Category: SCIENCE

NEUROSCIENCE READIES FOR A SHOWDOWN OVER CONSCIOUSNESS IDEAS | Quanta Magazine

by Philip Ball for Quanta Magazine

Some problems in science are so hard, we don’t really know what meaningful questions to ask about them — or whether they are even truly solvable by science. Consciousness is one of those: Some researchers think it is an illusion; others say it pervades everything. Some hope to see it reduced to the underlying biology of neurons firing; others say that it is an irreducibly holistic phenomenon.

The question of what kinds of physical systems are conscious “is one of the deepest, most fascinating problems in all of science,” wrote the computer scientist Scott Aaronson of the University of Texas at Austin. “I don’t know of any philosophical reason why [it] should be inherently unsolvable” — but “humans seem nowhere close to solving it.”

Now a new project currently under review hopes to close in on some answers.

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Source: Quanta Magazine

 

 

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THE UNIVERSE DOESN’T CARE

“The Universe doesn’t care …”

– Dr. Shawn Carroll

Dr. Carroll is a cosmologist and physics professor specializing in dark energy and general relativity. He is a research professor in the Department of Physics at the California Institute of Technology. (Wikipedia)

THE TREND FROM RELIGIONS TO ‘INDIVIDUAL SPIRITUALITY’*

Is this seemingly spontaneous trend leaping out of the religious frying pan into the ‘human-spirit’ fire …?

Is it missing the phenomena of the mystic experience of Reality (MER) that drives human evolution?

Perhaps mysticism being hidden behind the secret password of ‘direct experience’ makes such oversight inevitable …

So perhaps the only solace in this current trend is its emphasis on the individual. Perhaps it’s the inevitable human flight from failed collectivism which is the antithesis of ultimately real human evolution.

Aren’t Ananias and Sapphira of the bible and today’s massively failed national attempts at collectivism a warning wreckage?

Individualism is the essence of my mystical experiences of Ultimate Reality.

So perhaps the current trend away from religions to individuality is significant enough, for now – a step along the way.

*See ‘Spiritual but not religious’ on Wikipedia for a comprehensive study of the trend.

Mysticexperiences.net

SCIENCE ON THE WAY OUT?

The thought occurred to me that science will eventually devolve into mere technology, possibly with fringe philosophical affiliations.

It will feel at home there where only matter can be experimented with, not spirit.

Spirit is exclusively represented by the mystical experience of Reality, MER, which is probably not even exclusive to humans, and anyway only accessible by experience not experiment.

Probably this is not a new revelation, though it’s not yet as mainstream as it will become.

Mysticalexperiences.net

THE REAL HARD QUESTION – for scientists and mystics?

 

From a mystic’s point of view the dung beetle, for instance, and human science are in the category of the micro phenomena of existence – whereas the mystical experience of Reality (MER), is the only phenomena in current human experience that is the macro category it occupies.

So the real hard question of science and mysticism is, how macro is Reality?

Does mysticism already know?  If not, which one will know first, science or mysticism?

(Answer: Mystics! – Reality has been giving mystics the answer to this one for thousands of years).

Mysticexperiences.net

A HUMBLE HEADS-UP FOR SEEKERS (In My Experience)

 

If you are involved as a spiritual Seeker in a religion, in science or other human inconsequentia, you are not a mystic, not yet.

If you are still in the morass of politics or other demanding human mythomanias you haven’t even got far with real evolvement, not even to Seeker stage.

But, if some Sufi tradition is right, then evolution will ensure you will move away from human distractions and such self identifications.

There is not much you can do about it when Reality calls to complete you. There are no failures in Ultimate Reality, however long it takes.

You probably think you are seeking Reality but you will come to realise that Reality is reaching out for its own, for you.

(Sufis ‘discovered’ this evolutionary process before Darwin. They recognised it went further than the physical limitations of his time).

Ironically, by the time you get to being a mystic it wont matter anyway – there are no names in Reality …

So, there are two things you can do to assuage your hunger and thirst for the truth of your being:

Let go. Be still. Keep letting go. Listen. You are being helped. Keep listening. Remain still.

Lust, anger, greed, your myriad human attachments, even your ego, will be lifted like invisible veils, almost without you noticing because you will be experiencing revelation

Or you can wait for religions, science, human stuff, to eventually release you as they wither away anyway. This could take time!

All Is Well.

Mysticexperiences.net

REALITY, CONSCIOUSNESS, NOT PHYSICAL OR MATERIAL !?

 

“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” — Nikola Tesla

 

“I incline to the idealistic theory that consciousness is fundamental, and that the material universe is derivative from consciousness, not consciousness from the material universe… In general the universe seems to me to be nearer to a great thought than to a great machine. It may well be, it seems to me, that each individual consciousness ought to be compared to a brain-cell in a universal mind.” — Sir James Jeans

Mysticexperiences.net

CONSCIOUSNESS WILL REMAIN A MYSTERY?

“I think consciousness will remain a mystery. I tend to think that the workings of the conscious brain will be elucidated to a large extent.

“Biologists and perhaps physicists will understand much better how the brain works. But why something that we call consciousness goes with those workings, I think that will remain mysterious.”

— Edward Witten

Edward Witten is an American theoretical physicist and professor of mathematical physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. (Source: Wikipedia)

THE QUESTION OF SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY

By Acharya Prashant

Acharya Prashant is a sannyasi, an ascetic Hindu monk. He has a vision to bring the wisdom of ancient scriptures, words of saints and the rigour of modern science to the help of mankind. Email: requests@prashantadvait.com

Question: Acharya Ji, how is the knowledge of the scriptures different from the knowledge of science?

Acharya Prashant: No scripture ever offers you knowledge. There is a great difference between knowing Science, and Spirituality. Science is knowledge. Science is incremental. A certain fellow does something, and the next fellow takes it forward from there. It’s like a relay race.

Spirituality – everyone has to start afresh. It doesn’t matter, how much your father, your ancestors, your predecessors knew. You will still have to start from where you are. Einstein didn’t have to start from zero. Newton said, “He could see so far, because he was standing on the shoulders of giants.” In Spirituality, you cannot stand on somebody else’s shoulders. You have to stand on your own. So, knowledge cannot help.

In Science, the more knowledge, the better.

In Spirituality, the more your freedom from knowledge, the better.

It has become a trend over the last few decades, to conflate these two – science and spirituality. In fact, certain authors think that it is a mark of their scholarship, if they use scientific terms in the spiritual domain. They would try to bring in quantum physics in Spirituality. There can be nothing more foolish than this. It only shows that you know no Spirituality and you are also revealing that you know no Science. If you know Science, then you would not conflate it with Spirituality. And had you been spiritual, why would you bring in Science?

Science is such a small petty subset of Spirituality. Science is about trying to look at objects, objectively. That’s what Science is – Look at the objects, without prejudice, objectively. That is Science.

Spirituality is about looking at the subject and object together. And hence, a third kicks in, that which you know by the name of witness. When the subject and the object are together, then that togetherness, is a very special thing. Science would never look at these two together. You may have fever, you are still observing a physical phenomenon. You might be in love, you are still observing a physical phenomenon. Your observation, will remain the same. If you are in a laboratory, the reading will not change, if you have fallen in love, or would it?

You are observing a physical phenomenon outside of you. You might be the greediest man ever born. Still, your readings would be the same. In spirituality, that does not happen. In Spirituality, everything depends on “Who you are?”

Science is oblivious to who you are. Science cares only about wening outside of you, in the physical objective world. You might be about to commit suicide, you might be totally depressed, yet the time period of that pendulum won’t change for you. The efficiency of the engine does not depend on your mental refinement, or does it? You may keep blood in your refrigerator, or you may keep liquor, or you may keep some water or some juice. The machine operates the same way.

In life it is not so.

Spirituality looks at the totality of life, which includes that (Object), this (Subject), the observation, and the witness.

Mysticexperiences.net

THE SPIRITUAL NATURE?

“By the formal, rational, rules of science, which have worked so well in understanding the physical world, human beings occasionally have experienced and show certain behaviours that cannot be reduced to materialistic explanations and that look like fundamental aspects of a spiritual nature.”

Dr. Charles T. Tart, The End of Materialism

mysticexperiences.net

 

profile_charles_tartDr. Charles T. Tart is internationally known for his more than 50 years of research on the nature of consciousness, altered states of consciousness (ASCs) and parapsychology, and is one of the founders of the field of Transpersonal (spiritual) Psychology. His and other scientists’ work convinced him that there is a real and vitally important sense in which we are spiritual beings, but the too dominant, scientistic, materialist philosophy of our times, “masquerading as genuine science, dogmatically denies any possible reality to the spiritual.” He says this hurts people, it pressures them to reject vital aspects of their being.

THE END OF MATERIALISM?

Are we at the beginning of the next stage of human evolution? materialismDr. Charles T. Tart explains why he wrote his seminal book: The End Of Materialism – How Evidence Of The Paranormal Is Bringing Science And Spirit Together, published by New Harbinger, USA (2009).

EXCERPT

“The main thrust of The End of Materialism is to give readers the kind of data that allowed me to reach a personal resolution where I can be both devoted to science and trying to develop and practice my spiritual side. If two living people, for example, can occasionally demonstrate telepathic communication under tightly controlled laboratory conditions, something we have considerable evidence for, is the idea of prayer, an inherently telepathic kind of communication with someone/something beyond us inherently nonsensical? I don’t think so!”

Tart says The End Of Materialism is perhaps his most important work. One of many testimonials for Tart’s book reads as follows:

“Prescient! This book represents the next step in the geotransformational processes that are altering modern concepts of borders, social structures, wealth and governance.”  – John B. Alexander, Ph.D., Society for Scientific Exploration

profile_charles_tartDr. Charles T. Tart is internationally known for his more than 50 years of research on the nature of consciousness, altered states of consciousness (ASCs) and parapsychology, and is one of the founders of the field of Transpersonal (spiritual) Psychology. His and other scientists’ work convinced him that there is a real and vitally important sense in which we are spiritual beings, but the too dominant, scientistic, materialist philosophy of our times, “masquerading as genuine science, dogmatically denies any possible reality to the spiritual.” He says this hurts people, it pressures them to reject vital aspects of their being.

 

MYSTICISM VERSUS RELIGION AND SCIENCE?

I read Thomas Merton* many years ago and came to the conclusion he had not had the Mystical Experience of Reality (MER). He was not a mystic.

If he had the MER he would have avoided use of the word “God”. The name is so adulterated with cultural layers of linguistics, logic, reason, mythomania, politics, faith, hope and belief that the word “God” now confuses all credulity, sense and understanding.

Also, based on his mystic experience he would not have expressed himself in the religious terms of his or any other “church”. I had the feeling he was in the church because there was no better life on offer in those days for a Seeker, a human who is called. But religious terms, even human terms, are not the terms of the Reality experienced first hand by the mystics.

Non religious scientists avoid this confusion by using the mind and experiment to get closer to truth. They are fundamentalists. They prefer to use the word “reality”, with a lower case “r”, avoiding religious/cultural accretions.

Mystics on the other hand use the word Reality, with a capital “R”, the meaning of which is only penetrated by experiencing Reality at first hand.

All these approaches are historically well documented. Current state of play is that religions are dead or dying; science, say some scientists, is at a dead end; only mysticism might have the answers say other scientists.

mysticexperiences.net

merton_thomas* Thomas Merton, O.C.S.O. was an American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion.  — Wikipedia.