The science delusion.
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2012 February 6
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The science delusion, in these terms, consists in the faith that we already understand the nature of reality, in principle, and that all that is left to do is to fill in the details. Read more:
The strange thinking of scientists who support the theory of evolution was demonstrated just a few days ago in 2012 Jan 25 (3) – The basic universe where the one scientist was going to hold a lecture telling his listeners that advanced life (and that stretches from amoeba to us) is unique and that the chance of its origin is so remote that it happened only once, and almost certainly has no equivalent anywhere else. So for him evolution is impossible, but Earth is an exception, because it is his religious belief, and there all the facts count nothing.
Now today I read an article about another scientist who believes in evolution and who therefore belongs to the same religious fanatics as the one just mentioned and I will bring a couple of excerpts from it because also he contradicts himself with his ideas.
So here some excerpts:
Rupert Sheldrake: the 'heretic' at odds with scientific dogma
Rupert Sheldrake has researched telepathy in dogs, crystals and Chinese medicine in his quest to explore phenomena that science finds hard to explain.
Sheldrake has continued to operate at the margins of his discipline, looking for phenomena that "conventional, materialist science" cannot explain and arguing for a more open-minded approach to scientific inquiry.
His new book, The Science Delusion, is a summation of this thinking, an attempt to address what he sees as the limitations and hubris of contemporary scientific thought. In particular, he takes aim at the "scientific dogmatism" that sets itself up as gospel. The chapters take some of the stonier commandments of contemporary science and make them into questions: "Are the laws of nature fixed?"; "Is matter unconscious?"; "Is nature purposeless?" "Are minds confined to brains?"
Sheldrake is a brilliant polemicist if nothing else and he skilfully marshals all the current thinking that undermines these tenets - from apparent telepathy in animals, to crystals having to "learn" how to grow, to some of the more fantastical notions of theoretical physics. On the morning I meet him, his book is sitting near the top of the science bestseller list on Amazon. It has also, unlike most of his previous work - Seven Experiments That Could Change the World, Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home - been generally reviewed respectfully. Perhaps it is something in the air.
One of the habits in nature that Sheldrake is interested in is polarity, and if he has a natural nemesis then it is Richard Dawkins, arch materialist and former professor of public understanding of science at Oxford. The title of his book seems to take direct aim at Dawkins's The God Delusion. Was that, I wonder, his express intention in writing it?
"Slightly," he suggests. But the title was really his publisher's idea. "It is dealing with a much bigger issue. But Richard Dawkins is a symptom of the dogmatism of science. He crystallises that approach in the public mind, so to that extent, yes, it is a pointed title."
Sheldrake is the same age as Dawkins - 70 this year - and though their careers began in an almost identical biochemical place, they could hardly have ended up further apart. If Sheldrake's ideas could be boiled down to a sentence, you might borrow one from Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Richard, than are dreamt of in your philosophy…"
"What we have in common," Sheldrake says, "is that we are both certain that evolution is the central feature of nature.”
Despite this, he suggests, scientists are prone to "the recurrent fantasy of omniscience". The science delusion, in these terms, consists in the faith that we already understand the nature of reality, in principle, and that all that is left to do is to fill in the details. "In this book, I am just trying to blow the whistle on that attitude which I think is bad for science," he says. In America, the book is called Science Set Free, which he thinks is probably a better title.
"I went through the standard scientific atheist phase when I was about 14," he says, with a grin. "I bought into that package deal of science equals atheism.”
"There is a lot of science that you can't directly experience," he says, "but to concentrate on quantum physics when we couldn't begin to explain homing pigeons seemed to me," he suggests, "a great distortion."
For a decade or so, Sheldrake kept some of these thoughts to himself, but as his career developed his doubts about the idea that "conventional, materialist" science would one day explain everything seemed increasingly wrong-headed.
"At around the same time," he recalls, "I had some exposure to psychedelics, and that opened me up to the idea that consciousness was much richer than anything my physiology lecturers had ever described.”
Alongside that, to his surprise, Sheldrake began to realise that there was "a lot more in my makeup that was 'Christian' than I cared to admit. I started praying and going to church."
Far from refuting his ideas in the face of this broadside, Sheldrake went on the offensive. His research since then has concentrated almost entirely on the kinds of phenomena that science dismisses out of hand "but which people are generally fascinated by and made to feel stupid about". He has a long-running experiment that collects data about how dogs "know" when their owners are coming home; another is concerned with the apparently strong deviations from chance in human ability to predict when they are being stared at from a distance. He retains an interest in subjects as diverse as the mysteries of crystal formation, the efficacy of Chinese medicine, the forces that trigger migrations of birds and animals over vast distances, and the nature of consciousness.
None of these pursuits has enhanced his standing in the professional scientific community. Sheldrake is unrepentant. He cites Darwin as an example. "If you look at his books, almost all the data there come from amateur naturalists, practical breeders, gardeners. TH Huxley, meanwhile, 'his bulldog', was very much against amateurs, largely because many of them were vicars and he was very anti-religious. He wanted to marginalise anyone who saw science and faith as compatible and mutually reaffirming."
So that were excerpts from what I read today. So here we have an interesting example of a man who adheres to two religions, the religious religion of carnal Christianity and the scientific religion of evolution. He sees all the problems with the theory of evolution but he sticks to it because it is his religion.
Accepting the theory of evolution and accepting churchiness are signs of not really looking for truth or of not having arrived yet at that stage where the search for truth is done seriously.
I now want to again bring some quotes from Seth and this time quotes relating to evolution:
When the physical origin of your universe is finally discovered, your scientist will be no better off than they are now. They will immediately be up against the problem that above all others they have avoided for so long, that of the origin behind the origin. The simple fact needs restating. The physical universe, and everything in it, is the result of consciousness. It did not evolve consciousness. To the contrary, consciousness not only created the physical universe, but continues to do so.
When you consider that behind all matter there is a conscious energy, then you will see where the pattern comes from. It is not the material that composes man, that gives him his identity. No physical nerve structure, or combination of purely chemical and material properties, will ever result in consciousness. The consciousness gives meaning to the physical material.
Now these two quotes I have used already previously - in the last entry - 2012 Feb 02 – The nature and construction of matter - and repeat them here so that we have some sort of collection of some statements coming from Seth related to evolution.
With this contribution we now have five entries which deal with Seth material:
2012 Jan 25 (3) – The basic universe
2012 Jan 29 – Units of consciousness
2012 Jan 31 – How scientists should work
2012 Feb 02 – The nature and construction of matter
2012 Feb 06 – Evolution.
Now follow two quotes from Seth from the year 1971:
We want to try to clarify your question about the nature of evolution.
(Is evolution as it is generally understood a fact or a gross misrepresentation?)
At the risk of being accused that I repeat myself I would like to emphasize again that time as you know it does not basically exist and that all creations are simultaneous. That should have answered your question.
We will explain that in more detail.
All geological eras, in your terms the past, present and also the future ones exist: Now. You can capitalize “now”. Some forms of life are developed in what you regard as present. They do not appear physically before your future has started. Can you follow me?
(“Yes.”)
However they categorically exist already now, just as, let us say, the dinosaurs still exist now. You just focus your attention on a totally specific place in the space time coordinate system, accept this as present reality and close your mind to everything else. Especially all the complicated physical forms are not the result of earlier simpler forms. In comprehensive terms they all exist simultaneously.
On the other hand more complicated consciousness structures are necessary to form the more complicated physical organisms, to enter them and to fill them with life. All structures are formed by consciousness. According to your definition a fragment would be a consciousness, which is less developed than yours. The enlivened parts of nature are the result of your creativity. They are your own projections and fragments of your own energy; energy, which comes from All That Is and goes into you, which you again hand over and which then produces its own visual manifestations, just as you do.
Since you do not perceive the future and do not grasp that life develops in all directions it seems to be just logical, that you think, the present forms build themselves up on the past ones. But as a result you though close the eyes before evidence, which contradict this theory. And with this I of course do not mean you personally, Joseph.
With other words: there is no straight development. The fragment units, which you send outward as species, contribute of course also to your physical reality because without preservation of the difficult balance and without this cooperation of forces your special kind of environment would not be possible at all.
I have told you already often that you do injustice to yourselves with the limitation of your self-concept. Your sense for identity, freedom and power as well as your ability to love would be increased immensely when you could realize, that what you are, does not end with the limits of your skin but that it spreads outwardly over the physical environment, which seems to you to be impersonal and I-different.
From the biological point of view it should be easily clear that physically you are part of Earth and of everything that exists on it. You are made up of the same elements; you breathe the same air. You cannot hold on to the air you take in and then say: “This is me, filled with air. I do not give it back again,” or you would soon enough experience that you are not nearly as independent as you think.
You are biologically and chemically connected with the Earth you are familiar with; but since it is in addition formed by your own, projected psychic energy in a natural and spontaneous way, since you even exert a psychic interaction on each other like the seasons, the self has to be seen in a much greater context. Such a context would allow you to share the life experiences of many other forms, to follow the energy and emotional patterns of which you hardly have an idea, and to develop a feeling for the existence of a world consciousness, to which you contribute your independent part.
So that was the first quote and eight days later Seth had to say the following about Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution:
He spend the last years of his life to prove it, and it still has no real validity. It is valid in just a very limited sense; because consciousness develops the form indeed. However form develops no consciousness. In reality all consciousness exists simultaneously, and that is also why it has not developed this way. It completely depends on when you appear in the auditorium, to what you turn your attention, and at which act of the play you decide to be present. It is rather the other way round: the developed consciousness forms into many different patterns and with it soaks reality. Consciousness did not come into being that atoms and molecules were accidentally spilled over the universe or over many universes. The reason consciousness exists is not because inanimate matter suddenly awakened to activity and joie de vivre. Consciousness existed first, and itself developed form, in which it then started to manifest itself.
Now, if you really would have listened to what I tell you for some time about the simultaneousness of existence and time, then you would know that the theory of evolution is also a nice story as the Old Testament creation story. Both are convenient; both are examples of myth-making, and both seem to be consistent within their own context, although they cannot lay claim to truth in a wider sense…
No, matter has never developed into consciousness, in no form, not even in its most powerful; it does not matter what other particles of matter were still added to it. Without consciousness there would be no matter in the universe. And matter does not hang around there in expectation of a further element, which can help it to reality, consciousness, existence or joie de vivre.
Now I have made already comments about medium communication and about the trance state in which such occurs and in the previous entry I referred to it and I will repeat it here (from 2011 Jun 14 – Audible inner voice):
“A further example would be the announcements which Jane Roberts spoke out and which her husband, Robert Butts, wrote down and which then were published as the Seth Material. Jane Roberts was brought up a Catholic, but was hardly to be called a believing Christian and therefore her works are to be assessed under these points of view. Medium announcements they certainly were but whether full truth is guaranteed through this is a completely different thing.”
Jane Roberts spoke in a trance state and that always brings the possibility with it that a personality from the other side can use this state of the medium without the medium having full control of the situation. In the communications which Bertha Dudde and Helen Schucman received and wrote down were no trance states involved and the high spiritual quality of these communications allows the reader to see the effect of a transmission were the person receiving it is in full control of the situation and not in a state of trance.
What Seth has to say brings a lot of insights about our world, and also about the real word, the spiritual world, and his material, the Seth material, is much in line with other spiritual writings. When one studies the Seth personality then one can see that he is a quite advanced being and when one then reads about Seth II then one can see that spiritual progress is open ended. But becoming adopted as a child of God will always be associated with a direct acknowledgment of Jesus Christ having come in the flesh and having completely turned to God and therefore becoming God.
When one reads Seth’s above mentioned statement regarding the biblical story of creation being a story and that the Old Testament creation story being an example of myth-making, and that it cannot lay claim to truth in a wider sense, then one gets the impression that Seth does not really seem to be aware about equivalents used in spiritual teachings, but as he is acquainted with Seth II one can assume that also he is progressing and his keen interest in the truth will show its effects.
I just mentioned Helen Schucman who wrote A Course in Miracles, and I always like to compare her with Jane Roberts because there are quite a number of similarities. Both worked in a team, had a partner in receiving and recording the material they received. The partner of Helen Schucman was William Thetford, a professor of psychology as Helen herself. And William Thetford was like Robert F. Butts the husband of Jane Robert. Both these men took a great interest in what their female partners were giving them and both men accepted what they learned and made use of the material in their lives and tried to live it. Now this accepting of the material and of applying it in daily living did not seem to be so much the case with both women. Helen Schucman had her reservations and so did Jane Roberts. They both did not manage to actually do what they learned and to form the knowledge they now had into practical outcomes like living a healthy life without illness.
So this is what will really matter in the end. Do we use the material we receive and do we go for it, take it and execute it?
Seth describes the difference between Rob Butts and Jane Roberts like this: Rob is committed to these sessions. He believes. Jane is a doubter, from way back. She is intellectually intrigued but she is not yet emotionally committed. You, Rob, make these sessions possible. Without you Jane would not let me come through. Without you Jane would never have held a single session.
Richard Dawkins was mentioned above. On this website his name appeared in the following entries:
2009 Feb 12 – After the divine intervention the debate will really flare up
2010 Aug 12 – Joseph Ratzinger resisted the unfrocking of a paedophile priest
2010 Sep 04 – Will the Large Hadron Collider cause the Big Bang at the very end of days?
2011 May 16 (2) – Richard Dawkins accused of cowardice for refusing to debate existence of God
2011 Nov 10 (3) – The great harlot Babylon, the mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth
2011 Dec 24 (2) – Christopher Hitchens, an atheist
2012 Feb 06 – Evolution
Above we read that Sheldrake has an experiment that is concerned with the apparently strong deviations from chance in human ability to predict when they are being stared at from a distance. In this respect I have already referred to one of my own experiences. And there it was about a person whom I observed and who after that tried to locate this observer, me, and how she succeeded in discovering me only after the third attempt (2010 Feb 19 – Quantum physics, the soul and extraterrestrial communication ). Now Sheldrake seems to collect such experiences and tries to prove statistically that this looking at the observer is statistically unlikely, that there must therefore be another reason than chance. To scientifically prove something like this, therefore to make this out not to be a statistical probability, is of course helpful, but basically such experiences are so unambiguous that one can only wonder that scientists consider these things as not existing or now believe to have to prove them. But when a scientist statistically proves to himself that the coming into being of consciousness out of matter is impossible, but then says that Earth is an exception, then of course all efforts are wasted. So there are hardly any differences between scientific fanatics who belong to the religion of materialism and religious fanatics who belong to a religious religion and some belong to both. When he is a physicist he is misled by the physiology lecturer and kept away from truth and therefore from God and when he is a Christian then he is misled by the cleric on Sunday morning in church and kept away from the truth and therefore from God.
Above we read, “All geological eras, in your terms the past, present and also the future ones exist: Now. You can capitalize “now”. However they categorically exist already now, just as, let us say, the dinosaurs still exist now. You just focus your attention on a totally specific place in the space time coordinate system, accept this as present reality and close your mind to everything else.” So we focus our attention on a totally specific place in the space time coordinate system and that is why we cannot see dinosaurs for instance. So a lot of things exist on this planet Earth which we cannot see and that is how it is when we come to other celestial bodies, also there are a lot of things which we cannot see, and that is why we think they do not exist. Here therefore Seth has given us a nice description why all celestial bodies are inhabited, therefore also those in our solar system, like Moon, planets and the Sun itself. Our present state of consciousness, or our present attention is focused on a totally specific place in the space time coordinate system. What an interesting description for state of consciousness: our present attention is focused on a totally specific place in the space time coordinate system. When we change from the state of consciousness of being awake to the state of consciousness of being asleep then we focus our attention on another specific place in the space time coordinate system. When we change from the state of consciousness of being alive to the state of consciousness of being dead then we focus our attention on another specific place in the space time coordinate system.
Now this being in a certain state of consciousness or this changing from one of such states into another is an important subject in spiritual teachings. I will give some examples. They also show the different vocabulary used. Carlos Castaneda writes, “enter partial or temporary states of heightened awareness by moving my assemblage point away from its habitual location.” Jakob Lorber describes how a group of people are taken to a window in a building to look out of the window and seeing a certain celestial body and life on it and then taken to another window and being shown another such object. The Bible, Luke 24:31, reports about the happenings on the road to Emmaus and at Emmaus, “And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.” And Seth speaks of focusing attention on another specific place in the space time coordinate system.
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