Credit: biosignal.med.upatras.gr
Materialism holds the high ground these days in debates over that most ultimate of scientific questions: the nature of consciousness. When tackling the problem of mind and brain, many prominent researchers advocate for a universe fully reducible to matter. ‘Of course you are nothing but the activity of your neurons,’ they proclaim. That position seems reasonable and sober in light of neuroscience’s advances, with brilliant images of brains lighting up like Christmas trees while test subjects eat apples, watch movies or dream. And aren’t all the underlying physical laws already known?
From this seemly hard-nosed vantage, the problem of consciousness seems to be just one of wiring, as the American physicist Michio Kaku argued in The Future of the Mind (2014). In the very public version of the debate over consciousness, those who advocate that understanding the mind might require something other than a ‘nothing but matter’ position are often painted as victims of wishful thinking, imprecise reasoning or, worst of all, an adherence to a mystical ‘woo’.
It’s hard not to feel the intuitional […]
From the S.A.N.D. newsletter this AM: “Enlightenment is simply intimacy with all things. Not knowing is most intimate.” ~ Dogen
Unmani asks us to be comfortable in not-knowing. Our typical frame of cultural reference, is to have an answer which makes us right and the ‘other’, wrong. We see this played out hourly today on the world stage of Amerikan politics.
Consciousness or awareness? Here’s an example of the deal as I see it. In the either or world of my idea vs your idea, it’s intelligent design *or* evolution. Only room for one idea. Seeming nonduality, but, resting in duality.
In my personal world, I input one letter, ‘f’ and the equation becomes: design for evolution.
All these stupit friggin’ ideas; meanwhile the planet’s glaciers slide away with a giant smilie on their faces.
Inclusivity means both are correct . . . of course depending upon your POV. hahaha
Life did not somehow emerge from matter. The life force is a dimension of the Universe that organizes matter into life forms.
skhovland, you don’t really know that, can’t prove that, but I do appreciate and accept this theory. Humans _seem_ to inhabit, a Self-organizing Universe . . . one song. All the more reason for other intelligences, further evolved, than our warring nutballs here. hahaha
Particle physics experiments are routinely and necessarily performed using double blind or quadruple blind techniques to avoid the expectations of the experimenters from impacting the results. A scientific experiment worth performing would be to program a computer to devise and perform quantum experiments where the computer documents the predetermines expected outcome. Will the results of the experiment follow quantum theory probabilities or always match the predetermined outcomes? This would give insight into the nature of the physical impact of human thought and intention.
Just as there are different kinds of human minds, there are diffent sorts of theories. If nature were to be unchanging, we would already be fixed. Life and the perception of it keep changing, changing. The acients were so wise, and modern man can appear so arrogant. Just as it is unwise to folllow the man of one book, it is just so to follow the man of one theory. Though many of us, I imagine, wanted to think that theory as we were adolescents just discovering our own mind. Science can admit Meyers Briggs, or even OCEAN in sorting the different types of minds, but science somehow cannot admit that scientists possess those different sorts. Knowledge of OCEAN in its big data form may have “rigged” the last election as the victor proclaimed. Does that data count?
There will alway be materialists as there will always be senates. and judgemenals. There is consciousness AND there is conditioned existence; Ah. Where are You in this mess is the question, thinking up the answer for all mankind is…. maya. I am not especially Buddhist, but their analysis sorted out this stuff rather well 2,500 years ago.
Useful for some following this inquiry to read most anything by William Irwin Thompson who taught humanities at MIT for 3 years in the 60s. He ran away from there warning about the people there with the one right answer, the instrumentalists. Our ancestors, and likely your mother knew things to be more subtle than than that. But, then, here is my arrogance showing.
One interesting book on this subject is Bernardo Kastrup,s “Why Mterialism is Baloney” which is a very good description of the problems discussed and solutions to them.
Another good set of books on the subject are the books by Amit Goswami, PhD. in physics, especially “God is Not Dead”. in his books, Dr. Goswami explains that consciousness creates matter, not the other way around, even though that “other way” is still being taught in our “higher education” schools.
An excellent newer book on the subject is by Larry Dossey, M.D. and is called “ONE MIND”.
I suggest everyone read all the above books if they want a clearer understanding of the subject.
My thoughts on the subject are similar to Mr. Hovland, and my motto is:
Ignorance is it’s own punishment;
Wisdom is it’s own reward.
I should add that meditation is the key to wisdom.