REVIEW: Science Set Free
Ryan Matters
In Science Set Free, Rupert Sheldrake sets out to probe the shaky foundations of materialist science and question long-held beliefs that have, over time, hardened into dogmas.
Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of numerous technical papers. He was a fellow of Clare College, Cambridge University, where he was director of studies in cell biology, and was also a research fellow of the Royal Society.
In Science Set Free, Sheldrake unpacks the enormity of our conditioning and the flawed assumptions upon which most of modern science rests.
Through an exciting exploration of modern research, Sheldrake points out the holes in the materialist belief system, and reveals how science has been guided by dangerous dogmas that have grave consequences for the future of humanity.
Such dogmas include the notion that free will is an illusion, consciousness is merely a by-product of chemical reactions in the brain, and nature is purposeless. Sheldrake turns each of these “pillars” of materialism into questions and shows how all of them lead to incredible revelations about the nature of our reality.
Here are the ten questions (which are also the titles of ten of the book’s chapters) that Sheldrake explores in the book:
- Is nature mechanical?
- Is the total amount of matter and energy always the same?
- Are the laws of nature fixed?
- Is matter unconscious?
- Is nature purposeless?
- Is all biological inheritance material?
- Are memories stored as material traces?
- Are minds confined to brains?
- Are psychic phenomena illusory?
- Is mechanistic medicine the only kind that really works?
Sheldrake’s method of careful and deep inquiry into each question must be commended for it makes for a fascinating and educational read. At the end of each chapter, the reader is left to make up their own mind as to whether the materialist standpoint remains valid.
Each chapter stands alone, giving the reader the freedom to jump around and read each chapter in the order that they feel inclined to do so.
My personal favourite was chapter 9, “Are psychic phenomena illusory?”, for, here Sheldrake details some of his own original research in this area. He also recounts some of his amusing engagements and debates with well-known materialists regarding the plausibility of supernatural occurrences.
Personally, I found chapter 10 to be somewhat of a let down. The title, “Is mechanistic medicine the only kind that really works?” could easily be a book in itself (and indeed, many books have been written on this topic). While Sheldrake acknowledges the efficacy of natural cures, he also endorses the fairy tale of Jenner, the dairy maid and the eradication of smallpox due to vaccination.
In the final two chapters (11 and 12), Sheldrake explores the scientific discipline from a philosophical point of view, outlining the inherent flaws in the scientific method and exposing the lack of “blinding” that occurs in scientific research.
Sheldrake makes the case that an experimenter’s beliefs and expectations can directly affect the results of their experiments and explains how all scientific findings are driven to conform to the “accepted” truths of the time.
All in all, Science Set Free is a scathing indictment of materialism, the dominant scientific philosophy of the 21st century. In Science Set Free, Sheldrake takes the reader by the hand as he explores the 10 pillars upon which modern scientific thought rests.
Probing each, Sheldrake urges the reader to look more deeply and open their mind to the possibility of a very different reality than the one they have been conditioned to believe in.
Science Set Free by Rupert Sheldrake was published in 2012 by Deepak Chopra Press and is available through Amazon and other major booksellers
Ryan Matters is a writer and free thinker from South Africa. After a life-changing period of illness, he began to question mainstream medicine, science and the true meaning of what it is to be alive. Ryan is also the founder of NewBraveWorld.org where he posts a selection of his essays related to topics such as science, philosophy, medicine, spirituality and current events. You can also follow him on Twitter.
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Someone who takes much harder, more critical view of science is Bruce G. Charlton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Charlton
He spent years as editor of an unconventional scientific journal, “Medical Hypothesis” that had no peer review. He’s completely against peer review, says it has been used to corrupt and destroy real science. He published a piece by Peter Duisberg about HIV/AIDS and the Fauci minions launched a campaign against him and got him fired from the journal. Then the publisher, Elsevier, made it into a more convention (corrupt) journal with peer review.
Charlton wrote a fantastic book in 2013 called “Not Even Trying: The Corruption of Real Science” in which he says (among many other things):
https://corruption-of-science.blogspot.com/
Modern science proves that:
“The world is not only weirder than Classical science imagined; it is weirder than we humans can possibly imagine”. — with apologies to JBS Haldane.
“The Uncertainty Principle makes it difficult for us to predict the past, and especially difficult to predict the future.” — with apologies to Niels Bohr.
“Uncertainty rules. OK?” — Werner Heisenberg.
“Some call it Evolution, and others call it God” — Anon?
“Pick a flower on earth and you move the furthest star” — Paul Dirac
Humanity needs to realise we are more than these psychopaths try and I mean try to make us out to be?!?!! Just watch the shows and films?!?All the peoples idols are puppets for the elites.My idols are my family past and present my idols are all the fantastic people I have met in my life 👍👌
My idol is God pure energy 👍❤️
It is too bad that this visionary of the human spirit(?), Rupert Sheldrake takes a conventional view on Covid (which taken as a whole project can be seen at the greatest attack on the human spirit in world history).
See about minute 4:55 of Freddy Sayers interview with him:
Not radical enough for me. Flicking through the book:
–No questioning of evolutionary theory
– No questioning of Big Bang
ie sufficient to keep the social label of ‘scientist’ without ruffling too many feathers. Firmly in the ‘theistic evolutionist’ category.
Making a show of opposing materialism/atheism whilst reiterating the dogma of 2 of most atheistic/materialistic dogmas ever devised:
– That some random explosion caused all the order that we perceive in the universe
– That blind random chance over billions of years can explain away irreducible complexity
So a second tier read. May help to go halfway up the road, but not to the end.
I have proof that “some random explosion caused all the order that we perceive in the universe.” And that proof is simply that it all exists. How it all got here doesn’t change the fact of its existence.
Had it all not worked out okay, we wouldn’t be here discussing it.
BTW: who ever said chance was random? Chance is an exquisite ordering of existing elements, forces or anything else to yield something new and strange and different. Chance cannot create something from nothing.
#4. “Is matter unconscious?” Probably not. But does matter speak English? ?? ???
God is an Englishman, you know. So of course matter speaks English.
Science is based on truth. Truth is the only method in science. Truth is the ultimate goal in science.
This is the scientific method. It’s very simple. Science is seeking truth using methods that can and reveal truth. Truth is not an opinion. Truth cannot be voted. Truth cannot be based on ignorance, guessing, believing, hoping or whatever. Truth is only what truth is. It is what it is.
Science that seeks truth can only find it if it stays with truth. First it must be based on something that is true, then it must stay in truth while it seeks the ultimate truth.
Knowledge is the only reason for science.
Who knows what? How? Can it be proven by logic? Is the knowledge useful?
When ethics in science is corrupted, there can be no science. Philosophy is the basis of all sciences. This love of wisdom means that both goodness and truth be valued.
There’s been a gradual evolution away from pure science.
Now it’s incorporate your business, apply for patents, offer licenses, & other murky areas.
Designed by the elites, for the continuing control of the elites & their corporations.
Science to consolidate agendas.
“Such dogmas include the notion that free will is an illusion”
After decades thinking about this, I’m still hard pressed to understand how we, or any conscious entity, can even possibly be the authors, never mind the sole authors, of their minds. Accordingly, it’s outside our control. Accordingly, it’s not free will. So, it seems to me that if truly understanding “free will” requires some philosophical leap outside an Enlightenment-oriented framework, it’s probably beyond the ability of a healthy majority, including of course me. And/or, if there is superior wisdom about this, it looks as if it simply cannot be communicated. “God” knows I’ve tried!
“[the dogma that] nature is purposeless” … Oh dear, please don’t tell me you’re godmonger …
I remember finally starting to read, after others’ encouragement, C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity” a while back, and being infuriated by a number of unexplained (and apparently idiotic) leaps of faith he allowed in just a few intro pages that I felt I had little point but to drop the project as unworkable — including the fact that, if he was so brilliant, he nevertheless took no pains to head off the misunderstandings of mere mortals like me. It became very clear very fast that one had to be in on some elusive “secret”. The ability to unwittingly hallucinate? I dunno…
As far as I can tell, god-belief is a characteristic developed from evolution. As it clearly varies from person to person, rare is the person who truly goes either godly->godless or godless->godly. And if there are godless people who won’t be let in on “the secret”, how cruel is that?
Sorry, I did not actually explain this sentence: “I’m still hard pressed to understand how we, or any conscious entity, can even possibly be the authors, never mind the sole authors, of their minds.”
My point is that free will seems absurd: Free will requires that you are conscious (completely) outside and beyond your mind, so as to understand its full context and source, while at the same time be conscious (completely) within it as well, that is, that you “know” your mind. How one assumes godlike powers like that is, frankly, beyond me.
But sure, it does seem to me quite easy to unwittingly ignore a lot, and thus think you are godlike. I dunno. Please, help me get past my blockheadedness!
I tend not to listen to writers because it is second hand it’s their views. Every individual has their own unique experiences in life,99% of what you read is other peoples experiences.
And the other 1% is your own 😬👍
I think semantics always gets in the way. Free Will is a contradiction in terms. “Will” implies control; “Free” implies the lack of control. So how can there ever be such a thing as “Free Will?”
“… requires that you are conscious (completely) outside and beyond your mind, so as to understand its full context and source, while at the same time be conscious (completely) within it as well, that is, that you “know” your mind. How one assumes godlike powers like that is, frankly, beyond me.”
Have you read “Mind and Matter” by Schroedinger? Because the point which you have made about Free Will is the most striking point that S made about Consciousness in his little book. Like you, he also says that Consciousness must have Godlike powers beyond comprehension.
A word of caution before we start to ridicule this notion: Schroedinger was not an airy fairy theorist. The moment Hitler came to power, S picked up his knapsack, left his prestigious job in Germany, hiked over the Alps and eventually found a job in Ireland. His other little book “What is Life” accurately predicted that, as far as Scientific method can penetrate, the essential characteristic of Life seems to be Information stored in a tiny Non-repetitive Linear Crystal inside biological cell. DNA was discovered and interpreted partly on the basis of Schroedinger’s little book.
Apart from DNA or cellular nucleus, the cellular wall supports a network of nanotubes. There has only been speculation that this may have some link to quantum communication. The subject came up at least 2 decades ago.
As for “pure science” or “The Science”, Yuval Noah Harari is an interesting case. He certainly looks the part – like an even more cerebral Sheldon Cooper. And yet when I had a go at his “best selling” Sapiens I was quite taken aback at the chummy pulpy tabloid style (“A jumbo brian is a jumbo drain” etc.) and I felt he was either not the cool icy character he appears to be or his books are ghost written.
Incidentally Moneycircus has an interesting take on Harari’s name:
He’s a perfect poster boy for the Schwab school.
More here:
https://moneycircus.substack.com/p/the-arc-of-yuval-noah-harari?s=r
Sad. You lost me with his Smallpox take. If he can be so wrong on that, I can’t trust anything he says.
Oh dear! Rupert got one thing wrong – as you do – so everything he says is wrong, and not worth the time. Brilliant logic, Greg! Truly brilliant!
Think again. Go carefully through all Rupert’s work, and you’ll catch a glimpse of what’s possible when an enquiring mind is set free.
Rupert Sheldrake is one of the major detonators of the paradigm-shift that science is going through at this time; off the hyper-materialism where it’s been grounded – to its considerable detriment – for several centuries, back to the more realistic world of philosophical idealism: the latest in a long, historic series of pendulum-swings in the course of the argument between materialism and idealism.
Ignore Rupert to your own large detriment. He’s one of our way-finders to the future. Climb out of your no-such-thing-as-viruses silo, Greg. That argument is ongoing, and still unresolved, for the intellectually meticulous. It may be so, but it’s still in contention. Nonetheless, writing off Rupert is a mug’s move; a prize mug.
High standards then. LOL
See my post to Rhisiart Gwilym, above…
You’re absolutely right. Sheldrake is OH so wrongly ridiculed (by the ignorant/uninformed…), when he should be heeded. He’s one of the (relatively) few NON-materialistic scientists on the planet. And hence what he states is the truth.
I own (and read, quite some years ago, now) his ‘The Science Delusion’ (the title given to this book, here in the UK).
(However, if Sheldrake promotes ‘vaccination’, then he’s completely and utterly wrong. ‘Vaccines’ are a medical scam. I can’t recall all of the contents of that book of his, it being some years since I read it)
😬
You’re on the right track; but the wrong train. Everyone’s working premise should be not to trust anything anyone says.
However, it should be simply a matter of taking everything with a grain of salt – not dismissing everything out of hand simply because one thing is contentious.
I feel like i’ve stumbled in on a religious discussion.
Philosophical materialism versus philosophical idealism is exactly that, Jubal.
Olivier Clerc has drawn up some comparisons between orthodox medicine and religion:
People are still being manipulated by their fears and childish hopes. They are still told that the source of their problems is outside them, and that the solution can only come from the outside. They are not allowed to do anything by themselves and they must have the mediation of priest-physicians, the administration of drug-hosts, and the protection of vaccine-absolutions.
Sources: Green Med Info Blog or sott.net
God is not religion 😬👍
Look to the fringes & the ignored or maligned. Anyone receiving major promotion from the mainstream is likely saying some truths but also misdirecting to some degree.
For science, search out the raw unedited interviews for “On The Back Of A Tiger” series. Available on archive.org. Hillman, Ling, Pollack, Wan Ho & other relatively modern scientists interviewed at length.
Miles Mathis has also written about Pollack & his 4th Phase of Water ideas – indeed Mathis has improved on them & shown the way. I do wish there could be a dialogue between the two of them as I feel it would serve humanity greatly.
And this doesn’t even touch on all the greats who came before, & were shunned.
Physics and chemistry tend to be absolute — there are mathematical models of how we think the universe works and our observations are used to validate, refute or refine our opinions. Away from the edge it works pretty well because our models support practical applications — i.e. engineering — which we use to build our world. No scientist would claim any truth to be absolute, though. They might talk that way as a shorthand because its tedious and excessively pedantic to talk about probabilities all the time. (People on the whole aren’t that good at visualizing numeric scale, especially if its logarithmic.)
Biology is a branch of science that used to be exclusively descriptive (which according to a famous quote by Ernest Rutherford isn’t really science — “All science is physics or stamp collecting”)(its a way of saying if you can’t quantify it then its not science). Its been moving away from that state, especially in recent years, as we get to understand the complex chemistry (and so the physics) of life itself.
There’s a mention in the text of Jenner and smallpox and the origin of vaccination from a European perspective. What was observed with cowpox was well known in other parts of the world, especially the Middle East, and is really a product of a Eurocentric view of history. The observation was still valid — an infection with cowpox conferred immunity, more or less, to smallpox. The difference between ‘then’ and ‘now’ is that we don’t just have the observation to go on, we actually know why such and such a virus causes a disease, how it infects and how to undermine it either by attacking it or provoking personal immunity. Its still a moving target, though — our knowledge is not absolute, we’re still learning and refining what we know, and viruses and other fast evolving life forms are notoriously difficult to pin down. We’re a whole lot better off than we were a century or so ago, though.
Finally, please stop referring to scientists or anyone else with knowledge as ‘elites’, a caste apart. We — and I include myself in this group — are your neighbors, our kids go to the same schools and so on. The only thing that might set us apart is that we know the value of what’s now fashionably called a ‘STEM’ education (and we’re able to make up the shortfall in science and math education that most students will suffer) so our children will have a bit of a head start. Understanding phenomena helps us keep an even keel as well — if you read a lot of literature from 100 or so years ago, just after things like wireless and x-rays became everyday knowledge — you’ll see how many people assumed that ‘rays’ could do all sorts of other things like communicate with the dead, influence people, destroy thing and what-have-you. This persisted up till at least WW2 and may even be with us today — remember “All sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” (Arthur C. Clarke).
Which makes it ripe for abuse, I would just add. Especially when science and big business are so inextricably in each other’s pockets as to be virtually indistinguishable.
I believe we have recently witnessed this. A2
I don’t believe we have. Science has not been inextricably linked to business, science companies have. And they have confused the simple minded with blatant lies, not with technology.
In 1885 William White wrote a book called The Story of a Great Delusion in which he deals with smallpox vaccination. He debunks the idea that cowpox vaccination gives any protection against smallpox. He explains how “horsepox” was then tried – using a secretion from horses with a disease called greasy hoof (and other names), which caused pustules. This also proved ineffective, though some people got vaccinated with both “horse” and “cow”. This also proved ineffective, so boosters were introduced (sound familiar?). White is firmly of the view that smallpox was due to diet and living conditions – when these improved in the general population smallpox disappeared. Vaccination had absolutely nothing to do with it and was “A Great Delusion”. Jenner was a charlatan too, in his view.
Indeed. See the book Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines and the Forgotten History.
As has been discussed here and other alt media sites every soul needs to understand these elites parasites whatever you want to call them think they have the upper hand on you they think they are smarter they think they can suck money from you,And any opportunity they will they have no scruples they don’t care as long as they stay accustomed to their lifestyles and always have money in the bank why in hell would they care if you don’t have gas electric food?This is why it has gone so wrong because the governments are making you think they give a sh*t about you? They don’t not at all you pay their wages you pay taxes and all they want is your wages and your servitude. It does not mean people are stupid they have just gotten used to being slaves.
No human in this lifetime that has said or done good has survived execution?!? All you see on Tv are chosen ones that fits the rich narrative.While they spew out murderers and police shows and tell you black peoples are bad and tax evaders get caught and on and on yet silence from the rich?? It’s just ridiculous how they are able or we let them turn us against each other and not them? The police are there to serve the rich get the dissidents off the streets, Nhs as we’ve seen in past 2 years work for the government all the state owned organisations work for the elites.When people start realising they are at war with us with the army too because there will come a time the army will be at war with its own people just like the police are dressed up with more combat than the army against us?People need to open there eyes it’s happening all around us every day and it’s getting worse it needs to stop now before it’s too late ⏰.
Wittgenstein said ‘What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence’. But not speaking about things that are most important in life (yet one cannot speak of) becomes tedious. And even Wittgenstein did not remain silent about the things he could say nothing about (although he was silent for several years after writing the Tractaus).
I also agree with this from Wittgenstein: ‘We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course there are then no questions left, and this itself is the answer.’
However my agreement might have to do with the fact that the science I learned (like quantum mechanics and math to some level) at high school is probably bollocks or just puzzle solving (without any material use) and medicine (in which I am trained) is a fraud (anatomy and some sorts of surgery excluded). That type of science has left me completely untouched.
The scientific method itself, however, I find interesting and also useful. But it’s not a crystal ball. The scientific method learns you how you can ‘organize’ the world around you as in seeing through the chaos. That is useful, but must say only to some level. Walking with crutches (by using the scientific method) is better than crawling. But it is not the same as flying.
Sheldrake’s view is but one of many facets of reality perceived. My own path down a parallel facet was via UC physicist Fritjof Capra’s book “Turning Point”. Based upon the findings that particles can and do appear as either mass or energy depending upon the design of the observer’s experiment. So his observation is that Universe is plastic and non-mechanical and that contemporary society, to humanity’s detriment, has followed the linear, mechanistic paradigms of Descartes and Newton and we now suffer the consequences. This is Western mechanism vs Eastern metaphysics revealed by the new physics. The book goes chapter by chapter documenting the ways in which modern science, technology and economic’s linear problem solving methods have been disastrous while pointing out how non-linear problem solving would approach solutions. I personally took the implications he was pointing out and saw the method to effective problem solving to be model how ecosystems work to solve problems. This is holistic problem solving. Highly complex for humans to model, but just is how Universe and Earth’s proprietary SYSTEMS work to solve problems. It would be like a comparison of a “brain” and a “mind”. The brain can be seen as a computer, a binary reductive processing commands, while a mind takes all information in as a whole and sees the bigger picture of systemic solution. The mind is patient, contemplative and observational while the brain just crunches numbers based upon preconceived systems of analysis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turning_Point_(book)
I can’t recommend his books highly enough. The command and control, linear mechanistic paradigm that rules humanity through the mechanistic religion of unregulated capitalism, and is currently driving us to ecocide, can be terminated and replaced by ecosystem, non-linear methods to get humanity back on track for a positive evolutionary future. But, holistically, everyone has to be involved of their own volition and vesting, consciously, a truly grassroots democratic process where all the parts work together. A live, conscious, ecosystem of equal parts working towards a vibrant Public Commons. Without a ruling class and their wars for economic Empire.
It’s an interesting perspective, and in many ways “where we’re at”. To my mind, the “Great Reset” and “Great Narrative” are expressions of that ‘Systems Theory’ outlook.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory
BUT… I believe there’s a danger of elevating such thinking too highly.
It may be true that we, as observers, are unable to precisely determine the exact position and velocity of an electron at a given time and hence have to resort to probabilistic thinking (the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle)…
… BUT that doesn’t mean that an electron doesn’t actually have a precise position and velocity. The religious may argue that God is able to ‘observe’ events without affecting them.
Both mechanistic Cartesian thinking and Systems Theory worldviews are essentially models of reality (not reality itself) and as such have both their usefulness and their flaws.
True, but the ruling paradigm is mechanistic and as such totally inappropriate on an over-occupied, over-resourced and exhausted planet which mechanistic decision making has created. I would hardly call anything the 1% proposes without public consent, basically everything they propose, as holistic solutions to humanity’s problems. A whole systems approach would first off see the usefulness of proposed solutions in terms of how well it “provides for the social needs of humanity” and those needs would include the well being of the entire Earth ecosystems. The ruling class worldwide are mechanistic, short term, solvers of 1%/capitalist profit solutions. Nothing in the Great Reset script has anything to do with making a liberated, vibrant Public Commons of free people within human-facilitated vibrant Earth ecosytems. Only a human population of uncoerced, collective, problem solving consent can do this.
Stakeholder Capitalism (Klaus Schwab and the WEF’s big thing) is an expression of Systems Theory thinking ie the taking of a broader range of interests in other than just that of the shareholders. Social considerations, if you like.
Ok, so the “greed is good” ‘selfish’ shareholder capitalism of the 1980s is/was indisputably morally flawed… BUT, what it did do (to my mind) was provide for the possibility for excellence. We only ever rise to a good level in activities by focus, dedication, obsession…which involves the exclusion of some social considerations. When you have someone on your shoulder morally questioning what you do, that excellence becomes less likely. So one gripe that I have with such thinking is that it’s essentially a recipe for mediocrity.
Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” depicted such a world. Where industry was left to be governed by mediocrity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged
Another example of that would be when we see (arguably) the best sportsmen/women eg Djokovic, Russian players excluded from events for non talent-based reasons
I can certainly see the value of a more social approach to the world’s problems though. Just that it isn’t the be-all-and-end-all.
See Tom Campbell’s take on the uncertainty, V: until some mind observes it, there is NO electron manifested at all; it simply doesn’t exist, until the moment it’s observed; that is, until some mind demands information from the rendering-engine faculty of Big MInd (‘the Larger Conscious System’ in Tom’s vocabulary). When some individual mind does that, the LCS supplies the necessary information for the mind to conclude that it has observed an electron…
Beware the over-simplification of binary thinking. There are always other possibilities than just ‘either/or’.
Tom Campbell, like Rupert Sheldrake, is another way-finder towards science’s new (old) paradigm…
It’s an interesting idea from what I’ve understood of it 🙄
I could see that the rendering of an electron to an observer could be regarded as having no prior existence, though I’d like to think that the electron itself does have some kind of prior existence. Even if it’s just a concept within the ‘Great Mind’ or ‘Great Renderer’.
Also like to think that there’s more to the universe than just mind(s). A physical reality beyond them. That the unobserved falling tree in the forest really does make a sound…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_a_tree_falls_in_a_forest
But who knows? The quantum world is notoriously weird. Our attempts at finding suitable visual metaphors for it tend to break down. As Richard Feynman famously never actually said (but nevertheless it still makes a good quote):
“if you think you understand quantum mechanics, then you don’t“
Tom’s answer to the “If a tree falls in the forest…” question is entirely coherent with his excellent insight into the true nature of quantum mechanics: If there’s no sentient mind around to observe it then… there IS no tree, there IS no forest.
All of these things are only rendered – to the observing mind – when there’s at least one such mind around to demand information by observing. Why would Big Mind waste the computing power of it’s rendering-engine faculty if no-one’s asking for a computed rendering? All of it, according to Tom’s Big TOE, is virtual anyway: tree, forest, physical body of the mind that’s observing: the whole of physical material reality as a startrekkian holodeck. (Pretty thoroughoing idealism, isn’t it? 😆 )
Oh, and btw, Tom asserts that every single conscious mind – every ‘Individuated Unit of Consciousness’ as he labels them; otherwise every immortal soul, in the older lexicon, every non-detached pseudopod of Big Mind – gets its own individually-tailored information stream. Sic! Every human, bear, wolf, bird, and quite probably bumble-bee, etc. too. Quite a lot of work for that rendering faculty, isn’t it; but Big Mind is – well – Big…
And then each IUOC interprets its raw information feed, just as you are interpreting the mass of coloured pixels that your eye actually sees as you observe this, so that your subjective mental experience is of comprehensible written words, on a screen, grey on white…! Something we start learning to do as new-borns, when all we experience at first is the un-interpreted storm of raw information coming in – as we think – to our (virtual) physical sense organs.
Readjusting to this very thoroughgoing version of philosophical idealism takes quite a bit of doing. But, considering the way it clears up a whole raft of intractable logical conundrums currently ball-and-chaining modern hyper-materialist physics at the end of its tether, it’s worth the effort… Feynman was a pessimist. 😀
I’ll be honest. It does sound a little bit like confusing the computing experience with reality.
Confusing the retrieval and rendering of a computer ‘file’ with the rendering and observation of an object in the real world. Confusing a virtual computer world, with its Sim-like characters, with those in the real world.
Nevertheless, computing does offer arguably the best models of reality that we currently have (eg neural networks for the brain in AI).
And it *IS* a thought-provoking challenge to our preconceived notions of our interaction with the physical world.
If a tree falls in the forest, there are plenty of sentient minds there to hear it: the trees themselves.
Who knows? We may yet live to see the day when humans get off their high horse and admit that sentience may not require a brain in a skull.
I’m inclined to agree, H. It gets clearer all the time that trees are part of a very large information system in the forest, particularly in the fungal nets in the forest floor; a sort of vegetable – or more accurately mycelial – equivalent of neural nets. But the communication system also involves pheromones released by the trees into the air of the forest, the woodland equivalent of the endocrine signalling system within animal bodies.
And, no, we really don’t know just where sentience begins. The idea that plants are sentient is entirely credible, and one which I – as an everyday working shaman – take to be pretty certain to be true.
Tom Campbell is even exploring currently the idea that sufficiently complex computers may be able to ‘become conscious’, in the sense of being able to attract an associated Individuated Unit Of Consciousness – a mind/soul of its own – from Big Mind, when its complex capabilities reach a certain threshold.
The whole concept gets even more mind-boggling – for the rabid materialists! 🙂 – when you add in the Campbell notion that all of these things – computers, trees, animal brains – are actually virtual entities, operating according to an evolved rule-set; a rule-set that was very probably devised in its beginning form, before being set running and starting to evolve, by Big Mind, through simple trial and error, before the exact mix of universal physical constants were established, that make this particular virtual reality where we souls come to play stable enough actually to be able to evolve through extended time.
And those who know Tom’s Big TOE will know that one of its just two foundational axioms is: ‘Evolution happens’; the other being ‘Consciousness exists’… The whole TOE is built entirely on those two axioms! And it really is a TOE, and a Big TOE at that, because it embraces everything we experience in one highly satisfying logical system; as Tom says: “The normal and the paranormal, the physical and the metaphysical.” Literally everything!
Started reading ‘The Big TOE’ (first 10 chapters thus far):
Thought it was interesting that Tom Campbell did research with Robert Monroe in the 1970s. On altered states of consciousness and ‘remote viewing’ etc. Reminded me of the Stanford Institute experiments with Uri Geller as well as the book/film “The Men Who Stare at Goats”.
Both of which were inspired by/related to the 3-part Jon Ronson documentary series “Crazy Rulers of the World (2004)” (much better than the film imho) which may be of interest.
Youtube codes for episodes 2 and 3 are (following the ‘v=’ in a youtube link):
Episode 2: QUf8KBjKBpM
Episode 3: EQKTMjApnkI
and the first episode is here (may be some ads in it):
Some claim to have demonstrated sentience in plants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose
That would be bad news for fervent vegetarians and vegans.
Agreed, Vagabard. I think hesitancy is a positive condition leading to careful and open minded thought. Capra, others and Eastern metaphysics have pointed out that rather that Descartes’ certitude of pool ball like cause and effect that reality has better described, only “tendencies to exist”.
+100++
I endorse your enthusiasm for that Capra classic, sandy. Fritjof’s – initially unattributed – mixed, comparative quotes from physicists and mystics is a real smack in the eye! Was for me anyway, years back. It’s quite evident that they’re all describing the same elephant…
Thank you Rhisiart. Read that book back in early 80’s. I had read a newspaper article by the science editor of the LA Times in the late 70’s discussing a physicist who claimed to link the perceived dual energy/mass nature of particle physics to Eastern Metaphysics. I lost the article and later wrote the same editor to ask if he could tell me the name of the physicist. He wrote back and claimed he never heard of what i was talking about. Years later, a friend/co-worker of my wife gave her a copy of the “Turning Point”, saying to her, “your husband will want to read this”. My life has never been the same since.
My, “reading”, started with listening to rebroadcasts of Alan Watts’ lectures on KPFA late at night as a teen. Then Jung, and Watts’ books, Barthes, Joseph Chilton Pearce, Capra, Carlos Casteneda, William Burroughs, Buckminster Fuller, David Deutsch, Krishnamurti, the film “The Matrix”, then the Situationists/Marx, Hakim Bey, Baudrillard, Virilio, Franco Berardi (you would/must really like him), Michael Hudson, and as an artist find Duchamp, Magritte and Gerhard Richter to be the visual bearers of this pursuit towards rational intellectual evolutionary progress. Right now i see Marshall McLuhan’s work, particularly “Gutenberg Galaxy”/”Understanding Media”, to be the most highly evolved, easily understandable and socially responsible view of the human intellectual condition, and informs my work everyday. But it’s all of it, the whole, and more, that is dynamic Universe seeking self consciousness through humanity.
Glad to meet another searching soul as you so much seem! Cheers!
Cheers sandy. Oh, and for all those writers, particularly ‘The Crack In The Cosmic Egg’, Joe CP’s magnum opus, together with all of Castaneda’s strange – what? Fiction? Non-fiction? Teaching parables? – Snap! 😄
The last part of your comment comes to the issue: there can be no concensus when there is a ruling elite.
The evidence of past eons suggests that Earth – its systems or whatever – will resolve the current crisis, assuming it faces one. Whether the resolution will leave any humans alive is another matter.
Agreed. Imho we are at a turning point toward collective decision making that we either engage in successfully or are done for by these 1% rats running the world. Below is my humble effort to get this process started knowing it will take decades or more…
https://sandys.art/peoples_policy+budget_directives_ballot_2018.html
particles can and do appear as either mass or energy
Of course, quantum physics has a few other features that clash with the reality we experience.
Hello Sandy: Excellent comment. Inserted dialog: “This is holistic problem solving.”
There’s an excellent book by Leonard Schlain named “The Alphabet Versus the Goddess” in which the author speculates that conversion of holistic right brain processing (iconic) to linear left brain (arbitrary linear) caused a destructive shift in all primary cultures. Iconic language is artful and holistic. Alphabetized language and communication rely on abstract mental processes, which are arbitrary and conflicted.
I think he has a point… > http://www.alphabetvsgoddess.com/
Yes, there are million facets to accessing reality. Words, left brain dominance has left humanity a victim of the representational, particularly language, that assumes meaning is fixed in words adequately. It is not and the plasticity of them is being manipulated by the ruling class to control us. I believe very much in sign/signfication conundrum. but if you haven’t read Marshall McLuhan’s “Gutenberg Galaxy” & “Understanding Media”, i can’t recommend it enough. He traces the evolution of language and technology into what we now are being victimized by, a blind narcissism of technological empowerment for it’s own sake. Highly empowering knowledge on approaching all problem solving’s purpose: to provide for the social needs of humanity, including Earth and everything on it.
Don’t get me wrong I see God as a feeling. Everybody feels love everyone feels hate,jealousy,empathy,hunger,thirst,pain,sadness every emotion but you can’t prove it you can say it but like science where’s the proof?like the wind you can feel it but you can’t prove it’s real that you can see it doesn’t mean it doe’s not exist. And that’s where science has come into the equation 98% of scientific studies they can’t really prove it’s usually called a theory or we know it’s this and that but we don’t know why? And that’s how I can know there is a creator just because I can’t see it I can certainly feel it.👍
Sheldrake is chastised for endorsing the ‘fairy tale of Jenner, the dairy maid and the eradication of smallpox due to vaccination.’ Sorry, this dogmatic rejection of alternative expert opinion without reason and evidence is highly unscientific. It’s precisely the kind of arrogant scientism (treating scientific knowledge as infallible) which Sheldrake questions.
Christine Massey is the real Rupert Sheldrake.
My “open exchange” with Michael Yeadon, May 28, 2022
https://www.fluoridefreepeel.ca/my-open-exchange-with-michael-yeadon-may-8-2022/
So telling that Yeadon keeps trying to make her argument be “no virus,” vs “no proof that a virus exists,” so that he can refute it.
If I come home sick, and the rest of my family ends up getting sick, something most of us have experienced…virus theory explains that. The no virus theory does not do so, in any adequate way.
After two years, it’s almost impossible to convince anyone that the dirty, useless masks don’t work. If you can’t do that, you certainly aren’t going to convince them that “viruses” don’t exist.
Maybe they don’t, I don’t know, and I at least am open to the possibility. I believe COVID is utter BS, but it’s falsity doesn’t preclude the existence of viruses. Again, I don’t know, but to try to convince the mass of people at this point in time that ” viruses” don’t exist is a non-starter. Maybe it’s true that viruses don’t exist, but you’re going to have to come up with much more persuasive arguments than have currently been offered.
There is ample evidence that Covid is bullshit that that doesn’t require Virus theory to be false.
Although I watch and read the “no-virus” Doctors(Kaufman, Stefan Lanka etc) the last two months and find their arguments logical ,I have a lot of questions myself for this “no-virus”theory.
Because after all it is just another theory like the” virus existence “theory.
And I believe that even if the established medicine had adopted this point of view(e.g. the terrain theory) still the authorities will be able find a lot of things to impose to the people. From mandatory diet to dressing and exercise .
Isolation
The “isolation” of viruses has been shown to be pseudo science. Convid is a hoax as was HIV (AIDS was caused by poppers). There are numerous dubious “viral” diseases like ebola. Viral diseases cannot be treated except for mitigation of the symptoms. However there are well known diseases with well defined symptoms and obvious infectiousness. Chicken Pox, Mumps, and Measles for example. These are obviously caused by some organism or toxin that is transmissible but which has not been identified. We should be aware of the limitations of medical science but we should not make generalisations that are too broad.
To me the biggest stumbling block to the “no-virus” theory is dogs. How to account for the disorders plaguing dogs – like Kennel Cough, Rabies, etc – without reference to germs in general and viruses in particular is the 64-dollar question.
It’s quite true that dogs are subject to the same toxins as people; true also that over-vaccination may itself cause certain disorders. But it’s well known that things like Kennel Cough are fabulously contagious.
And, of course, contagion is the biggest stumbling block to the “no-virus” theory – as you suggest. If it’s a toxin causing a disorder then it would not be limited to, say, a single family or a single block within a community.
The “no-virus” proponents MUST adequately explain what appears to be contagion – or else their theory will never get off the ground.
As Kaufman and Cowan point out: when a ship load of Eighteenth Century mariners fell ill one by one, of scurvy, that was assumed to be an infectious agent too. Sure looked like it. Later, it was realised to be a terrain problem: insufficient vitamin C in the mariners’ diet; no contagion operating, even though it looked convincingly like one.
The terrain-versus-micro-organism debate is ongoing, and still seriously unsettled. And then there’s this whole upcoming idea of benign exosomes fulfilling vital roles in ecological/evolutionary balance by acting as – actually-useful, beneficial – messengers between individual creatures… Not to be suppressed, if we know what’s good for us. I got my message-in-the-air-plankton about covid – whatever it really is – in the Spring of 2020; got over it easily (courtesy of mega-doses of vitamin C, even though I was 79 at the time); and now, thanks to whoever sent out that message, I’m blessed by the natural immunity that exosomes have been developed by evolution to facilitate. (No teleology assumed here about evolution; that too is a matter in debate! 😉 )
Meantime, lots of conventionally-educated scientists – in perfect good faith – use the ‘infectious micro-organism’ metaphor as short-hand. Like scurvy, even if it isn’t contagious infection, it sure looks like a persuasive fascsimile. And convention – for the moment – insists; so they go along with the convention, whether they have private doubts or not. Just makes for a more streamlined discussion.
Despite his lifetime of doing well by conforming to convention, Mike Yeadon is both courageous enough and intellectually-honest enough to make the transition from viruses to terrain, if he ever sees the persuasive evidence in enough detail – though in strict reality the evidence at the moment says: ‘wait and see!’ Despite what our wanky self-indulgence wants to say, the answer isn’t yet really certain.
Agreed, Pilgrim. Family or workplace illness waves need to be explainable. I can throw out one idea. Andrew Kaufman talks about virus bacteriophage being confused with exosomes which the body produces to dump toxins. Could possibly these exosomes be transmitted to a weakened (stressed, tired, environmentally toxified) family, friend or co-worker and “infect” them to also ‘take-a-break’ and detoxify? Are viral illnesses like the cold & flu actual detoxification/rest-breaks for over stressed bodies? K0v1d has meade me recapitulate personal flu illness history. I found myself overwhelmingly becoming ill when i had too little sleep and too much work/stress, semi all-nighters and such. Also caused by long plane flight prep rituals leaving me exhausted. An idea.
If you have heard scabs choir boy preacher of doom we don’t need God we can be manipulated. And not for one moment do I believe their rhetoric.And I’ll tell you why since the 1900s they have been trying to hide God.Darwin to Einstein to nasa and transgender. These people if you do research are lucifarian satanists and if they believe in lucifer why do you think they don’t want you to believe in a creator?
And I mean transgender agenda.
Agree with you there, it wasn’t very long ago they could convince young choir boys to agree to castration so why cant they convince kids they are transgender today?
So true or electrocuting homosexuality and mentally ill. Anybody that stepped out of the norm? were punished? Every child that misbehaved in school my day were caned or detention or suspended? Free thinkers were not allowed you had to tow the line or else.😬
Didn’t the Vatican stop the practice of castrating choir boys in the 1860’s?
There’s no intrinsic belief that science and God are incompatible. I studied science and was a biomedical researcher for a decade and I met plenty of top quality scientists who were also religious.
The real point is this: currently, no-one has come up with a way to test the scientific hypothesis that ‘God exists’. Not being able to prove God exists is not the same as proving God doesn’t exist.
I’ve said for 30 years that science and faith are compatible, it’s just that the boundaries of the arenas where science can frame falsifiable hypotheses changes with the passing centuries and, as a result, the nature of faith must change too.
What would be regarded as a ‘miracle’ 500 years ago might be simple network-based ICT nowadays after all…..
I understand where your coming science and spiritual are both things that are the same. With science it has to be proven where as spiritual you the individual that experiences it.👍
Corporate Religion is a control mechanism. It has it’s uses. But it has no connection to the creator. Religious people are without exception disinterested in the beauty and power of nature. The best argument in favour of a supreme being are the almost insanely beautiful Eastern Rosella or the Great Blue Turaco.
The materialist paradigm has limitations for sure; but that may be more the constricted viewpoint of those propagating the concept than the concept itself.
Nowhere is this limitation more apparent than Archeology. There is absolutely zero reason to accept that human “civilization” as we characterize it “began” about 6000 years ago but never existed before that time. Yet because nothing which can be identified, analyzed and catalogued has ever been discovered, Archeologists refuse to accept anything resembling “civilization” as having existed prior to their “discoveries.” Would they really expect an obelisk from, say, a million years ago to still be standing?
How absurdly hubristic of humans (scientists) to imagine they have correctly identified every happening, down to the fall of the tiniest sparrow, for the past x-number billions of years!
And out in space the notion of Dark Matter has become a running joke among material skeptics; but is it really anything more than the Aether once considered the very stuff of space?
As I see it (as a “materialist” – whatever that means), matter is infinitely more complex and all encompassing than scientists give it credit for. If given its due, matter need not be pushed aside to account for what currently seems unaccountable.
I’m afraid the way science/measurement is communicated is at the heart of many problems. Archaeologists almost certainly DON’T say that ‘ no civilisations existed before 6000 years ago’, what they probably DO say is that they haven’t been able to discover clear evidence that they did.
It’s very easy to see how this kind of chinese whisper occurs when you look at the incredible amounts of misdirection carried out by the MSM in mundane areas like sport, ‘the news’ etc etc. The amount of twisting that goes on is quite incredible, so it’s simple to assume that what archaeologists actually said and what other people say that archaeologists said are two totally different things….
But when Archeologists assert that humanity’s “primitive” era carries the species back to its evolutionary origin, they leave no room for the possibility of the species having evolved, died out and re-evolved perhaps numerous times.
“Science” forbids such speculation until “evidence” can be found – ergo: no evidence, no possibility of ever having been. This feature is what I see as the self-limiting nature of “Science.”
Look into Graham Hancock’s ideas about Gobekli Tepi and the ongoing archaeological dig going on there right now, for a reappraisal of just how long there have been human civilisations on Earth. A lot longer than we thought, apparently. Graham is also fascinating on the possibilities of ancient civilisations in other parts of the world.
Long time ago Newton realized that what we call today modern theoretical science cannot be anything else but dogmatic as much dogmatic as any religion. And what worse since Newton it could not be any other way. And in the core of that is a problem with philosophy of materialism and materialism itself.
Why is the issue of correctness of a notion of what materialism really is and what it means, as a prominent part of our modern physical worldview important for Philosophy of Science?
It is because it sets an important, critical division line between overwhelming scientific paradigms that define and distinguish different scientific epochs and their philosophical foundations of materialism. [Shockingly it included material foundation of theology in most part];
In the history of civilization, at least since creation in classical Greek period, systematized human field of inquiry called early science; two distinct scientific epochs can be discerned.
First focused on attempts of discovery existing mechanism of this particular material world that surrounds us [created and/or ruled by theistic “God” or by independent laws of “nature” embraced by agnosticism] whether natural or social or religious/supernatural as was the very subject of inquiry of ancient, medieval as well as XVII/XVIII century philosophers/scientists.
This scientific epoch came to the end with Newton works on gravity that questioned materiality of this particular world that surrounds us as well our innate ability to perfect ourselves enough to even understand it using methods of human reasoning and criteria of intelligibility and by that spurred crisis of science as well as crisis of Philosophy of Materialism that suppose to underlie any modern scientific inquiry.
Newton concluded that the universe, as it is, could not work exactly as he proposed in his universal gravity law [ its mathematical formulation] since it itself invokes existence of immaterial occult forces and entities acting upon material reality. [Spatially extended to infinity gravity force fields as we call them today].
After decades of agonizing Newton realized that his universal law of gravity is just a good guess, an assumption which results happened to fit currently available observations and experiments but could be invalidated in the future as Hume previously posited since Newton’s gravity did not amount to discovery of the mechanism of “this material universe” but provided a “mental” contraption to simulate the observables, as far as they were being available at Newton’s time.
In other words for the first time as a scientist Newton realized that he created just an intermittent theory [an approximation ] of such a possible or probable mechanism of universal motion [not the mechanism of universal motion itself], simply assumed without any foundational “proof” of its existence [ontology] and instead taking its existence as a scientific paradigm, a dogma or axiom aimed at further development of theories in the future that could even better match the so-far available, highly interpretatively biased, observational/experimental data
And by that he himself alone introduced a foundation of modern XIX/XX century scientific process we all are taking for granted without realizing all the agonizing and compromise that went into it, especially in the end, painful abandonment of popular scientific realism as well as entire [ancient and modern] philosophy of materialism in modern scientific research. Today’s science is almost devoid of any philosophy of its representations. .m
In the same time millennia old metaphysics of [objective material] reality was abandoned by “science”, not because true nature of matter has been discovered but because metaphysical nature of matter was arbitrarily removed from modern scientific inquiry as scientifically and philosophically indeterminable and unattainable in a form intelligible to our reasoning faculties.
All that supposedly unleashed invisible to human eye unintelligible “reality” of universe that was “discovered” or concocted by our mathematical mind.
In sciences we are to believe that our mathematical models based on scarce data and huge highly subjectively biased interpretative pyramid of experimental data are real and not as Newton concluded just a mental contraptions to fit limited experimental results interpreted completely subjectively within realm of the tested theory.
As we are all told Einstein Special and General Theory of Gravity (STR and GTR) has been experimentally confirmed. True.
However few know that in fact STR is based on dogmatic never proven postulates (like invariance of speed of light or rejection of instantaneity) and that GTR was multiple times disproved by changing hard cosmological data.
The first it was steady state universe fixed by adding artificial Cosmological constant in his field equations, Einstein itself did not believe, invented to stop Einstein initially self collapsing cosmological model.
Later as Hubble galaxies red shift and expanding universe was experimentally discovered, the Einstein model was fixed again. And then just in few last decades when it turned out that expansion of universe actually is accelerating not slowing down new invisible world or invisible matter, dark matter (30% of all matter) we did not know about and invisible energy that amounts to 70% of all energy in the universe were unleashed in desperation.
In fact since 1980s multiple of theories like MOND theory, were developed. Theories that reject dogmas of Einstein relativity while fully and correctly explaining experimentally confirmed behavior of Universe expansion decades before confirmatory experimental data was obtained and invisible energy and matter was invented to again patch Einstein theory up.
More recently new theory of Universe expansion based on the same Poincare mathematics ,Einstein and Planck used, but assuming in contrast to Einstein easily intelligible universal instantaneity of event across all inertial frames of reference was developed that also correctly explain universe expansion with no need to invent new matter or energy.
The point is that no mathematical theories as Newton found out or any theories like germ theory actually describe reality of universe but only at least partially explain some of interpretatively skewed available experimental data.
All that understanding of what science actually is does not cover elephant in the room namely institutionalization of science and resulting corruption of scientific research and thought to serve not science but institutional interests of survival and domination.
Apparently Rupert Sheldrake does not understand science.. science is the art of asking questions that no one can answer, and developing hypothesis that attempt to provide an answer; those hypothesis that cannot be be proven wrong are science, until they are proven wrong. . then again he may?
Why is it.?
You all seem to read the same so called fake rebels the Maverick expert titles and accolades world. The process is always the same..
David dike will mention his book. BOB will appear on M.I.C Circuit of dogshit broadcasters converters.
Eventually the interview will hit jackpot with king of GX idiot Joke Rogan.
Not been a fan of Rupert Shilldrake as he is the one SOLD to you as ‘the go to guy’ in the opposite.
People who would fool for him would of foollen hook – line and sinker
for Mike Yeadon. Bob Boloney’s & Looney undertaker.
Theses types…they sure believe any oldshite!!!
Notice how his message worsened after the stabbing incident.
Of course many would be lead to believe (deceived) this is because of what he says.
Outspoken message. sigh!!!
He said nothing that hasn’t been said better before.
All you got to do….Is…
Expand that mind a little bit past the sold to you
‘go to guys’ in the Military industrial Intelligence Complex go to list.
Can you share the list, and also explain its authenticity?
I read this book (also titled “The Science Delusion”) a few months ago and I can´t recommend it enough.
Above all, this is a fascinating work about science that deals with profound questions; questions that our materialistic and “insitutionalised” civilisation has chosen to ignore.
It is also a throughly documented indictment of a scientific community who, blinded by dogmas, corruption, closed mindedness, herd instinct -while seduced by its own narcissistic appraisal- has done everything in its hands to effectively ban them from any “scientific” discussion.
The book is full of examples of “inconvenient” science being thrown under the rug; of how scientific thinking has been hijacked by conformity and dogma. It paints a damning picture of the majority of scientists, whose loyalty appears to be not to science but to the (completely dated!) 19th century materialistic-deterministic worldview. A view which happens to be also very profitable and most useful for authoritarians and demagogues.
The theory of Morphic Resonance, which is the book´s leitmotif, is an elegant hypothesis with foundations on the most advanced ideas in fields like quantum physics, genetics, and neuroscience. In summary:
“Similar patterns of activity resonate across time and space with subsequent patterns […] Self-organising systems, including atoms, molecules, crystals, cells, plants, animals and animal societies. All draw upon a collective memory [a Morphogenetic Field] and in turn contribute to it”.
“[a Morphogenetic Field is] an invisible influence on the organism coming from outside it, just as TV sets are resonantly tuned to transmissions that originate elsewhere.”
Sheldrake employs this theory, quantum physics, and numerous scientific discoveries ignored through the ages, to account for some of the unexplained phenomena, puzzling observations, and measurement variations that science has decided to leave inside the drawer (everything from statistically significant results in experiments pointing to the existence of some sort of “6th sense”, to the variations in gravitational fields, the unaccounted, untransformed energy n fasting monks or many things unknown about gene expression).
It is mind bending to realise how much has been left out, how much has been modified or erased, how little has been done, how little curiosity there is in the scientific world. How much our worldview changes just by pondering about these facts and thinking about these ideas.
Because the theory is not as important as the journey. By the end of the book one would expect to feel disoriented, pessimistic, disenchanted with science. But it is all the opposite: This is a mind expanding book which brings back to science the creative imagination that made Greeks figure out the atom or dark matter some 2000 years ago; the curiosity and openness of science before it was put on a religious pedestal. This book truly sets the mind free.
What´s left after Sheldrake´s demolition of the effigy of the materialistic idol is a world full of beautiful mysteries to engage with, of interconnectedness of all beings, of freedom, reason, and possibilities.
And the will to build a science up to the task to explore and gain knowledge of that world.
The theory may originate fro Platonism. It seems to have been modernised by Hans Spemann, Alexander Gurwitsch and Paul Weiss in the 1920s also.
As I understand it, the the proposed field explains
– a phenomenon remaining stable in proportion to past frequency, e.g., biological regulation, repair or reproduction
– an advantageous variant increasing in occurrence over time, or occurring independently in more than one place around the same time
– similar influence multiple body parts, specimens or species.
The following implies such influence:
– sifferentiation in cell types and body parts during growth, despite identical genes
– a specie mutating dramatically in a new environment
– species from diverse taxonomic groups, especially symbionts, converging in appearance: form, texture, colouration, etc (e.g., for camouflage or mimicry) or in behaviour (masquerade)
– synchronised behaviour (e.g., reproduction or migration) on a vast scale by simple species, that dominate their entire life cycles or even multiple generations
– increasing ease in synthesising new compounds, over time
– development and spread of ideas.
Yes. That is a very good summary of the theory. It indeed points towards the existence of something comparable to a Platonic ideal realm.
Some examples from the book that would suggest the existence of such a field include:
-The mysterious improvement in human and animal skills in general. A good example comes from primatology: Chimps in one lab seem to perform much better learning a new skill after other group of chimps had learned said skill at a distant, in-communicated lab. (“From the point of view of morphic resonance, the transfer of these skills is a kind of resonance process.”)
-The way in which crystals and other compounds that are incredibly difficult to synthesise at first, are easily produced after the passage of time, with no change in techniques or methods (“The emergence of new polymorphs makes it clear that chemistry is not timeless. It is historical and evolutionary, like biology.”)
-The inability to locate memory centres in the brain. Although scientists have some hints, there are still unexplained phenomena (f.e. innumerable cases of brain injuries which don´t affect learned skills or memory; or unimpaired memory/cognitive function in some people born with severe brain damage) that would question the concept of memory as something “stored” in the brain alone and would point instead towards the brain as a TV set (or as a computer connected to a “cloud”) metaphor.
I hadn´t heard about Hans Spemann, Alexander Gurwitsch or Paul Weiss. I will check them out.
Thank you!
I don’t know about these 3 researchers either. I merely mentioned them to share the credit with Sheldrake. Writer Arthur Koestler also covered this in the 1970s.
An unreliable news report a few decades ago mentioned a healthy lecturer at a leading UK university. He had only the “brain stem” at the bottom of the cranial cavity, the rest being filled with fluid.
In some religious ceremonies including massive lightly-supervised ones, inflicting harm (as medically defined) on the body is routine. E.g., walking on fire, skewering the body or repeatedly dipping the hands into boiling oil. Most of the participants are not particularly religious, and may just be “fulfilling a vow”. The ambitious ones may even be building up a personal following. The point is that afterwards, they are unscathed perhaps except for exhaustion.
The ‘accomplished people with virtually no brains’ syndrome isn’t just one case. A number of them were discovered. More support for the hypothesis that memory, and indeed the bulk of cognition – isn’t done in the – virtual – physical brain, but in the Larger Consciousness System, aka Big Mind; which may be metaphored as a mental equivalent of what computing calls The Cloud; the physical (virtual) brain being simply some sort of evolved tuning-in device.
This article gives a good brief on the matter:
irishtimes.com/news/remarkable-story-of-maths-genius-who-had-almost-no-brain-1.1026845
a serious ‘get out and buy this amazing book!!!!!’ review, with a bunch of ‘really, nobody knows and fewer people really care’ ‘questions’, along with a plug for Amazon – somebody asleep at the switch here?? – you’d find this in the G, so it would seem to be kind of contra-indicated here?
Lost me at Cambridge and Royal Society.
Good people may work inside bad institutions.
Sure! Throw out the baby with the bath water! Highly prudent tactic – not…
I’ll be accused of being a philistine or something but I agree. I’ll probably also be accused of being condescending if I said that were I half my age I would launch into these questions with enthusiasm. But at the age of 60 I honestly couldn’t care less.
Take “Is nature mechanical?” I would have thought that “mechanical” refers to a notion derived from our own creation of machines where we can push a lever here and see an outcome there. Does “Nature” work that way? Who can trace the “machine” back far enough? And does that mean that “somebody” is pulling the initial lever?
Who knows? Who can ever find out?
I recall a book where someone suggested that so much of philosophy consisted of pseudo-questions which run on their “nuisance value” and people can posture sagely over “big issues” that are just a load of wind. I am starting to think that 90% of philosophy is like that.
But then again after two years of listening to “The Science” and seeing any number of lavishly decorated graphs and charts and bio-scientifico-medico babble from allegedly smart people with degrees from wanky universities – and every single one of them serving as hacks for the most obvious mafia grab of resources the world has ever seen, you’ll pardon me if I don’t get excited by yet another discussion of metaphysics and ontology and existential whatever etc.
What you saw the last two years wasn’t science, it was data measurement. The really important things were unquantified judgement calls that ‘preventing spread’ was more important than ‘preserving economic activity’. No science whatsoever was done on that, but that was the most important question for 7 billion people.
It was skewed data measurement resting on skewed assumptions e.g. covid death as anyone dying within 28 days of a positive test. Also the blase presumption that a positive test result heralded the approaching doom, presence of Satan etc. What was that old maxim? Garbage in/garbage out. But even that is too naive. Those vast acreages of crap were intended.
Thus every article made menacing growling noises for the first paragraph and the last with the massively extended middle bit given over to the endless graphs and pseudo-scientific gobbledegook.
Biggest laugh was Owen Jones talking to Peter Hitchens in which our Guardian warrior insisted on holding up THE CHARTS – which no-one could even see anyway!
“It was skewed data measurement resting on skewed assumptions e.g. covid death as anyone dying within 28 days of a positive test.. . .”
More simply than that, it was outright lying.
covid death as anyone dying within 28 days of a positive test
Subject to the reservations that
(a) all severe harm from the time of the 1st. jab to 14 days after the 2nd. is unrelated to the jab
(b) you should not go for an optional test during this period
(c) you should delay the 2nd. jab if you fall ill and do test “positive”.
Tend to agree on the philosophy thing…if you are not put off by the title nor by a rather thick book lauded in the west as philosopy but being nothing of the kind but rather a sharp mental rendition of something lived I recommend SRI Aurobindo’s the Life Divine…more then a 100 years after being written we will likely have to live another 100 years before realising what he says:-)
Some philosophy is worth reading, but much is a matter of trivial thoughts given a bloated veneer which has the result of making the writer seem profound. I very much like the letter once written by Karl Popper on the Frankfurt School:
Perhaps the word used should have been mechanistic.
Since eons Nature organized itself in minuscule particle patterns and structures, which were only discovered by Homo sapiens since about a century through Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Lately Mind played with some of these new toys and out came for example electronics, Magic for the uninitiated, who found a new Religion.
Piggy backing on that kind of success other sciences like Medicine, Economics and Climate Change pretended to be on the same level of thoroughness. Politicians and others are easily fooled. Money was the fuel, same as in the rat race by their novices to get well paying titles while their professors went after the fat research grants and the power.
Climate Change Covid-19 brought that fallacy to Light for growing numbers of the public. Not to mention the nefarious role of the media in hyping superficial sensations , again for 30 pieces of silver.
Mind stands more and more naked, emperor with out ideas plus crippled by greed as its ill advisor and politicians as court jesters.
Nature is having nothing of it: next phase of Evolution! Gas, Stone, Microbe, Plant, Animal, Ape, Man, ….
In many ways science is as rigid as religion.
‘These are the rules until they’re not’
Science, like religion, cannot explain Love because Love is a contradiction of ‘survival of the fittest’.
Science cannot pinpoint or describe consciousness.
Science does not know whether light is a particle or a wave.
Science cannot explain Dark Matter.
Science cannot even explain how or why gravity works.
‘Just take it as a given’ they say.
What?
Do they mean like Love?
There are rules of science which rarely if ever change.
More importantly, there are rules concerning the reality of being a practicing scientist and the rules you must follow if you want to be funded/employed/tenured.
Then there are the rules of how you can manipulate the credibility of science to make money, most usually found in technology businesses, in the media, in the financial world of speculation etc.
The rules of science concern the framing of falsifiable hypotheses and the design and execution of specific measurements aimed at falsifying the hypothesis.
If you contrast scientific knowledge with religious knowledge, a more positive view of science appears. Scientific knowledge is subject to constant scepticism, criticism, falsification and ultimately to progress. Religious or ideological knowledge is infallible, dogmatic and beyond challenge and improvement. It can never change. This is why science challenges authority, political or religious with its new and better knowledge. When government treats science as religion (‘follow the science’) and silences alternative expert opinion, it replaces sceptical inquiry and freedom of thought with scientism, the religion of science as infallible. When truth belongs to power and not to the people, tyranny begins.
Now, it’s not like that at all. Science is largely in the pocket of Capital, and produces results as ordered. Scientists are not biased by their views, as the article suggests, but by who is paying them.
Materialist science has consistently denied that there is some unique biological form of energy that gives the quality we call ‘life’. This energy seems likely to be a form of electro-magnetism, the importance of which in biology mainstream science also continually downplays. Most scientists thought the body’s communication system was chemical until forced eventually to concede it was electrical (hence the importance of sodium and potassium to good health as they act as the body’s electrolytes). It’s astonishing how many famous scientists believed this but have been flushed down the memory hole. The German chemist Reichenbach (who discovered paraffin) believed it. He called it the odic force. So did Dr Kilner of the Kilner jar found in almost every English kitchen once upon a time. The infamous Mesmer seems to have been one of the first to realise this and to have been smeared as a result when what he was practising was not the hypnotism most people now assume that it was.
The aether is another big problem. Before Einstein virtually every scientist agreed that the aether existed. However the material of the aether remained a mystery until Einstein abolished it mathematically. However so much doesn’t work without it that mainstream science has tried to smuggle it back it under new names like the quantum field or the Higgs field that would allow them to retain Einstein. How do sound and light travel through “vacuum of space” without the aether? A wave is a perturbation of a medium so there must be a medium. Their explanation is the fairy tale of the photon. The eye can withstand particles hitting it at the speed of light? That seems about as probable as particles being able to travel trillions of light years across space to be visible in the night sky.
Does it seem probable that mainstream biology could be as wrong as convid revealed it was – and mainstream physics be much better? The incentive to lie is there in the implications for energy and it’s becoming clearer by the day that energy is intended to be the keystone of the new control system. (BTW this is not necessarily to argue that “free energy” or “zero point energy” are real. There certainly is a mass of energy in the world around us – according to Feynman the charge in the atmosphere increases regularly every metre up to about 50,000 feet. Some species of spider use it to fly despite not having wings. However the practicalities of tapping this energy are an area I need to research more. I don’t buy the Tartaria story pushed in some alt circles).
convid ‘biology’ doesn’t represent ‘real’ biology anymore than convid anything represents anything real. Well, other than that we’re currently being led by a bunch of cons.
They do put Army base’s in parts of where the world energy is more prolific 😬
You seem to have a confusion over the nature of what ‘life’ is. Living organisms have but one property: the ability to reproduce.
The current hypothesis is that the ability to reproduce is most commonly supplied by the storage of information in biological molecules, notably DNA and RNA.
A further requirement is the necessity to maintain that information within a bounded space, as provided mostly by semi-permeable lipid membranes which encase individual cells.
Brains and consciousness are a relatively rare phenomenon in living systems, although sensing mechanisms are pretty ubiquitous.
The ‘chicken and egg’ conundrum concerns how on earth you got DNA/RNA encased within lipid membranes AND the DNA/RNA was able to direct the creation of specific proteins which allow reproduction of the genetic material and accurate separation of the reproduced material into daughter cells.
Primordial soups are the most common hypothesis, but no-one has triggered chemical soups using zaps akin to lightning, solar flares etc etc and ended up with a functioning unicellular organism as yet.
You are on the right track. Look at Miles Mathis’ work, it is indeed the electromagnetic spectrum & its “charge field” that is the source. He has rewritten, & or reinterpreted the equations to account for this & shown how the models derived from them work. He has basically shown how modern physics is a sham.
My feeling is that the current obsession with tech by the elites is part of a very big push to create an artificial grid & synthetic life in lieu of the natural grid which is the source of all, in an effort to subjugate & control entities (us) within it. As more & more people realise it, the greater the efforts.
If one can measure it, measuring in the widest sense (repeated observations that can be repeatedly documented and witnessed are also measurements), then one has evidence of the phenomenon’s existence.
If one cannot measure it, how does one that something actually occurred? One has no evidence, and one’s claim is nothing but pure speculation – based on what? Someone feelings? How well one slept, had well eaten, satisfying sex?
If there exist unknown forces, causing an effect on the natural world, then they are part of the natural (material) world. If they do not have an effect on the natural (material) world, they are nothing but speculation, claims without evidence.
Any effect they have on the natural world makes them by definition part of the natural (material) world and they lose the label “supernatural”.
I stick with: “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. Show me evidence of what you claim exists, and I will change my opinion.
Again, when evidence exists and can be shown to exist, then the claim of “supernatural” vanishes, and materialism is again shown to be the correct approach to natural (material) phenomena in a natural (material) world.
This whole critique of materialism seems to stem from a desire to be more or to seem to be more than there actually is; as if the existence of self-replicating chemicals producing biological organisms, with all their abilities to exist in this world, itself isn’t extraordinary enough.
Though I consider myself to be a “materialist,” I do see certain irregularities in the concept of “evidence” as evinced by science.
“Evidence” is that which successfully fulfills certain pre-established criteria – and thereby hangs a tale. These criteria are calculated to accept that which has a material basis and to reject that which cannot be circumscribed by a material basis.
As the saying goes, you cannot see what you’re not looking for.
As the saying goes, you cannot see what you’re not looking for.
How do you know what you are looking for? How do you know what you don´t know?
One starts out – usually – with the search for an explanation of an observed phenomenon, usually of the anecdotal kind, for which no prior or only scant evidence exists.
Otherwise one just makes up stories (like the ones of a certain witchcraft academy) and then, biased by the wish to prove one’s story as fact invents or “finds” evidence where in actuality there is none.
Think Hubbard etc., even the Christian religion is a strong candidate for such behaviour.
Yep virology, physics, they all do this thing where they start with a belief and then prove it.
Same for flat earthers who ignore occams razor and jump into more convoluted explanations for natural phenomenon.
“Evidence” is that which can be identified, analyzed, quantified and repeated.
Suppose Mr X dies. His death can be identified; perhaps even analyzed and quantified. But it cannot be repeated. True, Mr Y can also die; but is similarity a basis for evidence? Mr X cannot die twice – so his death can never be proven scientifically. Yet everyone, from the undertaker on down, assumes his death to be a given fact beyond dispute. It is literally taken on faith.
Which leads me to wonder if evidence per se is the only possible test of truth.
Yep and Sheldrake likes to cite the 100th monkey theory as proof of this supernatural connection.
However, the story ignores the fact that monkeys can and do swim between islands, and this was not considered in the claim that all the monkeys learned the new skills without physically communicating.
I also see a lot of issues with psychic proof, where the evidence is spotty at best. You would think that if it really exists, it would be easy to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt… Especially because the claims are so extraordinary
Materialism is wrong because God exists. Truth itself is spiritual by its nature. It cannot be in any material thing. The same goes to justice, freedom, wisdom, goodness, perfectness and knowledge. These are all God’s known attributes.
Materialism is wrong because God exists.
Which one?
Only God is God. This is purely logical and God is purely logical too. God is pure spirit. God is absolutely true. God is the highest. There is no-one and nothing like God. If you don’t know God, or you believed lies about God, then you are in ignorance.
The perfect consciousness that is God is and has been the source of everything good and true.
Let me ask you something. Where in the physical matter can you find truth? Where in the material things can you find lies? What material things state the truths, for example that ”2 + 2 = 4” or ”things are what they are; a is a”.
https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/uze44a/imagine_wanting_to_hunt_down_and_ruin_normal/
https://www.alternativeradio.org/speaker/michael-parenti/
👍
Ah Mr Steve Bell (not the political cartoonist!) Well well well – it looks as if the Trotters failed to latch onto his unmistakably fascist tactics in their appreciation of his services to defeat the FAR FAR FAR RIGHT convoy:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/02/19/otta-f19.html
“Far-right” mentioned 12 times. I love the smell of hysterical repetition in the morning. Smells like fear of being found out.
And that, by the way, must be the lowest these cockroach cardboard commies have sunk – so far anyway!
“Any doubt now, the cursory Leon Trotsky boilerplate aside, that the CIA Party (formerly known as the SEP) is a Langley-Land misinformation/disinformation/ entrapment operation? The Scamdemic was the signal for all the jackbooted crocodile teared brown shirt charlatan fraudster phony baloneys to come out full Third Reich and do their Nazi thing. Pay no attention to their dishonest blather, they do the bidding of their war racketeer corporate fascist oligarch mobster psycho masters.”
“Politically what exists today in many parts of the world is a large criminal gang of war racketeering corporate fascist psychopaths passing themselves off as “government,” preying upon (and victimizing) the rest of hapless humanity. If only there was honest government of the people,by the people, for the people, based on the principles of equality (political/economic/social), civil liberty, respect and peace.”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1918/court.htm
👍 so true we’ve been led by convict’s and warmongers who only have money on their minds.
I now see the SEP as a kind of sleeper cell biding their time with plenty of actually quite decent articles written by genuine Marxists who had no idea they were being used as a sweetener to lure the Left in. The party masters were just waiting for Operation Covid and the big nod from upstairs.
“In ‘The Matter with Things’, Iain McGilchrist..argues that we have become enslaved to.. a partial view dominated by the brain’s left hemisphere [mechanistic, materialistic].. in order to understand ourselves and the world we need science and intuition..”
It’s not machine-enhancement we need, just balancing the use of both hemispheres of the brain.
How the Brain’s Left Hemisphere “Mesmerizes” Us into Misunderstanding Reality
“If we are wreaking havoc on ourselves and the world, it is because we have become mesmerized by a mechanistic, reductionist way of thinking.”
This is indeed the basis of my distaste for Science in general. Everything produced by the Right Hemisphere is taken to be extraneous to that which is produced by the Left Hemisphere.
Which is to say the Right Hemisphere is assumed to be inferior to the Left Hemisphere.
And as long as that paradigm prevails, humanity will never rise beyond the level of automatons.