The God Within: Science vs Consciousness

First of all if you don’t understand physics then how can you say that it does not work? If I don’t know how an airplane works does it mean it can’t work? If you know what a human body is made of, you know how it works, but you can newer know absolutely accurately so the prediction of the future action come with an error. And everything Hawkins points out is that science has a better idea on human physics and shows the conclusion it is pointing to. It does not mean that we don’t have a consciousness, it just means that we have a better understanding of the whole when we know the things it comprises of and our old definition of consciousness clearly does not fit in to reality.
And second there is also a flip side to determinism, a more positive one, than showed here. If you know that we as humans respond to certain stimuli with a certain action you could prevent absolutely all crime and human misery by designing society in a way that does not make us resort to violence or cause unhappiness. Because when you look at the science side of the story it only says “Look these are the results that predict this or point to that” so this does not mean that consciousness does not exist, it merely states a new definition to the term and bringing it up to today’s knowledge.
Thirdly if you understand how a human works on physical level you know that none of us have a free will, we are all ships, traveling in the sea of physical world. But as you also know, while watching a movie in a cinema, that it is not real, yet you still feel the emotions from it. The is how powerful is our consciousness what ever it is.
I dare everyone to do their own research and realize that we are all scientists as we all make tests, acquire results, analyze and make theories on daily bases. If you don’t understand it does not mean it was god!

This is the worst mini-documentary i have ever watched.

I thought that the page is called TRUTHtheory. This is just a lot`s of blahs here.
I recommend that Mr Adams pay attention to the killers who rule the world, left a quadriplegic, for which i am not sure he even wrote to the dispute here.

A documentary criticizing science based on belief arguments is nothing but a void. Science is not about belief in any way.

It’s not that “physics alone can explain everything.” But if it’s actual explanations you’re looking for – grounded in real observed phenomena instead of hypotheses about as-yet-undermined higher dimensions – well, explanations rely on some sense of cause-and-effect, agreed upon by the explainer and the explainee. So I’m afraid there will have to be some grounding in science, or else you can only deal with pre-formed true believers. Natch.

I think the essence of what the filmmaker is going for is that consciousness does not emerge out of physical processes, but the other way around. That physical reality, or the perception of it, is a process of mind. This is ‘Maya’ – illusion. So good is this illusion that most scientist fall for it and think that consciousness is a mere by product of what is in reality, an illusion of its own making.
I think that if it can be shown that consciousness survives the body, or can gather information beyond the use of physical senses, then QED the mind or consciousness is superlative to the brain or body. And there is plenty of scientific evidence to support such a position. Such as the work of Claude Swanson.

Well, if you don’t like Swanson there are lots of others. The theory that consciousness is primary only needs one white crow which is to show that mind survives/transcends the body. There are so many examples of this. Consider Michael Grosso’s book Experiencing the Next World Now. Watch Peter Russell’s video on the Primacy of Consciousness, or the work of Dr. Sam Parnia, or Princeton University’s work on EEG or the simple falling bearings experiment. This is not wishful thinking, it is logical conclusion of evidence.
One can always argue against, like NIST’s examination of the collapse of building seven concluding it was not a controlled demolition. Similarly, one can insist the parrot is not dead.
Trouble is, reality is not only an illusion….its such a good one.

Also, you state…. “because something is outside our common experience it doesn’t make it ‘mystical’ in any sense that would connect with ancient theology-cosmology, nor should we take ancient notions about the cosmos as evidence of anything but the nature of the mind which is produced as an effect of the brain” You assume mind is an effect and argue from there. There are good reasons to come to terms with a conscious based universe, as physicist John Wheeler and Amit Goswami have done. We’ll get a lot further and a lot faster in this universe if we have the proper paradigm with which to search. Presently we have the cart before the horse.
Of course a conscious based universe does not diminish the beauty and majesty of physical illusion. Its still a a wondrous thing…. even more so.

Color me obstinate, but I simply don’t see the utility of a “mind which transcends the body.” And I find the very concept undignified in the face of billions of years of biological evolution. The physics actually work, and they alone are sufficient to produce all the phenomena that we see and experience, including the subjective experience of one’s own mind.

Indeed, the world is Maya! But the fundamental way in which it is an “illusion” is that it’s constantly re-framed and re-colored by a thinking mind in its own provisional terms. Indeed, they so say, “all is mind.” But not because the reality “out there” is “made of mind.” The point of that statement is to point out that all you or I ever experience is the contents of our individual minds.

For quite a long time it was important to me to think that my mind couldn’t just be the result of electrical activity, that there had to be some “other place” where it “went” or that there had to be an infinite regress of “perceivers.” But Dennett convinced me that none of that is required. And I feel it is best to suspend judgment until there’s a broader scientific consensus arising from new and repeatable observations, and not until all natural explanations or avenues of inquiry are exhausted.

So what I’m doing is studying science much more, reading Darwin, Feynman, and others, getting familiar with biology, chemistry, physics, quantum mechanics, etc. This, it seems to me, will help me to keep overcoming my temptation to fall into believing too strongly – or wanting to believe – my own idle speculations.

Above all, rigor and discipline! Meditate faithfully, stay hydrated, don’t rely on mystical intervention too much, and continue to engender a deep respect and trust in the process of science, in spite of my impatience for the facts to align with the old myths.

(P.S. When I mentioned “a mind which transcends the body” of course I was referring to a mind that survives death, and not the more proper meaning, which is a mind sufficiently trained to overcome psychologically its attachment to the body.)

I applaud your scientific skepticism. I share it. But you argue from the position of your conclusion and those ‘billions of years of biological evolution’ are not necessarily so clear cut that change occurred due to natural selection of mutation. Even Crick abandoned NeoDarwinism due to its ability to crunch the numbers. Berlinski and others make good arguments that refute Dennett and Dawkins (IMO). Have you seen Milton’s book Shattering the Myths of Darwin? I don’t propose a God, for that is not scientific…it doesn’t give a real answer, but neither does Darwinism when examined closely. Both religion and mainstream biology are saying the same thing…”given enough time, anything is possible” But the Genome project vexed Darwinianism, due to the lack of pairing genes to proteins, etc., etc….
As to the utility…what is the value of a newborn baby? let alone a true representation of reality? Lord knows the governments, both east and west have been exploring this field for generations. Oil Companies have a long history of using dowsers for finding oil. Uri Geller did not make his money as a showman nearly as much as a dowser for them. I believe this was not a talent garnered from a physical based universe. Who knows what awaits?
If I might speculate, perhaps the world, for whatever reason, is set up so that physical and mental events and processes are so tightly linked…e.g. emotional states coincide with neurological states, so closely that one can argue either way which has preeminence, thus making it difficult to find solid ground into which either camp can stake its claim. (hence the search, for example, on the part of materialist for the higgs-boson) In the end, we may be left with only antidotes.
Again, I think God is a metaphor for this new approach to physics. I we could arrive at a rational description of this metaphor, perhaps the slaughters that have accompanied human history will begin to recede. Once it is really accepted, that consciousness survives the body, personal responsibility, even to the level of corporate CEO’s, will not be embraced so strongly by only the superstitious.

I mean inability to crunch the numbers…. and anecdotes, not antidotes, (spell checker got one past me there, though one might admit, antidotes kinda fits, too)

The idea that consciousness arises strictly from the brain is ludicrous, as it does not explain non-local properties of consciousness – such as telepathy, telekenesis and remote viewing, all of which may be small effects but which measured by meta-analysis of peer-reviewed experiments show odds against chance of billions to one. See Dean Radin’s books “The Conscious Universe” and “Entangled Minds” for the analysis. Radin is a U or Illinois PhD and chief scientist for the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

Non-local consciousness in animals as well as humans is explored by British biologist Rupert Sheldrake in several books, most notably “Dogs Who Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home” and “The Sense Of Being Stared At.”

Physics students are discouraged from thinking about these things. In physics professor Amit Goswami’s book, “The Self-Aware Universe” he notes that as a grad student he was firmly advised against any inquiries like that as being career-limiting and told to just learn how to solve the equations. So he did, but 20 years later, with a firmly tenured physics professorship and a published quantum physics textbook, he was able to begin looking at these issues without getting fired.

I think the real question this video asks is – why are scientists so afraid to address these issues? Is not science a search for truth, or is it just a search for confirmation of our beliefs? As Isaac Asimov wrote: “Great discoveries are not marked by someone yelling ‘Eureka!!’ but by someone muttering, ‘Humm, that’s interesting!’”

Some atheists can be such zealots. I have never belonged to a religious group or attended a religious ceremony and I have encountered some pretty obsessive religious folks but nothing compares to the judgment, belittlement and unsolicited cruelty unleashed by some atheists. Science has become the God force for some of them, and any suggestion that this science is faulty or has been disproven will infuriate them.

If these phenomena are real, their evidence will emerge from rigorous application of the scientific process. Let’s just wait and see, shall we?

That is a fair statement on the face of it, but there is more at work here…a coordinated effort by much of academia to bury these findings that point toward a conscious based universe. That is the beef. And a justified one at that, considering that there may be great benefits to its acceptance. For example, the work of physicist John Hagelin’ work on TM to effect social benefit.