Are gamma waves which may participate in the formation of coherent, unified perception equivalent to what Soygal Rhinpoche calls «the knowing quality of the mind»?

Last Updated on December 14, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org

In the following video Tibetan Lama Soygal Rhinpoche explains that our conscious perception is always there:

Soygal Rhinpoche says «thoughts are always changing, emotions are always changing, if you kind of grasp onto identify onto this as you, is is not very reliable.» René Descartes’s philosophy was «I think, therefore I am”. But we found in a book about Kundalini Yoga the statement: «I do not think, therefore I am». So René Descartes’s statement is controvsial. Soygal Rhinpoche further asked «what is constant and unchanging? In a fundamental mind stream there is this clarity, this cogniscence. What is the quality of the mind? The quality of the mind is to know.»

And this «quality of the mind to know» is according to Soygal Rhinpoche constant, unchanging and always there. These findings of “brain researcher” Soygal Rhinpoche fit’s with findings from brain scientists about gamma waves:

«Gamma waves may participate in the formation of coherent, unified perception, also known as the problem of combination in the binding problem, due to their apparent synchronization of neural firing rates across distinct brain regions.[20][21][22] 40-Hz gamma waves were first suggested to participate in visual consciousness in 1988,[23] .e.g, two neurons oscillate synchronously (though they are not directly connected) when a single external object stimulates their respective receptive fields. Subsequent experiments by many others demonstrated this phenomenon in a wide range of visual cognition. In particular, Francis Crick and Christof Koch:

Sogyal Rinpoche & Christof Koch explain who the brain works, but both have a completely different approach

in 1990[24] argued that there is a significant relation between the binding problem and the problem of visual consciousness and, as a result, that synchronous 40 Hz oscillations may be causally implicated in visual awareness as well as in visual binding. Later the same authors expressed skepticism over the idea that 40-Hz oscillations are a sufficient condition for visual awareness.[25]«

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_wave

We don’t want to forget to mention in this context the work of German neurophysiologist and brain researcher Wolfgang Singer who studied in his neurophysiological department how to elucidate the neuronal processes in the case of so-called higher cognitive performance, such as in the case of visual perception, in memory, or in other ways of cognition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Singer

We can learn a lot from Francis Crick, Christof Koch and Wolfgang Singer about how the brain works, but also from Soygal Rhinpoche. We can find a lot of talks from Soygal Rhinpoche on YouTube about The Mind and The Nature of Mind.