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The Science Delusion – Reexamining our Worldview Mindset
The Science Delusion – Reexamining our Worldview Mindset
By
Cognitive Dissonance
If you are anywhere near a window or door why don’t you stop reading right now, get up, walk over and take five or ten seconds to look outside and absorb what you see. Hell, if that’s asking too much of you then just imagine what you would see if you were to look out your window. Go ahead and take a few seconds. I’ll wait.
Regardless of whether your (imagined) view outside was of lawn, woods, mountains, animals or other humans, homes or out buildings, a road or highway, tall office buildings or even skyscrapers, if I were to ask you to describe in detail what you (thought you) saw, what you (thought you) perceived, everyone would pretty much describe it using similar words, phrases, subtext and connotation.
This is because even though we all saw different things, we all employ pretty much the same basis of understanding or belief in how our natural world works and functions, of what ‘it’ is that we think we actually see. In short, we see, perceive and thereby ‘know’ through the (distorting) lens of our worldview and the individual/collective mindset that forms that point of view.
This in turn determines how we perceive, then interpret and finally describe what we see. Contrary to common belief we do not simply ‘see’ what is there. No one sees and perceives everything exactly the same way as anyone else and I’m not just talking about differences in visible color, clarity or contrast nor just through the distortion provided by a political or religious frame of reference.
Our mindset (selectively) interprets what our senses receive based upon our preconceived notions and beliefs. In short, all that we ‘see’ and perceive in every form is run through our worldview mindset for identification, interpretation and then integration. This means that there is great latitude for error when our mindset has been both created and distorted by prior beliefs, propaganda and bias.
If we don’t believe (in) what we ‘see’ or perceive, quite simply it is dismissed as unreal and nonsensical………if it is even ‘seen’ in the first place. For all intents and purposes from our perspective fully or partially accepted perception is reality, everything else is not. As I will outline below this is our deeply flawed personal and collective mindset and I contend that this is the basis for many, if not all, of our individual and global social problems.

Our point of view determines much of what we perceive
Where we stand depends entirely upon where we sit. This wonderfully enlightening phrase works on both the micro and macro level because our basis of understanding and perception, our worldview, determines how we ‘see’ and perceive reality. Since all we know and all we think we know is right >here< in time and space, unless we make an honest, sincere and sustained effort to see beyond these artificial boundaries, to remove the self imposed limitations we all experience when we view everything through our worldview prism, we are personally and collectively condemned to a life of external and internal (self) manipulation and control.
In my opinion it is essential to understand that everything is a construct of our consciousness, so >here< is essentially non local, meaning even though for nearly all of us >here< is perceived as located between the ears, this is simply not the case. This perspective altering concept, that of non-local consciousness, is a wonderful example of our collective mindset since the vast majority will quickly and completely reject this notion simply because their present day belief system and worldview tells them otherwise. I will touch on this further down when I list some of the beliefs that form our collective worldview, but if just this one alternative view were widely embraced by the general population consider for a few moments how dramatically different the world we just viewed would seem to be.
If we fail to seek our inner knowing to effectively counterbalance the obviously subversive and manipulative external forces that are busily (re)constructing our ever changing, but still very narrow worldview, we become entirely dependent upon that external affirmation to confirm and inflame the internal dysfunction that results from our constant immersion within the insanity. Simply put we go mad, but still remain quite functional in an insane asylum sort of way. Just because I’m crazy doesn’t mean I’m stupid or unable to productively interact with others in our mad world.
This internal dysfunction, our inner insanity, aggravates and perpetuates the external manipulation by way of our collective actions in an endless positive feedback loop of escalating collective madness until finally it exhausts itself in a crescendo of war, starvation, deprivation and death. Our inner madness feeds the external madness which feeds the internal and so on.
We moan and groan about the obvious insanity of our increasingly psychotic world, about the financial, political and corporate corruption, the blatant greed and endless lies and manipulation, all while remaining comfortably blind to its inner source. Wash, rinse and repeat as needed generation after generation after generation. It simply does not need to be this way. But then again maybe it does since to accept that the source of our torment springs from within means not only that we are the problem, but that we are the solution. No one left to blame then.
A perfect example of a thoroughly dysfunctional social feedback loop is the closed society that is present day North Korea. While we do not know exactly what is happening inside that country we do understand that many if not all of its inhabitants do not receive much in the way of a ‘reality check’ to contrast what they are being told by their leadership. Their worldview mindset is horribly distorted by controlling external forces. While our egos might not like to hear this, we here in the West are under similar assault, though the techniques used are much more subtle and extremely effective.

Our entire cognitive spectrum is distorted by our worldview prism
On a micro mindset level our personal stand on gun control depends upon how we view guns, personal responsibility, local, state and federal government and so on. As well, our opinion of the stock markets’ relentless rise over the last four years depends upon our views and understanding (or not) of statistical manipulation, corporate and governmental corruption and self dealing, unlimited fiat creation and so on.
Expanding outward a bit more, on a personal level we believe that our (little patch of the) universe can be fully experienced and understood with just our oftentimes electronically leveraged five senses. Except for a few fuzzy undefined exceptions we believe that nothing further is required in order to fully understand and experience our world other than what we have not yet learned and experienced through our five senses. Man beheld what he cognitively created and it was good.
On a more macro mindset level how we view animals, plants, rocks, rivers and roads depends upon if we think of ‘them’ as sentient and conscious or dead and without awareness. For example, many believe that ‘feed’ animals should be ‘humanely’ raised and slaughtered (or at least they should be blissfully unaware of it when they are not) suggesting that we perceive animals as somewhat sentient. Perhaps this is because animals express emotions such as care and nurturing for their young and distress and panic when their young are threatened. Ask most cat and dog ‘owners’ if their animals are aware and emotional, human like in some respects, and the affirmative will come through loud and clear.
In other words we perceive (certain) animals as somewhat similar to humans principally because they show similar emotions and reactions, not because we have actually measured consciousness within them………or within humans for that matter. But we give little thought to ‘slaughtering’ woods, rivers and meadows, the very Earth itself, other than possibly holding some concern for the loss of the utility or esthetic value. I am, of course, speaking of the loss to us humans; not so much to those dumb, but still somewhat sentient animals……right?
Forget about seeing this as a moral judgment so much as just an irrefutable and near universal belief born of a decidedly narrow perceptional belief, or an iron clad fact some would say. In order for it to be a moral judgment all sides must at least be (carefully) considered, if only to be quickly discarded when it doesn’t square with that delicious steak on the table. It is one of those ‘Duh, that’s obvious’ moments where we roll our eyes and look at the questioner as if he just stepped in dog doo and is stinking up the joint. Humans are at the top of the food chain, alive and conscious. Animals are lower down and maybe conscious, depending on if our view squares with what’s for supper, while rocks and rivers are not at all. That’s just a fact Jack.
Our damned delusional unanimity
There is near universal agreement (among the ‘civilized’ world that is) that the fundamental basis for our worldview is essentially correct and quite obvious, though there are a few nagging details to be worked out here and there. So obvious in fact that rarely if ever do we talk about these concepts and even less often, either as a culture or as individuals, do we invest our time and/or money to study alternatives to these concepts, except maybe as <snicker snicker> career ending fringe science.
After all everyone knows that rocks are composed of dead inorganic material and are certainly not alive or conscious by any stretch of the imagination. This and other beliefs form our most basic assumptions about life and the world we live in and they are so firmly embedded within our way of life, within our worldview mindset, that we don’t even consider them to be assumptions at all, but rather as irrefutable and self evident facts.
And yet if these beliefs were to change, if our perception were to alter and evolve, how different would the world seem even though it did not change, only our prism. Then again, if this were to occur we could no longer be blissfully ignorant in our ravenous and insatiable consumption. It sounds to me like we are deeply conflicted and compromised sentient beings who really don’t wish to look too deep for fear of what we might see. Oops, did I just say sentient beings? I guess the answer to that would depend upon our worldview and perception. ‘We’, meaning the insane, never perceive ourselves to be anything other than sane, normal and very well adjusted to the insane asylum.
We are taught these most basic assumptions and beliefs first by our parents and primary caregivers, then by the state and corporate controlled primary and secondary education system, and finally by our corporate overlords. One is allowed, encouraged in fact, to examine the effects and intricacies of our material world in order to further ourselves personally and professionally as well as to contribute ‘economic value’ to the whole (meaning the overlords) as well as the self. After all I must march to the corporate machine because I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.
But one must never question the very basis of our worldview belief system unless one wishes to be declared a heretic and summarily expelled from the paternal patronage system of advancement and achievement. Only the wacko’s and crazies unnecessarily think so far out of the box that they must be declared permanently off reservation and dead to the academic and scientific world. You know, for their own good lest they rock the boat, spill the beans and hurt themselves and others. So we hitch up our pants, carefully adjust our blinders and then join the collective worldview of the hive mind.

All hail the mighty kings of material science
The modern day material sciences, the new global religion adored by nearly the entire world’s ‘civilized’ population, are thoroughly infiltrated and infused with carefully guarded dogma, blind beliefs, long held assumptions and blatantly obvious taboos. Obvious at least to anyone who steps outside the castle walls and gazes back with a clear and steady eye, not to those still deeply embedded within the meme.
The world’s declared religions must regard with envy and awe the degree of blind faith and revered belief the scientific community exhibits in service to the holy scientific grail, that of provable and repeatable scientific ‘truth’ and ‘fact’. Not to mention the degree of blind adoration we plebs exhibit in servitude to all things materially scientific, the ultimate effect of manufacturing consent.
If it can’t be measured and quantified using repeatable and verifiable experimentation, it just ain’t real folks. But since our measuring instruments are often limited by our own imagination to measuring only that which we are trained and conditioned to perceive, there is an obvious closed loop positive feedback cycle here very similar to a dog chasing its own tail. Good luck getting a government or corporate research grant to examine concepts that might just force us all to reexamine everything, then dismantle much of what we have built in order to preserve what little we still have left……our souls and self survival to name just two.
Since I was a young child I have always been a materials science geek so my love affair has not died, just switched from blind belief to critical thinker. For those of us who wish to look beyond the surface layer and ask the really tough questions that threaten to rock our socks off, these days of heightened awareness and self discovery are actually much more exciting than you might think. But only if one is willing to look beyond our pre-conditioned minds and discover a huge wealth of alternative science waiting to be (re)discovered and perused. In other words, only if we are ready and willing to question everything beginning with ourselves and what we ‘know’ to be true.

The agony of the arrogance
If I were limited to just one word to describe the ‘civilized’ western world (and rapidly the developing eastern world) it would have to be ‘arrogance’. We are so completely sure of our correctness, of our absolute certainty that the world, nay the universe, is pretty much constructed as, of and how we believe it to be because……..well, because our high priests of material science say it is so. See, it says so right here in our cleric approved indoctrination texts with all their pretty pictures, graphs and diagrams. No critical thinking needed since it has already been done for us. Just gaze at the flickering monitor and repeat after me.
With the benefit of hindsight we roll on the floor in delirious laugher at some of the obviously silly notions that were held as gospel decades, centuries, even millennium ago while rarely if ever considering that we presently labor under our own woefully wrong flat world perspectives so deeply engrained within our present day mindset that we are completely and utterly blind to how wrong we might be.
The amount of self absorbed naval gazing narcissistic hubris it takes to think that we are so much smarter, so much more enlightened than our mothers and fathers of just 20, 50 or 100 years ago is simply staggering to consider. In short we are afflicted with a severe and possibly fatal case of cranial rectal inversion and things don’t look good for a recovery anytime soon.
As Mrs. Cog and I continue our journey down the rabbit hole I can’t tell you how many times we have discovered books written fifty, a hundred, two hundred years ago that nail concepts (or just open the mind to other possibilities) that have all been summarily dismissed by the modern day material science priests as deluded and utterly wrongheaded. But after an open minded and thorough reading, we can often see that they clearly and creatively explain so much about the perplexities of our natural world.
At the risk of insulting many of my readers I find little difference in motives and methods between the high priests of central banking & high finance and those so-called scientific authorities who are found in various in-house corporate think tanks and labs, government and corporate run research and development centers and the heart of the beast, glorious academia, with its deeply dug in keepers of the holy thought relics and rituals. For the most part true scientific advancement (rather than just ‘material’ science) only creeps forward when a few more of the old guard dies off and the discipline lurches another step or two ahead before the new crop at the top starts protecting turf while permanently closing their minds to non conforming thought.
Sadly our present day worldview is seemingly confirmed by so much of what material science gets right, at least when it comes to consumer products, electronic gadgets and fiat printing computers, that we can all safely ignore what it gets spectacularly wrong. Just as long as we can get Wi-Fi, or at least a decent cell signal, all is right in the world and we can remain blissfully asleep at the wheel. Even when it does get it wrong, it ain’t wrong for long thanks to a bucket full of scientific superstition, supposition and sensationalism as they announce the latest greatest wild ass guess disguised as scientific fact-theory, all designed to paper over their last wild ass guess gone horribly wrong.
One should rightfully ask a basic question at this point. What difference does it make if science gets a few things wrong here and there? The answer would be ‘not much’ if the errors were at the end of the scientific process rather than at the beginning where they compound over and over again. As anyone who has added, subtracted and multiplied a long stretch of numbers will tell you, while a mistake anywhere along the way will produce an error, mistakes made at the beginning send the resulting sum so far out of the ballpark as to worse than useless, but potentially dangerous. Especially if those errors in thinking and supposition are then used as the basis for other equations, which in turn form our worldview. The result is the insanity that is Earth 2013.

Bridging the ice floes
I have been writing about our disastrously distorted worldview for several years now, though never in detail and always as part of my ongoing theme of looking within for the answers we all seek. I rarely provide direct answers to specific questions (something that tends to infuriate my readers) because I wish the questioner to first ask better questions as part of their own search within, then to seek and find their own answers so that they may own them as their truth.
If I provide specific answers I am not much better than those who peddle snake oil, if for no other reason than I am expecting others to believe me, or at least believe that what I am saying is truth as I believe I know it. In my opinion it is much better for the questioner to seek out and find their own answers so that they may embody them as their own, leaving them better able to integrate that information within themselves. The ultimate authority is found within and the only way to break our dependence upon the external authority is to stop relying upon it for ‘answers’.
I feel the same way about recommending books, particularly books that claim to have answers. All writers, including myself, are ultimately propagandists since it is nearly impossible to write on a subject without holding an opinion on that subject. We wish to influence the reader to adopt our way of thinking and the conclusions that spring from it, thus we will present our best argument in favor of the position we are discussing even when we make a genuine effort to be impartial. This is why I prefer to ask open ended questions that appear to have multiple answers (or worse, only one answer) and then present my thinking.
However from time to time I will point in a specific book because it does present open ended questions or dramatically points to our cognitive dissonances, then it asks the hard ‘why’ questions while trying to fill in the blanks. Or I will recommend it because it pushes the cognitive boundaries well past the accepted norm. This time I seem to have found a book that does many of these, Rupert Sheldrake’s “Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery”. The UK edition is titled “The Science Delusion.
In his book Rupert Sheldrake discusses in great detail ten fundamentally flawed assumptions or dogma that have infiltrated the western world’s worldview. He then explores possible answers to his own questions. Below is Sheldrake’s summary of modern science’s materialist ideology which I transcribed from an interview of Sheldrake on Red Ice Radio.
Number one; there is the assumption that nature is mechanical or machine like. That everything in nature, plants, animals and humans are machine like. Or as Richard Dawkins famously said, we are just lumbering robots and our brains are like genetically programmed computers.
Number two; that matter is unconscious. The entire universe is made up of unconscious matter which includes everything in nature including our bodies, but strangely our minds are somehow conscious. This illustrates one of the biggest problems in materialist science, that consciousness should not exist at all and yet it does, but exclusively within humans and maybe some animals and possibly a few other species.
Number three; the laws of nature are fixed, that they are the same as they were at the big bang and they will be the same forever. This infers that the “constants” such as the speed of light or the gravitational constant never change or vary.
Number four; that the total amount of matter and energy has always and will always remain the same beginning with the big bang and extending forward into infinity.
Number five; that nature is purposeless, that there is no purpose in animals and plants or in life as a whole. The entire evolutionary process has no purpose; it has just come about by blind chance and the laws of nature.
Number six; biological inheritance is material, it is all genetic or epigenetic or possibly in cytoplasmic inheritance, but in any case material.
Number seven; memories are stored as material traces inside the brain. All your memories are inside your head in some way stored in nerve endings or phosphorylated proteins or some other way. No one knows how, but the assumption is that they are there.
Number eight; your mind is inside your head, that it is an aspect of the activity of your brain.
Number nine; psychic phenomenon such as telepathy is illusory. They appear to exist, but they are not real. That’s because the mind is inside the head and can’t have any effects at a distance.
Number ten; mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works. Alternative and complementary therapies may appear to work, but that’s just because people would have got better anyway or it’s the placebo effect. That’s why governments, pharmaceutical companies, medical research organizations and universities funds only mechanistic medicine based upon the principal that the body is a machine working on chemistry and physics so it can only be treated by the same processes such as drugs or surgery. While that can be very effective up to a point, it’s just part of medicine.

Please recognize that the purpose of my continuous exercise in cognitive discombobulation, of questioning everything beginning with myself, is not intended to form new conclusions or even to modify my present day belief system mindset. Rather the desired effect is to expand my perceptive capacity, to push my self constrained thought boundaries far beyond my well manicured cognitive back yard and deep into the wooded forest beyond.
In other words it is the journey, not the destination that matters. By challenging our core beliefs, by demanding of ourselves that we look where the emotional and intellectual pain lay, once we honestly begin to do so sweeping new vistas open up. I have no idea what you will find when you look, only that you will find what you are looking for if you are sincere and persistent in your search.
Please note that I have not thoroughly read this book, only skimmed, though it is on my must read list to be perused over time. However I have carefully listened to four of Sheldrake’s interviews and I was impressed with his originality and fearless thought process. While he is a classically trained scientist he seems to have found a way to bridge both ice floes, that of a contrarian and of a traditionalist. If nothing else you might want to take a closer look at this one. I most certainly will.
There is nothing more exciting, or frightening, than breaking from the herd and crawling way out onto the end of the limb. Provided I continue to seek the courage to maintain my own personal journey I suspect I shall find many of you out there where it all begins.
03-03-2013
Cognitive Dissonance

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please educate yourself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrVi24pp_6I
One Thing is Certain: Heisenberg's
Uncertainty Principle is Dead
http://milesmathis.com/hup.pdf
.
"A few months ago (January 15, 2012), Scientific American ran an article called “One Thing is Certain:
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is not Dead.” Unfortunately, the content of their own article proved
the opposite.
This is what we have come to expect from the mainstream media, in all arenas and all subjects: poorly
disguised propaganda. They hardly even bother to hide data from you, they are so confident they can
tell you what to think just with a title and summation. They show you data that disproves A, they admit
that A has been disproved, but then somehow—miraculously—they spin this as a great confirmation of
A. You believe the title and the soaring music and the violins. You don't believe the data.
Even the subtitle contradicts the title:
Experimenters violate Heisenberg's original version of the famous maxim, but confirm a newer, clearer formulation.
If experimenters violated Heisenberg's version, then that version is dead, no? The “newer” version is
that of Earle Kennard, from 1927—which is not much newer (same year). And Scientific American
admits,
[Kennard's version] says that you cannot suppress quantum fluctuations of both position ?(q) and momentum ?(p)
lower than a certain limit simultaneously. The fluctuation exists regardless [of] whether it is measured or not, and
the inequality does not say anything about what happens when a measurement is performed. Kennard's
formulation is therefore totally different from Heisenberg's.
There it is in plain English, in their own article: Kennard's version does not say anything about
measurement and is totally different from Heisenberg's. Therefore, even if Kennard's version is
allowed to stand, Heisenberg's version is overturned. According to the logic of this article, the
principle should be renamed the Kennard Fluctuation Principle or something." ....
again, miles mathis
As usual, CD, you kicked the ball out of the park and then told us to find it in the tall grass. In many respects the old adage, "what you eat is what you are" also applies. I have recently been looking down that rabbit hole and my perception of reality has been torn open.
Keep up the good work and take care.
Rest assured I'm neck deep in that tall grass looking for the same damn ball.
Thanks for coming by to say Hi.
An old buddy of mine (you have to like someone whose nickname is "Gooner") once summed it up very succinctly. He said, "My philosophy is pretty simple: If there's any food or any beer anywhere in the world, some of it is mine."
This list of imponderable assumptions assumes that the author is conscious, that the reader is conscious by the end of the article, and that if there is not a soul why then there should be.
I think we've met. Or one just like you.
"I think we've met. Or one just like you."
I think I was the one seated behind you in the ready room while we were waiting our turn to reincarnate that kept talking up a storm while you just wanted to listen to your iPod. :)
There is no "delusional unanimity", only the appearance of it. Eventually all paradigms crash leaving room for other ideas and so we progress from crisis to crisis more surely than by regular increments.
The future of science today, just as for the economy, looks like more of the same only due to our inability to question dogmas or more precisely our collective inability to listen to those who do. We consequently need crisis and their creative destruction power to overturn what at some stage sounded like solid but were in fact sclerotic beliefs and open new doors. Only in retrospect can we understand and appreciate this process.
In other words: Heretics are rejected, reabilitated, after they die usually, become heroes then saints and the process starts again...
Say Cog--good article. You say:
"...we have discovered books written fifty, a hundred, two hundred years ago that nail concepts (or just open the mind to other possibilities) that have all been summarily dismissed by the modern day..."
Was one of them Owen Barfield's Saving the Appearances? If not, you might want to take a look...
I have seen this title referenced elsewhere, but I have not read Barfield. I will purchase Saving the Appearances.
Based upon the description it looks like I will learn much. Thank you.
Not saying these have all the answers or any for that matter, but...
Some further reading to provoke more thinking:
The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge by Jeremy Narby
Supernatural: Meetings With The Ancient Teachers Of Mankind by Graham Hancock
The Holographic Universe: The Revolutionary Theory of Reality by Michael Talbot
Not in His Image: Gnostic Vision, Sacred Ecology, and the Future of Belief by John Lamb Lash
edit: It seems to me that that the 'answers' modern science provides depends upon who's funding the research/studies.
INDEED, "the 'answers' modern science provides depends upon who's funding the research/studies."
Therefore, since what made War King then made Fraud King, the banksters could dominate our world views.
Since the Fraud Kings control the money system, therefore, "science" has become way too fraudulent.
Since the Fraud Kings depend on triumphant deceits, backed by violence, to maintain their power to dominate our civilization, the vast majority of "science" gets employed to be better at dishonesty and violence, while other alternatives are systematically discredited and destroyed. It is hard to imagine anything more disenchanting than that!
Science is within the paradoxes of militarism. Since success in military affairs depended upon deceits, and nobody guards the guardians, "science" is not ideally objective, but influenced to struggle to survive inside of a culture controlled by deceits. Theoretically, we need a revolutoin in the paradigm of science which embraces the paradox that the oldest and best developed social science was warfare, while success in warfare depended upon being the best at being dishonest, and backing that up with violence.
A sublime social science would have to cope with the paradoxes of militarism. So far, there is nothing remotely close to that, since our society is actually dominated by the best professional liars and immaculate hypocrites that money can buy. Alternative scientists are very likely to be unemployed, while those who advance the interests of the banksters are well-paid.
Look at the "quants" in the financial world today. Some of the brigthest and best mathematicians are working for the banksters, to automate their runaway frauds. Otherwise, they would be unemployed, since society is already dominated by the banksters, who systematically destroy their competition.
Look at the profit from disease systems, as another example, where the science of medicine got totally warped by the history of institutions being funded by the banksters and their buddies. "Peer review" takes place in the context of those peers all being the survivors of the prolonged selection processes imposed by the banksters, testing what would provide the maximum private profit. Thus, what is "medicine" in America today is primarily torturing people to death.
There is not any way around the basic facts: money is backed by murder, and therefore, the funding of science serves murder. The science of murder is militarism, and paradigm shifts in militarism are the most important scientific revolutions which we need, although, of course, also the most practically impossible ones to imagine being able to happen.
Therefore, what we now call "science" is increasingly becoming the most irrational thing that we do, because we are likely going to learn only through weapons of mass destruction finally being used in out of control ways, as the result of the banksters continuing to resort to force, to back up their frauds.
I have read every book you list except the first. A 'new' name to me, but no longer.
Thank you for that.
You're welcome...and thank you for your efforts here @ ZH as well.
I should have included these two, in my list of further reading above, as well:
DMT: The Spirit Molecule by Rick Strassman MD(who claims Rupert Sheldrake as his mentor)
The Exegesis of Philip K Dick(reading Dick's 'ramblings' in this will truly bend your mind...)
To my good friend CD:
I hope you are well. This is a nice piece -- good work. To add to your reading list and library, may I recommend a good book on examining "cognitive biases" in making decisions. The book was published in 2011. It is entitled: "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman.
The book is well researched and flows well. Dr. Kahneman discusses and outlines two main ways we humans make decisions; including how we decipher and perceive input and information and draw conclusions (often incorrectly).
In closing, I hope and trust you and the family are well. Keep up the good work.
Sincerely, AR
It looks like the paperback version comes out April 2nd.
Nice to find you haunting my thread again AR. Welcome.
Late to the party on this one.... time zones are a bitch.
Thanks CD... I look forward to your thoughtful essays!
It's an exciting journey of self-discovery :)
When I plan my posting times I always take into consideration the west coast crew. It is one of the reasons why I try to post around 7 pm east coast time, to allow myself time to respond to the west coat crew after they have finished supper and are just hitting the computer and still have a chance of remaining on the top of the front page of ZH for the east coast morning crowd.
Thanks for the thought-provoking article! really enjoyed it. Thanks also for reminding me of Sheldrake. I read his "Presence of the Past" several years ago and was fascinated.
I wish I had found Sheldrake earlier. Actually I did several years ago, but then I made the mistake of not directing my full attention upon him and I moved on.
Now I am backing and filling my chart. :)
CD, most of what you're writing here becomes a dog chasing its tail exercise.
It doesn't get you anywhere. Tell the dog to stop and just look at its tail, that's the best it can do.
Most of Rupert Sheldrake's "ten fundamentally flawed assumptions" points are useless. He even states himself: those are assumptions. But currently these are the best assumptions we can come up with, according to Occam's razor. If he believes he has better ones, he should share them.
Maybe it would serve better to question the ability of individuals to scrutinize their views and recall the meaning of the word "assumption" instead of pointing towards the effects. Remarks on some:
Number five: The entire evolutionary process has no purpose. Define purpose, from the view of an evolution process. My personal Occam result is the "goal" of nature seems to be self-organizing pattern reproduction. (Therefore I find the second law of thermodynamics to be often overused.)
Number seven: memories are stored as material traces inside the brain. While basically correct, one must conceptualize that there is likely never any "state" of the brain, such as a turned off harddisk has. All kind of electrical currents and chemical ratios and whatnot are in permanent flux and its not possible to take a consistent snapshot. Which for example in my understanding means the idea of transporter "beaming" is principally impossible to achieve while keeping the mind of a transported person intact.
For German readers, how about a dose of awesome tying things together, instead of endlessly trying to deconstruct them in new ways - just found it recently:
http://www.plichta.de/pp24/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=22
Otherwise
"...you wake up and believe whatever you want to believe!"
"Most of Rupert Sheldrake's "ten fundamentally flawed assumptions" points are useless. He even states himself: those are assumptions. But currently these are the best assumptions we can come up with, according to Occam's razor. If he believes he has better ones, he should share them."
Sheldrake was not expressing his views, but rather that of materials science and the world in general. He was simply listing them all in one place. He spends several hundred pages showing how those assumptions and beliefs have hobbled the world. You might want to purchase his book.
Thank you for stopping by and leaving your mark.
If "those assumptions have hobbled the world" what, in very general terms, is/are his proposed remedies?
Today's reality is we already have a world in which most people use more emotional than rational means to construct their world view. Yes they may be using "prefabricated" pieces including some of the said assumptions, but that the resulting world view is a mess is largely NOT caused by wrong assumptions or even that those assumptions exist at all - it's caused by incorrect use of those.
In other words if people fail to pickup in school that one of the most important things to understand is "the more I learn, the more I realize I know nothing" they may have a problem much more basic than how certain assumptions are spelled out.
"If "those assumptions have hobbled the world" what, in very general terms, is/are his proposed remedies?"
Read the book my friend and discover it for yourself. I am not promoting Sheldrake's conclusions, just his questions.
The problem of death is a negative side effect of intelligence. Nothing to worry about really. Really, nothing to worry about.
nature prepares us for it every night.
The long sleep. Nice blindman.
On facebook everyone is trapped and then harvested to trap them more. Untill the parasites kill their hosts. Strange business model.
I think there is a very good reason we see with a distorted lens - it "works".
It is socially/economically advantageous to all subscribe to the same worldview.
Until it isn't of course, and then we all simply change our minds, and don't worry about any dissonance or hypocrisy involved.
The reason we are not very good at rational, sensible and logical, is because herding is better. There is a unique power to mass parallelism.
Swarm intelligence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_intelligence
Also/related [toot my own horn]. http://recision.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/logic/
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The seach for Spock has begun. :)
Thank you for the link to your blog. Your first paragraph.
"Humans don’t do Logic, our brains aren’t wired that way.
The human brain does lots of amazing things, but Logic really isn’t one of them. In order to get something approaching Logic, first you need to search through the whole child population and sift out the likeliest candidates, then train and cull them rigorously for many years. Then, keep what’s left in an academic bubble, while you feed them problems to work on. And finally, rigorously peer review everything that they produce, in multiple times and ways, in order to find if there is still some way they have managed to screw up the process."
"The clue," he said, " is time. time is a variable and subjective; a bubble out of the anvil of Eternity. Whenever time appears, so does the carrier of consciousness, that is, life."
I suspect that there is more to William Shakespeare's As You Like It, spoken by the melancholy Jaques in Act II Scene VII, than is given credit: "All the world's a stage ...".
And, no magnetic field, no life and therefore no subjective time.
http://verbewarp.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/waiting-to-die.html
Excellent discussion: Thank you.
Ho hum
or consider this:
Time = Speed = C.
or...
Space/time = distance/speed
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or another one...
Mass = E + Curvature
[energy inside the curvature "event horizon" (closed in on itself) = mass. Think about particle trace plots if you are having trouble with this]
... just a thought...
so is everything of the same oneness just manifest
as "different"? ie energy is mass over space, or space is
time squared, or mass squared is space and mass cubed is time?
did i lend you my log splitting wedges or was that my neighbor?
are you the same person as my neighbor, or the same person
who began reading the comment? will you be the same person when
you have finished reading this comment? are we the same person?
are the wedges
actually in the garage but i just can't see them?
seriously !
and the word mindset? does the mind ever set and if it does
does it then also rise later? for technological reasons i suppose
we need conclusions and pronouncements, models and set, off the cuff
analogies to communicate, but, but ..... is that consciousness or
the result of abandoning consciousness for the sake of expediency?
and uncle billy may have lost his marbles but he remained excellent
company once he gave up on trying to regain them!
.
he said.. " there is a mystery to life and i can live well with it. "
i wondered, can we live without it, the mystery? can we talk it away
forever? map out the last unique and yet to unfold instance of
energetic exchange of fields n' things in, yes, perpetual motion
for all intents and purposes?
i have yet to find a quiet, still place where there is no breeze
or movement on the waters, and still looking for the wedge to
split a log.
pardon and apologies, i don't know what came over me.
I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. . .
as you well know.
I Am The Walrus (sung by JIM CARREY)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=IL&v=7MoWQSe3txY&hl=en&feature=related
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and this goes here ... no, it goes below but here it is.
.
Joe Ely "The Road Goes on Forever"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu56oi8ui84
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there must be much more but ....
yikes ..... a quantum theory 'observation' debate erupts on ZH. Holy Batman, we descend into quantum measurement problem dialogues now at ZH. Come on, I'll take the assessment of Beppe and Bunga Bunga over any 'observation' dilemma discussion.
And a perfect example of the triumph of materials science over the collective mind. Only 'real' things are worthy of study, of our focus and attention.
You stumbled upon the wrong blog thread my friend. It's all just a really bad dream. :)
Hard to know how to respond to this in a short space... The relationship between perception and reality is one to which I have given much thought over the course of some fifty plus years... Starting with the commitment I made to objective reasoning at the age of four... And there is much that you have written I could agree with... Yet there is a good deal that is also disturbing.
You are correct that hubris is the defining feature of our age... Such is the case with all societies that, having achieved greatness, upon reaching their pinnacle have begun the slide back into darkness. In such an age knowledge, what is accepted as knowledge, becomes a substitute for wisdom... that is the study of self imposed limits as well as those limits by which we are actually bound.
And you are also largely accurate in terms of the listing you have made regarding many of the tenets of modern science.
On the other hand, what particularly bothers me is your suggestion that the search for truth is some kind of personal inward journey. We all begin with faith... in something... It is that faith that defines perception. And yet if there is truth then truth stands apart from our faith, and the one bears relationship to the other only in so much as we have placed our faith in that which is real. Thus, it is not the journey, as you have stated, but rather the starting point that defines our ultimate understanding.
"On the other hand, what particularly bothers me is your suggestion that the search for truth is some kind of personal inward journey. We all begin with faith... in something... It is that faith that defines perception. And yet if there is truth then truth stands apart from our faith, and the one bears relationship to the other only in so much as we have placed our faith in that which is real. Thus, it is not the journey, as you have stated, but rather the starting point that defines our ultimate understanding."
I disagree. But I do appreciate that you took the time to contribute your thoughts. Thank you.
Actually... You don't... Disagree that is... but your response does not surprise me. Your thoughts are a bit entangled... You admit that in a mathematical process mistakes made at the beginning lead to huge errors later on... What we place our faith in does not necessarily determine the events of our lives, but it does determine our response.
Unfortunately, most people do not acknowledge their own foundational beliefs and go through their lives with little understanding of the forces that drive them. At any rate, I have just woken up... Haven't had my first cup of coffee... Suspect you and I could have some interesting chats... Rare to encounter someone who questions reality. Most folks just assume that the stuff in their head is real.
Much like my sheep actually... lambing season here... and the newborn come into a ready made world... Their world views are established quickly,
defined largely by a stall and small pen just outside... And they are born into a community of sheep that very quickly teach them what it means to be a sheep. Their routine soon settles around feeding times, play time and sleep. In short, in some pretty significant ways, they are not so dissimilar from us. And it never occurs to them that adjacent to the pen where they play is a slaughter pen, or that across from their stall is a butcher shop. I am seen as benevolent because I bring them food and
water and otherwise care for their needs.
Anyway, my coffee is here, and life has it's priorities...
"What we place our faith in does not necessarily determine the events of our lives, but it does determine our response."
Having ridden motorcycles most of my life I think I have to question this statement. But then I've already had way to much coffee <G>
I have no doubt that I am confused and entangled. Mrs. Cog reminds me of this all the time. :)
That is the purpose for my writing; to try and unravel the big pile of entangled yarn that I have suddenly found directly in front of my nose. I avoid reading large tomes written by those who claim to have figured some or all of it out and prefer to just follow my nose. Sometimes it winds up full of sheep shit, others times Gold. It's all good stuff.
Thanks for leaving your comments. I always appreciate the feedback even when I don't fully agree. I do not have the answers, just more questions than most and less than some.
Science is the study of our world. There is good science and there is bad sicence. And there are those who invoke "science" to lend legitimacy to imaginings that have not been tested rigorously. Perhaps imaginings that are being used to further an agenda. The observent, inquisitive, critically thinking reader will distinguish between pulp and valid research, given a willingness to learn and test ideas.
Respectfully numbers 1-10 are hot air and straw soldiers. Assumptions make an ASS of U & ME.
Science is very incrermental if done properly. Each experiment tests a hypothesis and the data either supports the hypothesis, is ambiguous, or disproves the hypothesis. Even if the data supports the hypothesis, it does not mean that the hypothesis is true or even a good hypothesis. We must stand humble in this universe (multiverse?) and recognize that the hypothesis is a creation of our existing understanding of reality and could be misguided. However we can still move forward in our understanding of the world through each experiment. At some point we sit back and synthesize the knowledge gleaned collectively from the data and come up with theories. Good sicence is subjected to and withstands objective & critical peer review. It is also fluid and open to new data or superior interpretation of existing data.
Separate out the politics and trashy "marketing in disguise" crap and give a little credit to those who seek knowledge for knowledge sake.
I'm not addressing that science and technology develops faster than our own ability to use it in a moral and ethical manner. That sucks.
Your work is thought provoking, but don't dis those who seek to learn more about the world we live in. It is one of the more productive endeavors that are pursued as a career in these dying days of the FIRE economy.
Respectfully, D
CD you would probably be interested to read this if you have not already...
Thomas Nagel - What is it like to be a bat?
I was hooked at the first paragraph. Thank you.
"Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable. Perhaps that is why current discussions of the problem give it little attention or get it obviously wrong. The recent wave of reductionist euphoria has produced several analyses of mental phenomena and mental concepts designed to explain the possibility of some variety of materialism, psychophysical identification, or reduction. But the problems dealt with are those common to this type of reduction and other types, and what makes the mind-body problem unique, and unlike the water-H2O problem or the Turing machine-IBM machine problem or the lightning-electrical discharge problem or the gene-DNA problem or the oak tree-hydrocarbon problem, is ignored."
What evolutionary process? What big bang? Where did the matter originate before it "banged"? The 10 points are thoughtful, but are challenging extensions of points that have no foundation.
CD, I love your work, but I think you overstate how all-encompassing the "worldview" actually is. There are (I presume) a lot of us that don't contemplate these issues at all. We marvel at the "science" that cannot establish a firm foundation for its extended theories. Scientists cannot explain gravity, which is perhaps the most significant force that dictates the physical world. The "big bang" theory skips the more important question - where did the matter originate? To me the whole big bang theory is a pointless exercise if one is not going to contemplate the larger question.
When I look out the window - any window - I see things with known and unknown purposes. I see creative adventures - who built that structure, why, how long did it take, what did they discuss while they were building it, how did it go, etc. Physical sciences are far better at trying to divine what and how, but seem to miss big on the why questions.
My two cents.
I fully agree that materials science has a major part to play within our lives. Fully on board with that concept. I strenuously object to materials science being used to explain all things to all people by claiming that they are the one true truth and it is only a matter of time until they have it all figured out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS7X_q06L94
I give up...so what? Should we feel somehow deficient?
The truth that people cannot perceive is of far less consequence than the truth about themselves that they attempt to hide.