

466
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:43,360
So I want to make sure that I double tap on that because that's probably one of the most

467
00:26:43,360 --> 00:26:46,920
important concepts to get your mind around.

468
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:55,720
The fact that consciousness is, it is the building blocks of everything from what quantum

469
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:58,360
physics has found.

470
00:26:58,360 --> 00:27:03,520
Consciousness makes up the vast majority of what is, period.

471
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:08,600
So basically what you're saying is that our brains are actually attuning themselves to the

472
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:10,720
structure of the universe.

473
00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:11,720
Right.

474
00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:16,320
And part of that is the creative aspect of that consciousness is love.

475
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:17,800
Exactly.

476
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:21,360
You've understood perfectly, you've passed the test.

477
00:27:21,360 --> 00:27:22,360
Yeah.

478
00:27:22,360 --> 00:27:25,560
It doesn't always happen to our freedom of art with perfect understanding.

479
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:27,800
I mean, we love.

480
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:30,640
Well, of course we love that.

481
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:37,120
When I talk about the foundation and the discoveries of this work are the confluence of, it's the

482
00:27:37,120 --> 00:27:38,120
crossroads.

483
00:27:38,120 --> 00:27:44,160
It's the places where neuroscience and philosophy and faith and lived experience have all come

484
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:45,160
together to meet.

485
00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:50,120
That's really what we were looking for across those 100,000 miles is where do those things

486
00:27:50,120 --> 00:27:51,200
agree?

487
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:56,520
And from the agreement that we find between them, what conclusions can we draw?

488
00:27:56,520 --> 00:28:02,080
Again, what I do by public speaking is say the funny thing that that led us to is much

489
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:07,120
of what we're hearing about the state of the universe through quantum physics are the

490
00:28:07,120 --> 00:28:11,240
same things that the Buddhists have been telling us for thousands of years.

491
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:15,400
You know, that turns out that Buddhists are just like quantum physicists are just like

492
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:19,400
Buddhists with better data.

493
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:24,080
I would say that scientists finally found the way to wrap their minds around what the

494
00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:25,080
Buddhists have been saying.

495
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:28,000
They extrapolated the way back down to the beginning.

496
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,800
Oh my gosh.

497
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:37,400
So then I guess it would be, so I'm kind of going back now to the original, or the beginning

498
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:41,120
of the conversation when we're talking about, you know, what is love and how people explain

499
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:45,720
it through feelings, what feelings they either give or it evokes.

500
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:52,200
So if everyone, I'm thinking about relationships, romantic relationships, for example, if everyone

501
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:58,000
was able to tap into this universal, just really kind of be in that state.

502
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:03,120
I wonder if, you know, you have, they have types like, like we dated a lot of people, but

503
00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:05,000
we met each other and we fell in love.

504
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:08,200
Like would you just, like the first person you meet have that interaction with or have

505
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:09,200
that feeling with?

506
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:14,000
Or would you still have discernment towards different people?

507
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:17,800
I think that would really be an individual case.

508
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:24,320
Again, you know, because we have this sense of individuality, that would really define how

509
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:25,680
you're interpreting that.

510
00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:29,840
I don't think that any, you can't say that any of us can do this.

511
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:33,880
Can some of us live in that lovefulness state and feel that towards everyone?

512
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:34,880
Yeah.

513
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:39,600
You know, there's, in fact, I interviewed an animal behaviorist at Arizona State University

514
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:45,520
named Dr. Clive Wynn and he wrote a book called Dog Is Love about the, the, the, the, the,

515
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:50,680
I was in the thing is where I was looking at the existence of love manifest through animals

516
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:53,560
and we are huge dog lovers.

517
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:59,040
And so speaking with Dr. Wynn, we, I found that there's an actual, there's a chromosomal

518
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:05,360
difference in people that have what's called Williams syndrome where they're naturally loving,

519
00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:06,840
they're friendly toward everyone.

520
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:08,280
They see the good in all things.

521
00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:11,240
They're also avid music lovers.

522
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:16,400
But the relationship between love and music as a whole other place we could go down as a

523
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:18,000
long time you do it.

524
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:21,680
But dogs have that state, natural.

525
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:26,840
They, they have, and I don't know if it's the chromosomal structure or if it's just a gift,

526
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:31,000
the gift from above, you know, the present from above, but dogs have that.

527
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:32,800
So can a person have that?

528
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:38,320
Yeah, we actually can show there's a physical manifestation, a genetic disposition for being

529
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:41,200
able to, can an individual learn to do that?

530
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:42,200
Yeah, absolutely.

531
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:46,400
And again, get back, you know, Buddhist practices and what they've been trying to tell us for

532
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:47,400
thousands of years.

533
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:48,400
Yeah.

534
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:50,400
You can achieve that state.

535
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:54,160
Well, that's an interesting point about dogs because I've always known, I've always felt

536
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:56,440
that dogs are just unconditional love.

537
00:30:56,440 --> 00:30:58,400
Like they're always there when you walk in the door.

538
00:30:58,400 --> 00:30:59,400
They're always ready.

539
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:03,040
I mean, they, they, they just exude that they know when you're feeling down, they'll come

540
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:04,840
to, and they'll, they'll sue you.

541
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:05,840
Right.

542
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:09,520
They, they are an epiphany of, of the epiphany, not the epiphany.

543
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:13,520
And I'm good dropping it at a point because that's pretty dumb to put that's done epiphany.

544
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:14,520
That is the end.

545
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:19,640
They're like the, the, the symbol, but the, you know, your family, but I can't take the word.

546
00:31:19,640 --> 00:31:22,080
They, they are love, personified, honest, right?

547
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:23,080
Right.

548
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:25,920
So if that's the, that's the case.

549
00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:26,920
Where was I going with that?

550
00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:27,920
I have no idea.

551
00:31:27,920 --> 00:31:28,920
I don't know.

552
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:29,920
It's been a good point.

553
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:30,920
Right.

554
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:31,920
And take you somewhere with it.

555
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:32,920
There we go.

556
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:33,920
Okay.

557
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:34,920
Let's go, Scott.

558
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:35,920
Where are we going?

559
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:40,240
I, I talked about this, this phase that I went through trying to find out, you know, what,

560
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:43,600
how love is expressed or experienced by animals.

561
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:45,880
And you know, we brought up dogs.

562
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:50,960
One of the, the, the catalyst for that part of the research that I've done came from a place

563
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:56,560
called the dog chapel in St. John's, Burievermont, which was, it sits on dog mountain.

564
00:31:56,560 --> 00:32:02,320
And the dog chapel is this beautiful, New England style colonial chapel built by an artist named

565
00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:04,400
Stephen Cunock and his wife, Gwen.

566
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:10,320
And it's devoted entirely to the grief and memories and devotion of those of us who have

567
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:12,520
been dog lovers throughout the courses of our lives.

568
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:17,760
And when you walk in, there are stained glass windows on all sides that have, you know, dogs

569
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:22,200
and dogs as angels in our window.

570
00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:30,440
And, and surrounding it, the walls and ceiling, an inches deep are covered in mementos and

571
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:36,000
notes and photographs and, and little trinkets of people, you know, bringing these things in

572
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:40,440
and expressing their love for dogs that had been parts of their lives.

573
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:44,920
And usually, because they're on dog mountain, which has all these wonderful ponds and trails

574
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:51,760
and stuff, they're in this space expressing that and experiencing that grief and that loss

575
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:54,280
with their current dogs.

576
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:59,040
And it, it occurred to me, you know, that that's a met, there's a mechanism that's happening

577
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:05,200
there because, you know, grief is one of the ways, one of the key evidences that I have

578
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:08,520
that shows that love is not an evolutionary adaptation.

579
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:12,040
It's not like attachment or pair bonding.

580
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:14,440
Grief is physiologically catastrophic.

581
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:19,000
You think, you know, you look at cortisol loads, depressed reproductive states, shortening

582
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:25,640
of telomeres in chromosomes, you know, that advance as aging, even suicide.

583
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:29,600
Life is not present without love and it costs the griever.

584
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:33,080
So it can't, it makes no sense as an evolutionary adaptation.

585
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:35,200
It's something outside of that.

586
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:42,240
And, and it extends, you know, not just from partners and animals and our, our living relationships,

587
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:46,040
but that can be loss of careers, of causes, of dreams.

588
00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:51,680
You know, grief, one of the most remarkable things about it is that we will enter into another

589
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:55,600
loving experience like people did with their dogs at the dog chapel.

590
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:59,160
You know, we, we experience that grief, it stays with us.

591
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:03,120
It doesn't, you know, one of the hardest things that people, widows and widowers that we've

592
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:07,440
interviewed have gone through, have told us is the one thing they hate to hear of the most

593
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:09,720
is, you know, you have to learn to move on.

594
00:34:09,720 --> 00:34:13,400
You don't move on from grief, you know, you move beyond it.

595
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:14,400
Right.

596
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:15,720
But you still experience it.

597
00:34:15,720 --> 00:34:17,320
It stays with you.

598
00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:21,600
Any of us that have lost anyone and that's all of us know that that grief is still

599
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:22,600
apart.

600
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:24,640
It stays apart of us.

601
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:30,560
But we learn to adapt, love in much the same way and I'm, get back into the neuroscience,

602
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:35,800
you know, in neuroscience there's a term called neuroplasticity where, you know, the loss

603
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:41,120
of one sense like the loss of sight, following the loss of sight, the neural cortex starts

604
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:43,760
to adapt to interpret audio signals.

605
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:44,760
Right.

606
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:50,120
And a blind person experiences sound fundamentally different because the brain is basically,

607
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:54,280
and I, neuroscientist hate using the term rewiring, but it's the best, again, the best way

608
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:55,280
we have.

609
00:34:55,280 --> 00:35:00,800
Rewires itself to be able to use that sense, the existing sense is in a different way.

610
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:06,200
In the book, I've used that, I've, another term I developed is called arrowplasticity.

611
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:08,560
Love persists beyond its objects.

612
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:15,360
When we lose someone or something and we experience that grief, it makes us, it makes our heart,

613
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:20,880
our spirit, you know, whatever body you want to put around it, expand in a way that we

614
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:22,800
can learn to love again.

615
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:27,520
It reorganizes whenever something or someone loves, it moves beyond our perception.

616
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:33,080
You know, after grief, you find new friendships opening, you know, new relationships starting,

617
00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:38,280
new partners come into focus, you know, room is made for another beloved dog, new pathways

618
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:39,520
are taken.

619
00:35:39,520 --> 00:35:46,320
So grief shows us not only the existence of love, but its persistence over time, and that

620
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:48,440
it persists beyond its objects.

621
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:52,640
And that's another evidence why love is not an emotion because emotions don't behave

622
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:53,640
like that.

623
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:54,640
Right.

624
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:58,240
You know, they, they present themselves the same way over time and kind of get stuck, you

625
00:35:58,240 --> 00:36:01,160
know, we get angry the same way when we drive.

626
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:03,720
We feel the same serenity during rain.

627
00:36:03,720 --> 00:36:07,680
We feel some of us feel the same boredom with small talk.

628
00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:10,520
They don't change us.

629
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:15,100
They're objects, you know, the driver that made us mad last time, that particular rain

630
00:36:15,100 --> 00:36:16,840
started and that made us feel that way.

631
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:21,560
Those objects pass from memory even though the emotion stays the same way over time.

632
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:23,800
You know, love doesn't operate that way.

633
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:29,280
The objects of our love, they persist and they do so in ways that are unique to all of

634
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:30,280
us.

635
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:34,600
Well, how about looking at it from the flip side that if love is like that, we mentioned

636
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:37,720
attachments or jealousies and anger and things like that.

637
00:36:37,720 --> 00:36:42,320
So how does that play into this because are those not emotions either?

638
00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:45,200
Are they aspects of love that have been tainted?

639
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:46,720
How do you see it?

640
00:36:46,720 --> 00:36:51,200
No, there's really, and forgive me for a minute because this is the science teacher and

641
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:53,920
my science, the inner science teacher and inner English teacher are always pushing each

642
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:54,920
other out of the way.

643
00:36:54,920 --> 00:37:02,320
So this goes back to the, you know, the science teacher and we had a way of explaining the

644
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:08,400
difference between lust, attraction and attachment and why those things are different from love.

645
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:12,640
Okay, there's, and it gets into chemistry, which is interesting because I think how many

646
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:15,680
times when we're talking about relationships, we use the term chemistry.

647
00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:17,640
You know, we have great chemistry.

648
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:19,080
You know, there's a bond.

649
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:21,000
Well, bonding is a chemical reaction.

650
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:22,000
Right.

651
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:26,240
So there's a hierarchy to these things and it takes just a minute to explain.

652
00:37:26,240 --> 00:37:27,600
Lust is like a mixture.

653
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:29,480
That's where stuff is combined.

654
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:30,480
No bonding occurs.

655
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:35,080
You know, lust, lust is driven by the limbic system and it's part of the evolutionary drive

656
00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:36,080
to reproduce.

657
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:38,080
It's a biological imperative.

658
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:39,080
Right.

659
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:43,560
You know, there's funny thing about lust, activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain

660
00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:47,800
is repressed and that's the brain's center for rational thinking, for moral behavior,

661
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:49,720
for considering consequences.

662
00:37:49,720 --> 00:37:55,120
And that's why lust isn't just distinct from love, but it's also pretty famously distance

663
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:57,560
from any kind of reason or good judgment.

664
00:37:57,560 --> 00:37:58,560
Sure.

665
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:02,640
Attraction is different in chemistry.

666
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:05,280
We'd call it an ionic bond.

667
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:06,880
That's where atoms are drawn together.

668
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:11,120
They sort of donate their, they're outermost electrons, but they don't really share them.

669
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:13,360
It's like they get close, but they're not really committed.

670
00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:14,360
Right.

671
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:19,760
So attraction is a sort of slow burn lust, a mutual lust.

672
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:22,920
Attraction gets you into the room, but it doesn't tell you anything about whether you

673
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:24,320
can stay there.

674
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:28,640
And the neurological response is to it or, you know, there's a release of neuroepinephrine,

675
00:38:28,640 --> 00:38:35,400
adrenaline, serotonin, and it's similar to our physiological reactions to threat or terror.

676
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:39,000
But the difference physiologically is that there's a splash dopamine in there and dopamine

677
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:41,760
is what gives that sense of euphoria.

678
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:45,720
When we do things that feel good, like spending time with people we love, having sex, eating

679
00:38:45,720 --> 00:38:46,920
chocolate.

680
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:51,800
And maybe I shouldn't say that, but anyone ever asks you if you want to combine all those

681
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:53,520
things, the answer is always yes.

682
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:54,520
Yes, yes.

683
00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:55,520
I mean, yes.

684
00:38:55,520 --> 00:39:00,360
The attachment is like a covalent bond in chemistry.

685
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:02,440
That's the strongest physical link.

686
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:04,160
That's when electrons are shared.

687
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:07,840
You know, we share a lot between each other when we're attached to one another.

688
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:13,400
And that's why those bonds become almost inseparable, but those are all lust attraction

689
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:17,720
attachment or all physical and physiological responses.

690
00:39:17,720 --> 00:39:22,800
They're often encountered alongside love, but they're measurable.

691
00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:25,880
You know, all those neurotransmitters and hormones, they're measurable.

692
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:31,160
And that's why people that study clinicians who study love tend to conflate it or confuse

693
00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:36,120
it with those things because what they're looking for are things that are quantifiable, things

694
00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:37,720
that are measurable.

695
00:39:37,720 --> 00:39:44,920
Love is, you know, this incredible mix of memory and imagination and emotion and, you know,

696
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:51,840
the thought and this sort of holistic blend that can't be measured or quantified.

697
00:39:51,840 --> 00:40:00,080
So researchers are materialistic researchers are doomed to never be able to find the answer

698
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:02,880
thereafter because they're looking in the wrong space.

699
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:10,280
I mean, that's kind of the story of our life.

700
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:19,480
Wow, I'm like, yes, yes, yes, yes, where's the book?

701
00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:20,480
Hopefully soon.

702
00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:22,920
I just got the forward from Dr. Alexander.

703
00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:25,640
So I'm in the process of looking for literary agents now.

704
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:30,240
So if any of our lits name my line is open.

705
00:40:30,240 --> 00:40:31,240
Yeah.

706
00:40:31,240 --> 00:40:32,240
Well, you heard it here.

707
00:40:32,240 --> 00:40:38,440
If you are a literary agent and you want a book all about the truth about love, Scott is

708
00:40:38,440 --> 00:40:39,440
the main ego too.

709
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:40,440
And we'll get that.

710
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:43,360
We'll definitely get you connected.

711
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:46,520
Well folks, that is where we are going to pause things today.

712
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:53,240
And yes, I said pause, not stop because this conversation was so rich, so layered and honestly

713
00:40:53,240 --> 00:40:58,200
so hard to walk away from that we made the decision to give it the times I deserve and

714
00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:00,320
split it into two parts.

715
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:05,160
In part one today, Scott took us on the road with him unpacked why no two people in thousands

716
00:41:05,160 --> 00:41:11,000
of recorded interviews have ever defined love the same way made a compelling case for why

717
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:17,280
love is not an emotion, not a chemical reaction and not an evolutionary adaptation and walked

718
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:20,040
us through what he calls aeroplasticity.

719
00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:26,400
The idea that love persists beyond its objects, even through grief.

720
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:28,480
But we are just getting warmed up.

721
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:33,720
Part two drops this coming Tuesday and let's just say the conversation takes a turn that

722
00:41:33,720 --> 00:41:39,400
we did not see coming at all when we first sat down to talk to him.

723
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:40,400
Be on a lookout for it.

724
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:45,040
This is not one you're going to want to miss because we saved some of the best for last.

725
00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:47,800
Trust me, you're not going to want to miss it.

726
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:55,280
Until then, keep questioning, keep searching and above all, keep loving out loud.

727
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:56,280
Take care.

728
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:59,880
Let's see how you want to enjoy the next video!

729
00:41:59,880 --> 00:42:02,880
[Music]

Scotte Burns Profile Photo

Researcher, TedX Speaker, Author of "A Map of Souls"

Author, speaker, storyteller, teacher, and explorer. Scotte holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction and spent twenty-five years in the classroom, from middle school through university, helping to raise and guide over 3,000 young people. He's a veteran TEDx speaker, a popular podcast guest, and a researcher whose work has been featured on NPR's Morning Edition and PRX.

Check out his Substack: https://scotteburns.substack.com/

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