Great post!
On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 8:22 AM, Roger Critchlow <[email protected]> wrote: > David Gelernter's attack on materialist chutzpah: > > > http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-closing-of-the-scientific-mind/ > > -- rec -- > > > On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 10:03 PM, Rich Murray <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: Mark M (Giese) <[email protected]> >> Date: Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:02 PM >> Subject: [sethmessageboard] ten core beliefs that most scientists take >> for granted [1 attachment] >> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>, >> "[email protected]" <[email protected]>, >> [email protected], [email protected] >> >> >> >> Ask Deepak <https://www.deepakchopra.com/blog/category/15/ask_deepak> >> Video Blog<https://www.deepakchopra.com/video/category/14/ask_deepak_videos> >> [image: Rupert Sheldrake] >> August 27 2013 Rupert Sheldrake Ph.D Category: Guest >> Bloggers<https://www.deepakchopra.com/blog/category/5/guest_bloggers> >> Biography >> >> <https://www.deepakchopra.com/blog/view/1267/_the_scientific_creed_and_the_credibility_crunch_for_materialism#> >> The Scientific Creed and the Credibility Crunch for Materialism >> by *Rupert Sheldrake*, Ph.D; biologist and author of Science Set >> Free<http://www.deepakchopra.com/book/view/927> >> >> The “scientific worldview” is immensely influential because the sciences >> have been so successful. No one can fail to be awed by their achievements, >> which touch all our lives through technologies and through modern medicine. >> Our intellectual world has been transformed through an immense expansion >> of our knowledge, down into the most microscopic particles of matter and >> out into the vastness of space, with hundreds of billions of galaxies in an >> ever-expanding universe. >> >> Yet in the second decade of the twenty-first century, when science and >> technology seem to be at the peak of the power, when their influence has >> spread all over the world and when their triumph seems indisputable, >> unexpected problems are disrupting the sciences from within. Most >> scientists take it for granted that these problems will eventually be >> solved by more research along established lines, but some, including >> myself, think that they are symptoms of a deeper malaise. Science is being >> held back by centuries-old assumptions that have hardened into dogmas. The >> sciences would be better off without them: freer, more interesting, and >> more fun. >> >> The biggest scientific delusion of all is that science already knows the >> answers. The details still need working out, but the fundamental questions >> are settled, in principle. >> Contemporary science is based on the claim that all reality is material >> or physical. There is no reality but material reality. Consciousness is a >> by-product of the physical activity of the brain. Matter is unconscious. >> Evolution is purposeless. God exists only as an idea in human minds, and >> hence in human heads. >> >> These beliefs are powerful not because most scientists think about them >> critically, but because they don’t. The facts of science are real enough, >> and so are the techniques that scientists use, and so are the technologies >> based on them. But the belief system that governs conventional scientific >> thinking is an act of faith, grounded in a nineteenth century ideology. >> >> >> *The scientific creed * >> >> Here are the ten core beliefs that most scientists take for granted. >> >> 1. Everything is essentially mechanical. Dogs, for example, are complex >> mechanisms, rather than living organisms with goals of their own. Even >> people are machines, “lumbering robots”, in Richard Dawkins’ vivid phrase, >> with brains that are like genetically programmed computers. >> >> 2. All matter is unconscious. It has no inner life or subjectivity or >> point of view. Even human consciousness is an illusion produced by the >> material activities of brains. >> >> 3. The total amount of matter and energy is always the same (with the >> exception of the Big Bang, when all the matter and energy of the universe >> suddenly appeared). >> >> 4. The laws of nature are fixed. They are the same today as they were at >> the beginning, and they will stay the same forever. >> >> 5. Nature is purposeless, and evolution has no goal or direction. >> >> 6. All biological inheritance is material, carried in the genetic >> material, DNA, and in other material structures. >> >> 7. Minds are inside heads and are nothing but the activities of brains. >> When you look at a tree, the image of the tree you are seeing is not “out >> there”, where it seems to be, but inside your brain. >> >> 8. Memories are stored as material traces in brains and are wiped out at >> death. >> >> 9. Unexplained phenomena like telepathy are illusory. >> >> 10. Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works. >> >> >> Together, these beliefs make up the philosophy or ideology of >> materialism, whose central assumption is that everything is essentially >> material or physical, even minds. This belief-system became dominant within >> science in the late nineteenth century, and is now taken for granted. Many >> scientists are unaware that materialism is an assumption; they simply think >> of it as science, or the scientific view of reality, or the scientific >> worldview. They are not actually taught about it, or given a chance to >> discuss it. They absorb it by a kind of intellectual osmosis. >> >> In everyday usage, materialism refers to a way of life devoted entirely >> to material interests, a preoccupation with wealth, possessions and luxury. >> These attitudes are no doubt encouraged by the materialist philosophy, >> which denies the existence of any spiritual realities or non-material >> goals, but in this article I am concerned with materialism’s scientific >> claims, rather than its effects on lifestyles. >> >> In the spirit of radical scepticism, each of these ten doctrines can be >> turned into a question, as I show in my book Science Set Free (called The >> Science Delusion in the UK). Entirely new vistas open up when a widely >> accepted assumption is taken as the beginning of an enquiry, rather than as >> an unquestionable truth. For example, the assumption that nature is >> machine-like or mechanical becomes a question: “Is nature mechanical?” The >> assumption that matter is unconscious becomes “Is matter unconscious?” And >> so on. >> >> *The credibility crunch for the “scientific worldview”* >> >> For more than 200 years, materialists have promised that science will >> eventually explain everything in terms of physics and chemistry. Science >> will prove that living organisms are complex machines, minds are nothing >> but brain activity and nature is purposeless. Believers are sustained by >> the faith that scientific discoveries will justify their beliefs. The >> philosopher of science Karl Popper called this stance "promissory >> materialism" because it depends on issuing promissory notes for discoveries >> not yet made. Despite all the achievements of science and technology, >> materialism is now facing a credibility crunch that was unimaginable in the >> twentieth century. >> >> In 1963, when I was studying biochemistry at Cambridge University, I was >> invited to a series of private meetings with Francis Crick and Sydney >> Brenner in Brenner's rooms in King's College, along with a few of my >> classmates. Crick and Brenner had recently helped to “crack” the genetic >> code. Both were ardent materialists and Crick was also a militant atheist. >> They explained there were two major unsolved problems in biology: >> development and consciousness. They had not been solved because the people >> who worked on them were not molecular biologists—nor very bright. Crick and >> Brenner were going to find the answers within 10 years, or maybe 20. >> Brenner would take developmental biology, and Crick consciousness. They >> invited us to join them. >> >> Both tried their best. Brenner was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002 for >> his work on the development of a tiny worm, Caenorhabdytis elegans. Crick >> corrected the manuscript of his final paper on the brain the day before he >> died in 2004. At his funeral, his son Michael said that what made him tick >> was not the desire to be famous, wealthy or popular, but "to knock the >> final nail into the coffin of vitalism." (Vitalism is the theory that >> living organisms are truly alive, and not explicable in terms of physics >> and chemistry alone.) >> Crick and Brenner failed. The problems of development and consciousness >> remain unsolved. Many details have been discovered, dozens of genomes have >> been sequenced, and brain scans are ever more precise. But there is still >> no proof that life and minds can be explained by physics and chemistry >> alone. >> >> The fundamental proposition of materialism is that matter is the only >> reality. Therefore consciousness is nothing but brain activity. It is >> either like a shadow, an “epiphenomenon”, that does nothing, or it is just >> another way of talking about brain activity. However, among contemporary >> researchers in neuroscience and consciousness studies there is no consensus >> about the nature of minds. Leading journals such as Behavioural and Brain >> Sciences and the Journal of Consciousness Studies publish many articles >> that reveal deep problems with the materialist doctrine. The philosopher >> David Chalmers has called the very existence of subjective experience the >> "hard problem”. It is hard because it defies explanation in terms of >> mechanisms. Even if we understand how eyes and brains respond to red light, >> the experience of redness is not accounted for. >> >> In biology and psychology the credibility rating of materialism is >> falling. Can physics ride to the rescue? Some materialists prefer to call >> themselves physicalists, to emphasize that their hopes depend on modern >> physics, not nineteenth-century theories of matter. But physicalism's own >> credibility rating has been reduced by physics itself, for four reasons: >> First, some physicists insist that quantum mechanics cannot be formulated >> without taking into account the minds of observers. They argue that minds >> cannot be reduced to physics because physics presupposes the minds of >> physicists. >> >> Second, the most ambitious unified theories of physical reality, string >> and M-theories, with ten and eleven dimensions respectively, take science >> into completely new territory. Strangely, as Stephen Hawking tells us in >> his book The Grand Design (2010), “No one seems to know what the ‘M’ stands >> for, but it may be ‘master’, ‘miracle’ or ‘mystery’”. According to what >> Hawking calls “model-dependent realism”, different theories may have to be >> applied in different situations. “Each theory may have its own version of >> reality, but according to model-dependent realism, that is acceptable so >> long as the theories agree in their predictions whenever they overlap, that >> is, whenever they can both be applied”. >> >> String theories and M-theories are currently untestable, so >> “model-dependent realism” can only be judged by reference to other models, >> rather than by experiment. It also applies to countless other universes, >> none of which has ever been observed. >> Some physicists are deeply sceptical about this entire approach, as the >> theoretical physicist Lee Smolin shows in his book The Trouble With >> Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science and What Comes >> Next (2008). String theories, M-theories and “model-dependent realism” are >> a shaky foundation for materialism or physicalism or any other belief >> system. >> >> Third, since the beginning of the twenty-first century, it has become >> apparent that the known kinds of matter and energy make up only about 4 >> percent of the universe. The rest consists of “dark matter” and “dark >> energy”. The nature of 96 percent of physical reality is literally obscure. >> >> Fourth, the Cosmological Anthropic Principle asserts that if the laws and >> constants of nature had been slightly different at the moment of the Big >> Bang, biological life could never have emerged, and hence we would not be >> here to think about it. So did a divine mind fine-tune the laws and >> constants in the beginning? To avoid a creator God emerging in a new guise, >> most leading cosmologists prefer to believe that our universe is one of a >> vast, and perhaps infinite, number of parallel universes, all with >> different laws and constants, as M-theory also suggests. We just happen to >> exist in the one that has the right conditions for us. >> >> This multiverse theory is the ultimate violation of Ockham's Razor, the >> philosophical principle that “entities must not be multiplied beyond >> necessity”, or in other words that we should make as few assumptions as >> possible. It also has the major disadvantage of being untestable. And it >> does not even succeed in getting rid of God. An infinite God could be the >> God of an infinite number of universes. >> >> Materialism provided a seemingly simple, straightforward worldview in the >> late nineteenth century, but twenty-first century science has left it far >> behind. Its promises have not been fulfilled, and its promissory notes have >> been devalued by hyperinflation. >> I am convinced that the sciences are being held back by assumptions that >> have hardened into dogmas, maintained by powerful taboos. These beliefs >> protect the citadel of established science, but act as barriers against >> open-minded thinking. >> >> >> This article is based on Rupert Sheldrake’s book Science Set >> Free<http://www.deepakchopra.com/book/view/927>, >> published in paperback on September 3. Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and >> author of more than 80 scientific papers and 10 books. He was a Fellow of >> Clare College, Cambridge, a Research Fellow of the Royal Society, Principal >> Plant Physiologist at ICRISAT (the International Crops Research Institute >> for the Semi-Arid Tropics) in Hyderabad, India, and from 2005-2010 the >> Director of the Perrott-Warrick Project, funded from Trinity College, >> Cambridge University. His web site is www.sheldrake.org. >> >> >> https://www.deepakchopra.com/blog/view/1267/_the_scientific_creed_and_the_credibility_crunch_for_materialism >> >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >
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