The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, wrote that “For all men begin . . . by wondering that things are as they are.” A central problem in achieving scientific respectability for the field of spirituality is the words we use to describe what we are talking about. Science uses terms that describe hard, physical objects and forces; things we can touch, see, and measure: subatomic particles, cosmic rays, the electromagnetic force, gravity, neurons, and genes. The field of spirituality or consciousness, however, has not yet come up with a word to describe itself that sounds scientific. The word “spirituality” sounds religious, which is out-of-bounds for science. “Consciousness” is better, but this term itself eludes a clear definition and is likely beyond measurement. A little history, though, helps advance the discussion. What we know as “science” began as natural philosophy, or the study of nature using the mind rather than technology and experiment. As natural philosophy developed, it soon gave...
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The cover of the new issue of New Scientist highlights the improvements made to the Large Hadron Collider in Europe, not only the world’s most advanced atom-smasher, but the most sophisticated piece of technology ever built by humankind. The cover says, “Forget the Higgs, Now we’re searching for the root of reality.” Meanwhile, at the other end of the scientific spectrum, neuroscientists remain lost in the quagmire of solving the so-called hard problem of consciousness, which, according to David Chalmers is “the question of how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experiences.” So with the Large Hadron Collider, the question is whether physicists will find the answer to the mystery of the universe in computer-generated images of colliding subatomic particles. With the hard problem of consciousness, the question is whether neuroscientists will find the secret to the vivid, three-dimensional awareness we call consciousness in the firing interactions between brain...
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Probably no topic so divides science and the “new age” as UFOs. A recent column in Astronomy Magazine entitled, “Let’s cut the UFO crap,” makes the point that it is only naivete about the cosmic distant scale than allows people to believe in UFO’s. This is a powerful argument when one considers distant scales. The closest star to the Earth other than the sun is Alpha Centauri, which 4.37 light years — or over 25 trillion miles away. An extremely fast spacecraft traveling at 100,000 mph (the record for a manned spacecraft is just under 40,000 mph) would take about 28,000 years to reach the Alpha Centauri planet. And this is the closest possible one. So from this perspective, the notion that alien spacecraft are roaming the sky, darting in and out of our vision, waiting for the right moment to land, seems preposterous. The scientific case builds...
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Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic Magazine, the author of many popular science books, and a regular columnist in Scientific American. In his book, The Believing Brain, he tries to explain how the common person comes to believe in strange things, such as God, miracles, Heaven, the survival of the soul after death, and psychic phenomena. According to Shermer, “reality exists independent of human minds, but our understanding of it depends upon the beliefs we hold. ” (Believing Brain, 5). In a tell-tale sign of his materialistic tendencies, he criticizes claims of psychic phenomena by stating that “until psi proponents can explain how thoughts generated by neurons in the sender’s brain can pass through the skull and into the brain of the receiver, skepticism is the appropriate response. ” (Id. 149). (This is materialistic because Shermer assumes that mindless particles are the source of reality and anything that cannot...
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A synchronicity is a rare coincidence that suggests “something is up.” We all have them and it is fun to record them as they happen and then to go back and see if they seem as strange as when they first occurred. For example, I was researching regulations at Lake Carroll, Illinois on whether boat lifts were allowed in docking areas. That evening I received an email from a work colleague entitled, “The Boatlifters: The Story of 9-11.” I was reading the book, His Excellency, by Joseph Ellis and came across the word, “ukase,” which I had never seen before. The next day, the word of the day on the elevator news screen was —– ukase, a Russian word meaning directive. I was on the phone with a contractor and was giving him my wife’s name, “Suzanne” and said it was spelled like Suzanne Sommers. At that moment he expressed...
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