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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:

  1. Is nature mechanical?
  2. Is the total amount of matter and energy always the same?
  3. Are the laws of nature fixed?
  4. Is matter unconscious?
  5. Is nature purposeless?
  6. Is all biological inheritance material?
  7. Are memories stored as material traces?
  8. Are minds confined to brains?
  9. Are psychic phenomena illusory?
  10. 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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hunter
hunter
May 31, 2022 3:33 PM

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):

Some of the biggest areas of science – medical research, molecular biology, neuroscience, epidemiology, climate research – are almost wholly trivial or bogus. They have failed to deliver on a truly catastrophic scale.

https://corruption-of-science.blogspot.com/

NickM
NickM
May 31, 2022 6:45 AM

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?

NickM
NickM
Jun 1, 2022 6:11 AM
Reply to  NickM

“Pick a flower on earth and you move the furthest star” — Paul Dirac

Annie
Annie
May 30, 2022 8:10 PM

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 👍👌

Annie
Annie
May 30, 2022 8:12 PM
Reply to  Annie

My idol is God pure energy 👍❤️

Tom Larsen
Tom Larsen
May 30, 2022 8:01 PM

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:

Vagabard
Vagabard
May 30, 2022 6:01 PM

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.

Howard
Howard
May 31, 2022 3:35 AM
Reply to  Vagabard

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.

Paul Vonharnish
Paul Vonharnish
May 30, 2022 4:37 PM

#4. “Is matter unconscious?” Probably not. But does matter speak English? ?? ???

Howard
Howard
May 31, 2022 3:28 AM

God is an Englishman, you know. So of course matter speaks English.

Human values
Human values
May 30, 2022 2:04 PM

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… Read more »

iya
iya
May 31, 2022 12:31 AM
Reply to  Human values

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.

The Anti-Hip
The Anti-Hip
May 30, 2022 1:58 PM

“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… Read more »

The Anti-Hip
The Anti-Hip
May 30, 2022 2:20 PM
Reply to  The Anti-Hip

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!

Annie
Annie
May 30, 2022 4:47 PM
Reply to  The Anti-Hip

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.

Annie
Annie
May 30, 2022 6:23 PM
Reply to  Annie

And the other 1% is your own 😬👍

Howard
Howard
May 31, 2022 3:42 AM
Reply to  The Anti-Hip

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?”

NickM
NickM
May 31, 2022 7:07 AM
Reply to  The Anti-Hip

“… 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… Read more »

mgeo
mgeo
May 31, 2022 9:24 AM
Reply to  NickM

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.

George Mc
George Mc
May 30, 2022 8:05 AM

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: It’s not clear when he began using his middle name Noah. If he used it at all in the early years, it was just the initial, N.Certainly it added a weighty, apocalyptic tone as the Israeli history professor progressed from niche topics like medieval warfare and the ritual power of “Kabbalah” to become the public intellectual face of The Great Reset. He’s… Read more »

Greg Cantin
Greg Cantin
May 30, 2022 3:27 AM

Sad. You lost me with his Smallpox take. If he can be so wrong on that, I can’t trust anything he says.

Rhisiart Gwilym
Rhisiart Gwilym
May 30, 2022 9:54 AM
Reply to  Greg Cantin

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… Read more »

script
script
May 30, 2022 5:00 PM

Ignore Rupert to your own large detriment. He’s one of our way-finders to the future.

High standards then. LOL

Christine Thompson
Christine Thompson
May 30, 2022 5:34 PM
Reply to  script

See my post to Rhisiart Gwilym, above…

Christine Thompson
Christine Thompson
May 30, 2022 5:32 PM

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)

Annie
Annie
May 30, 2022 7:25 PM

😬

Howard
Howard
May 30, 2022 1:25 PM
Reply to  Greg Cantin

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.

jubal hershaw
jubal hershaw
May 30, 2022 12:04 AM

I feel like i’ve stumbled in on a religious discussion.

Rhisiart Gwilym
Rhisiart Gwilym
May 30, 2022 9:56 AM
Reply to  jubal hershaw

Philosophical materialism versus philosophical idealism is exactly that, Jubal.

Veri Tas
Veri Tas
May 29, 2022 11:54 PM

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.  physicians have taken the place of priests; vaccination plays the same initiatory role as baptism, and is accompanied by the same threats and fears; the search for health has replaced the quest for salvation; the fight against disease has replaced the fight against sin; eradication of viruses has taken the place of exorcising demons; the hope of physical immortality (cloning, genetic engineering) has been substituted for the hope of eternal life; pills have replaced the sacrament of bread and… Read more »

Annie
Annie
May 30, 2022 7:28 PM
Reply to  Veri Tas

God is not religion 😬👍

iya
iya
May 29, 2022 11:44 PM

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.

Martin Usher
Martin Usher
May 29, 2022 9:39 PM

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… Read more »

Sam - Admin2
Admin
Sam - Admin2
May 29, 2022 9:56 PM
Reply to  Martin Usher

“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

Orthus
Orthus
May 30, 2022 6:43 AM
Reply to  Sam - Admin2

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.

Ian
Ian
May 30, 2022 2:50 PM
Reply to  Martin Usher

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.

Tom Larsen
Tom Larsen
May 30, 2022 9:59 PM
Reply to  Ian

Indeed. See the book Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines and the Forgotten History.

Annie
Annie
May 29, 2022 7:31 PM

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.

Annie
Annie
May 29, 2022 8:06 PM
Reply to  Annie

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… Read more »

Willem
Willem
May 29, 2022 7:00 PM

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… Read more »

sandy
sandy
May 29, 2022 6:38 PM

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… Read more »

Vagabard
Vagabard
May 29, 2022 7:53 PM
Reply to  sandy

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.

sandy
sandy
May 29, 2022 8:32 PM
Reply to  Vagabard

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.

Vagabard
Vagabard
May 29, 2022 9:07 PM
Reply to  sandy

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… Read more »

Rhisiart Gwilym
Rhisiart Gwilym
May 30, 2022 10:21 AM
Reply to  Vagabard

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…

Vagabard
Vagabard
May 30, 2022 2:19 PM

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

Rhisiart Gwilym
Rhisiart Gwilym
May 30, 2022 8:30 PM
Reply to  Vagabard

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… Read more »

Vagabard
Vagabard
May 30, 2022 9:16 PM

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.

Howard
Howard
May 31, 2022 3:55 AM

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.

Rhisiart Gwilym
Rhisiart Gwilym
May 31, 2022 10:59 AM
Reply to  Howard

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… Read more »

Vagabard
Vagabard
May 31, 2022 5:08 PM

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):

mgeo
mgeo
Jun 1, 2022 8:43 AM

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.

sandy
sandy
May 30, 2022 8:54 PM
Reply to  Vagabard

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”.

qwertboi
qwertboi
May 30, 2022 3:25 PM

+100++

Rhisiart Gwilym
Rhisiart Gwilym
May 30, 2022 10:11 AM
Reply to  sandy

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…

sandy
sandy
May 30, 2022 9:37 PM

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,… Read more »

Rhisiart Gwilym
Rhisiart Gwilym
May 31, 2022 11:06 AM
Reply to  sandy

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!  😄 

mgeo
mgeo
May 30, 2022 12:06 PM
Reply to  sandy

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.

sandy
sandy
May 30, 2022 9:44 PM
Reply to  mgeo

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

mgeo
mgeo
May 30, 2022 12:23 PM
Reply to  sandy

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.

Paul Vonharnish
Paul Vonharnish
May 30, 2022 5:03 PM
Reply to  sandy

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/

sandy
sandy
May 30, 2022 9:56 PM

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.

script
script
May 29, 2022 6:20 PM

comment image

Annie
Annie
May 29, 2022 4:58 PM

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.👍

I_left_the_left
I_left_the_left
May 29, 2022 4:50 PM

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.

El Zafio
El Zafio
May 29, 2022 4:12 PM

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/

Jeffrey Strahl
Jeffrey Strahl
May 29, 2022 8:20 PM
Reply to  El Zafio

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.

Pilgrim Shadow
Pilgrim Shadow
May 30, 2022 5:29 AM
Reply to  Jeffrey Strahl

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… Read more »

stella
stella
May 30, 2022 9:19 AM
Reply to  Pilgrim Shadow

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 .

Placental_Mammal
Placental_Mammal
May 30, 2022 1:13 PM
Reply to  Pilgrim Shadow

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.

Howard
Howard
May 30, 2022 1:40 PM
Reply to  Pilgrim Shadow

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.

Rhisiart Gwilym
Rhisiart Gwilym
May 30, 2022 9:13 PM
Reply to  Howard

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… Read more »

sandy
sandy
May 30, 2022 8:45 PM
Reply to  Pilgrim Shadow

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.

Annie
Annie
May 29, 2022 3:53 PM

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?

Annie
Annie
May 29, 2022 4:13 PM
Reply to  Annie

And I mean transgender agenda.

Dereck
Dereck
May 29, 2022 4:44 PM
Reply to  Annie

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?

Annie
Annie
May 29, 2022 5:07 PM
Reply to  Dereck

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.😬

Mt Perfect
Mt Perfect
May 29, 2022 11:12 PM
Reply to  Dereck

Didn’t the Vatican stop the practice of castrating choir boys in the 1860’s?

Rhys Jaggar
Rhys Jaggar
May 29, 2022 4:40 PM
Reply to  Annie

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…..

Annie
Annie
May 29, 2022 7:18 PM
Reply to  Rhys Jaggar

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.👍

Placental_Mammal
Placental_Mammal
May 30, 2022 1:23 PM
Reply to  Rhys Jaggar

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.

Howard
Howard
May 29, 2022 3:24 PM

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… Read more »

Rhys Jaggar
Rhys Jaggar
May 29, 2022 4:43 PM
Reply to  Howard

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….

Howard
Howard
May 30, 2022 3:46 AM
Reply to  Rhys Jaggar

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.”

Rhisiart Gwilym
Rhisiart Gwilym
May 31, 2022 11:17 AM
Reply to  Howard

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.

Kalen
Kalen
May 29, 2022 3:18 PM

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.… Read more »

eman
eman
May 29, 2022 2:55 PM

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?

Johnnycomelately
Johnnycomelately
May 29, 2022 1:33 PM

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… Read more »

I_left_the_left
I_left_the_left
May 29, 2022 4:54 PM

Can you share the list, and also explain its authenticity?

Skeptic
Skeptic
May 29, 2022 1:31 PM

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… Read more »

mgeo
mgeo
May 30, 2022 12:40 PM
Reply to  Skeptic

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… Read more »

Skeptic
Skeptic
May 30, 2022 5:27 PM
Reply to  mgeo

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,… Read more »

mgeo
mgeo
May 31, 2022 8:41 AM
Reply to  Skeptic

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.

Rhisiart Gwilym
Rhisiart Gwilym
May 31, 2022 11:38 AM
Reply to  mgeo

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

siamdave
siamdave
May 29, 2022 1:09 PM

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?

Wisenox
Wisenox
May 29, 2022 1:20 PM
Reply to  siamdave

Lost me at Cambridge and Royal Society.

I_left_the_left
I_left_the_left
May 29, 2022 4:55 PM
Reply to  Wisenox

Good people may work inside bad institutions.

Rhisiart Gwilym
Rhisiart Gwilym
May 31, 2022 11:40 AM
Reply to  Wisenox

Sure! Throw out the baby with the bath water! Highly prudent tactic – not…

George Mc
George Mc
May 29, 2022 3:28 PM
Reply to  siamdave

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… Read more »

George Mc
George Mc
May 29, 2022 3:38 PM
Reply to  George Mc

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.

Rhys Jaggar
Rhys Jaggar
May 29, 2022 4:47 PM
Reply to  George Mc

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.

George Mc
George Mc
May 29, 2022 7:19 PM
Reply to  Rhys Jaggar

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!

Pilgrim Shadow
Pilgrim Shadow
May 30, 2022 5:55 AM
Reply to  George Mc

“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.

mgeo
mgeo
May 30, 2022 12:57 PM
Reply to  George Mc

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”.

Rose
Rose
May 29, 2022 4:53 PM
Reply to  George Mc

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:-)

George Mc
George Mc
May 29, 2022 7:23 PM
Reply to  Rose

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: I can only say that when I read either Adorno or Habermas, I feel as if lunatics were speaking. I have translated some of their German sentences into simple German. It turns out to be either trivial or tautological or sheer pretentious nonsense. I completely fail to see why Habermas is reputed to have “talent”. I do not think that he was born less intelligent than other people; but he certainly did not have the good sense to resist the influence of a pretentious, lying, and intelligence destroying University education. Sociology is in a bad way — even here in England. There seems to be an interesting law:… Read more »

mgeo
mgeo
May 30, 2022 12:50 PM
Reply to  George Mc

Perhaps the word used should have been mechanistic.

Antonym
Antonym
May 29, 2022 1:09 PM

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… Read more »

Johnny
Johnny
May 29, 2022 1:02 PM

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?

Rhys Jaggar
Rhys Jaggar
May 29, 2022 4:51 PM
Reply to  Johnny

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.

I_left_the_left
I_left_the_left
May 29, 2022 5:09 PM
Reply to  Johnny

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.

mgeo
mgeo
May 30, 2022 4:01 PM

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.

Edwige
Edwige
May 29, 2022 12:42 PM

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… Read more »

siamdave
siamdave
May 29, 2022 1:11 PM
Reply to  Edwige

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.

Annie
Annie
May 29, 2022 4:21 PM
Reply to  Edwige

They do put Army base’s in parts of where the world energy is more prolific 😬

Rhys Jaggar
Rhys Jaggar
May 29, 2022 4:58 PM
Reply to  Edwige

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… Read more »

iya
iya
May 29, 2022 11:56 PM
Reply to  Edwige

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.

Peter Moritz
Peter Moritz
May 29, 2022 12:12 PM

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,… Read more »

Howard
Howard
May 29, 2022 1:40 PM
Reply to  Peter Moritz

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.

Peter Moritz
Peter Moritz
May 29, 2022 3:43 PM
Reply to  Howard

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.

Rob Rob
Rob Rob
May 29, 2022 4:38 PM
Reply to  Peter Moritz

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.

Howard
Howard
May 29, 2022 4:59 PM
Reply to  Peter Moritz

“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.

Rob Rob
Rob Rob
May 29, 2022 4:36 PM
Reply to  Peter Moritz

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

Human values
Human values
May 30, 2022 1:40 PM
Reply to  Peter Moritz

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.

Peter Moritz
Peter Moritz
May 30, 2022 2:40 PM
Reply to  Human values

Materialism is wrong because God exists.

Which one?

Human values
Human values
May 30, 2022 9:31 PM
Reply to  Peter Moritz

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”.  

S Cooper
S Cooper
May 29, 2022 11:31 AM
Reply to  S Cooper
Annie
Annie
May 29, 2022 4:27 PM
Reply to  S Cooper

👍

George Mc
George Mc
May 29, 2022 3:08 PM
Reply to  S Cooper

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.

George Mc
George Mc
May 29, 2022 3:14 PM
Reply to  George Mc

And that, by the way, must be the lowest these cockroach cardboard commies have sunk – so far anyway!

S Cooper
S Cooper
May 29, 2022 3:43 PM
Reply to  George Mc

“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.”
comment image

“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

Annie
Annie
May 29, 2022 4:30 PM
Reply to  S Cooper

👍 so true we’ve been led by convict’s and warmongers who only have money on their minds.

George Mc
George Mc
May 29, 2022 7:26 PM
Reply to  S Cooper

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.

Howard
Howard
May 29, 2022 5:04 PM

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.