MARCH 18, 2021 The Other Side of Mark Solms PhD, farmer, vintner, humanitarianRecently, I virtually met an amazing man, Dr. Mark Solms, who’s many YouTube lectures do a superb job of walking students of human consciousness and the “mind-body problem” back onto the solid ground of physical reality based science, with a roadmap for constructive learning, through the new disciple of neuropsychoanalysis.
You can watch a dozen of Mark Solms’ lectures and find that each was worth it, for each offers unrepeated gems.
What’s he walking people back from? The cliff edge of meta-physical philosophizing pretending to be serious science.
I mean, proclaiming “spacetime is doomed”? Advocating that the search for our consciousness must look to out-of-body agents, because every puzzle hasn’t been solved yet? Rather than continuing current fruitful “physicalists” research, such as that being explicated in Dr. Solms’ talks.
Get serious, that’s evolved religion. Hidden under all the pretentious words and inscrutable math, it’s all about protecting our ever so fragile human egos. What about focusing on learning about this amazing fantastical planet, that created this amazing fantastical body, that created our amazing fantastical consciousness, to have and to hold for the duration of our short lives! By the Grace of Earth!
Speaking of human ego.
All of us make first impressions of people we meet, in life or virtually. Some we like, some we feel indifferent to, some we’re leery of, and so on. Mark Solms impressed me from the start. I saw solidity and a superb mastery of his topic. As I watched succeeding videos red flags never showed up. The fascinating talks captured me and though the topic overlaps, each talk is unique and refreshing.
Then I started researching and learning about the man. His list of accomplishments helped make sense of that inner solidity he radiates. After a few days of absorbing nothing but Professor Mark Solms I had to take a break for a while, allowing it to percolate and settle some.
Recently to get warmed up and into the project again, I clicked on a short TEDTalk by Mark Solms that I hadn’t listened to yet. I was waylaid.
Now I’ve spent the past couple days trying to imagine the sort of inner reality lived and the sense of place experienced, by a sixth generation white African farmer who possesses not only his piece of land, but also the 180 indigenous & slave descendants who live on the farm.
Well, at least that was until he did something about it. It’s complicated. I should add that Mark left his home in South Africa (1988) to avoid compulsory military service for the National Party apartheid government and turned his back on the family farm to focus on his studies. In London he received his PhD in '92 and worked towards unlocking the origin of our dreams. After apartheid fell, the lure of home and his neglected hereditary farm drew him back to South Africa in 2001.
Therein lies an amazing story of human dignity, respect, compassion, intelligence, vision, humanity, the best in men. Something that’s becoming all too rare these days. Which is why I also want to share this aspect of Dr. Solms’ story.
I’ll let the professor, psychoanalysis, neuropsychologist, farmer, vintner, friend to many, Dr. Mark Solms tell the rest of the story: …
TEDxObserver - Mark Solms - April 1, 2011 <b>~~~~~~~</b> Mark Solms: giving his land back to farmers Julius Baer - January 12, 2018 (That title is misleading. Solms helped them purchase and develop a neighboring farm, and then a second, the three operate as a cooperative business. It's a fascinating inspiring story.) </blockquote>
