I did not mean to displace the Big Bang at all. When I said “bubble” I was talking about the same thing. The Big Bang begins with the expansion of the universe, but it didn’t have anything to say about what came “before” it, until recently. So, I’m not questioning the singularity at all, just talking about what could have led to it.
I’m not really sure what you mean by science buttressing the cogency of the First cause argument, so, not even sure I have a followed up to that.
As for Googling universal consciousness, I think I’ll leave that to another thread.
Yes I made sure of that a long time ago. You ask for a reference, read The article in “Psychology Today” posted on June 26, 2019 written by Clifford Nazereth Ph.D. titled “Does Consciousness exist outside the brain?” It’s subtitled “Is consciousness a property of the universe like gravity and light?”
This is not a new idea, Carl Jung, over a century ago was one of its foremost advocates. He was right and so is Mr. Nazereth who wrote the above article.
They think that consciousness is an existing background property of the universe, like gravity. They think our brains are like TV set receivers that tune in to this consciousness and we are then typically fooled by the perception of individuality. But basically they are saying that consciousness is not formed by the brain, but rather is tuned in to and projected to ourselves by our brain.
The best evidence for this that they come up with, appears to be reports of near death experiences.
I wonder why we must learn things through experiences, (like learning language, or so much else) if we can tap in to this existing pool of consciousness. Seems that the universal consciousness would have all that knowledge available to be tuned in to.
The prevailing consensus in neuroscience is that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain and its metabolism.
Then it has some interesting speculation and analogies, but clearly states,
Obviously, despite his impressive body of research into this subject, there is no current way to empirically establish the validity of Fenwick’s cosmic consciousness hypothesis. Ultimately, it aligns more with faith than science.
And ends with the conclusion:
But the wondrous experience of consciousness itself seems to require a brain to give rise to it and a brain-based mind to perceive it.
I don’t want this to end with a simple statement of “scientific consensus says….” because really, science has some problems to solve about consciousness. For me, it’s a two step process; what does science say, then what should I do about it. That includes a judgment call on how certain we can be about things. On this one, so far, you haven’t given me anything to change my probability calculations. I’ve looked in to NDE’s and don’t find them compelling for instance.
You have taken steps in the opposite direction. You are aware of the consensus, but you are also aware of some other qualified people doing a lot of research and making statements that aren’t in that consensus. That’s fine, that’s how science works, everything is always being questioned.
I get the analogy about how the eye perceives light that is just out there sending it’s waves around, and the mind could be a sense organ like that, picking up this universal consciousness, rather than creating it. I also know that we started studying light 1,200 years ago and now we can measure it and even measure light that the eye can’t see and use our knowledge to know how far away a star is and other such things. I don’t know of anything like that for consciousness.
I really wouldn’t mind the speculation, until it gets to the point that it’s saying something about how we will know more when we die, or that some people can tune in to this consciousness better than others. That is getting in to territory where people can claim special powers and can then manipulate others to do things for them. I’m not saying you are doing that Genus, I’m saying people like Fenwick in this article might be doing that.
The hypothesized consciousness pool that our brains supposedly tap into, are, I suppose, only connectable to by a human brain? Or do other conscious animals tap into that pool, also?
If this idea of an amorphous-seeming universal consciousness pool is correct, I assume that we don’t have to worry about AI machines ever becoming conscious, as they would be constructed completely differently from our brain and would thus probably not have the precise mechanism for tuning in.
Go to the person’s name at the top of one of a post, and click on it. (It becomes a link, with a blue line underneath.)
It will take you to the person’s profile. There, after the @, is the username. (For some, the username and name are the same; for others, not.) Either remember it, or alternatively, select it.
Type/paste it into your post/comment.
When you hit “submit” it turns into a link, which means you did it right.
Yes the article does begin with the statement you cited but the author used that statement to establish the starting point for a line of argument that moved in another direction and did so quickly. The first paragraph containing the quote you cited was describing what was considered accepted wisdom but the thrust and substance of the article was undeniably open to the concept of a universal form of consciousness. You dismiss this as being “interesting speculation and analogies” well there are a lot of things that that fit those general, nondescript terms. Is that all you can say about the article, that it contained “interesting speculations and analogies”? That doesn’t say much.
As for what’s referred to as the “Near Death Experience”, I think it’s far to facile to casually dismiss these experiences as being the result of a dying brain’s changing neuro-chemistry resulting in hallucinations and distorted perceptions of reality. How can any doctor or clinician possibly know that? The truth is they can’t. So the question remains open. Yes it may be true that the near death experience may be nothing more than a psychogenic distortion of reality, but it’s also possible that these dying patients are accurately reporting a genuine postmortem experience.
This is a case where the inveterate practice of long established skepticism on the part of science and scientists becomes the automatic default position in dealing with such a topic. Do you really think that most scientists are going to accept the testimony of a dying patient claiming they are entering into the light? They will not because it smacks of religion and religious belief, and science has a long standing grudge against religion. Science hasn’t forgotten centuries of oppression from religious (church) authority. It’s part of the reason I don’t participate in religion. It’s too stifling and dogmatic and has very little to do with tuning in to the radiant spiritual energy that is the true source of our being.
Thank you Tee Bryon, I will follow your instructions as described. It would make it a lot easier to have the comments linked in such a way. I am not computer proficient. Thank you again Michael Mckinney
I think it would be good if data base was created of the most hi tech possible recordings of brain neuro electrical patterns at and beyond the moments of the pronouncement of clinical death. I might volunteer for such, were I on my deathbed.
Do you really think that most scientists are going to accept the testimony of a dying patient claiming they are entering into the light? They will not because it smacks of religion and religious belief, and science has a long standing grudge against religion.
It’s true that most scientists are atheists and agnostics, and that science and certain religions have been in conflict.
However, it simply doesn’t follow that scientists, as a group, would ignore, ridicule or hide evidence of an afterlife. In fact, if a scientist ever provides such evidence, it will go down in history as one of the biggest scientific discoveries of all time. That may be why SO MANY ARE STUDING IT (below).
The reason NDEs have thus far been explained as “a dying brain’s changing neuro-chemistry resulting in hallucinations and distorted perceptions of reality” is because for the past few decades, multiple studies have attempted to find evidence of bonafide spiritual phenomena in NDEs and haven’t. Until there is strong evidence of a spiritual cause, scientists will continue to accept scientific explanations.
Here are 2 things that would suggest something spiritual or religious:
A commonly-described NDE experience is of floating around the room, reading medical monitors or paperwork, and floating to other rooms or even other buildings.
These stories HAVE been checked. And, they haven’t checked out. There are lots of urban legends about them, but they have been debunked.
Studies look for objective similarities of NDEs across cultures and religions. Yes, a “bright light” is common, but what/who do people perceive the light to be?
For example: If, in fact, God exists, and he happens to be the Christian God, one would expect all NDEs to involve a judgement by Christ, whatever that person’s culture; for Christians to come back from heaven; and non-Christians to come back from hell. But that’s not what happens. Those who do describe any particular God usually describe the one from their culture. Those who “die” peacefully report something like “heaven,” and those who die in terror report something like “hell,” regardless of their religion (or even whether they had a religion).
Actually, some Christians oppose NDE studies for this very reason … it doesn’t agree with their narrative. So if anyone is discouraging discussion on NDEs, it’s those particular churches.
In response to Timb’s perceptive questions as to why we can’t tap more broadly or deeply into this reservoir of latent universal consciousness and why we have to learn everything we know, I believe the answer is actually inherent in the question itself. If we accept the notion of a preexisting realm of consciousness and that our brains, like the TV set or radio in the above stated analogy tunes in to, receives and interprets this universal medium, then how well our brains function and more critically how far developed our brains are, must and invariably will diminish or amplify our reception of that universally signalling medium. Again using the apt analogy of a radio not originating the transmission signal it’s receiving but tuning it in and scrambling its radio wave energy into something intelligible and meaningful.
We remember the cheap AM transistor radios we got as gifts back in the 1960’s and noted the poor reception. When technically superior radios were developed to receive more bandwidth the signal became clear and strong. Our brains are currently lacking the cerebral, evolutionary complexity to suddenly receive voluminous amounts of knowledge and information. If we went back to our earliest hominid ancestors and could some how communicate with them It’s not likely that they would respond coherently to ideas like truth, beauty or justice and not so much because we’d lack a common language; it would be because their brains would not be sufficiently evolved to conceive of such abstract concepts. We are evolved creatures, but we are not highly evolved. When we are if we survive, we will have an enhanced ability to tap into what Plato centuries ago called a realm of “Universals” where all possible forms of all things conceivable already exist in an infinite catalog of endless universal ideas. That’s what Beethoven achieved and what he meant when he wrote on the margins of his Pastoral Symphony “I,m not doing this.”
The Hindu sage was correct when he observed “the purpose of our lives is to awake from the illusion of separateness.”
The article was open minded and made the arguments for universal consciousness well, but the way I read it, he was showing that he was listening, but in the end, not agreeing. So I didn’t repeat that part but I don’t think it’s fair to say I dismissed it. But, no, I don’t have anything to add to it. I don’t think us picking apart an article is the best way to proceed.
You ask the question, “how can any<one> know that?” That’s at the heart of this discussion. For me, science is the default position. I keep in mind however that Hume could not solve the problem of skepticism, that at some point you have to accept some truths and move on, or you will be paralyzed while looking for perfect data. I think a scientist will accept the “testimony” of a dying patient as data, but they shouldn’t accept the patient’s interpretation of the data as the final conclusion. A good scientist wouldn’t do that out of having a grudge, but out of knowledge of how individuals report experiences in a non-scientific way, reporting not just their physical sensations and measurable responses but also their cultural interpretation of the feelings. It’s hard not to do. Try explaining how much pain you are in without comparing it to something like stabbed with a knife or hit with a hammer, or explain colors without referring to a rainbow.
For me, I’ve just shifted my culture. I used to get wonderful feelings of community and universal awareness in church. We talked about our ancestors and thanked our “creator”. We explored how we felt about life by discussing characters in stories. I still do all of those things, I’m just not limited to the stories of one particular collection, and when I’m done with the discussion, I don’t tell anyone that those characters were once real people in history, because, umm, they aren’t. Community is now everywhere for me and “miracles” happen all the time. Their “source” is a quantum field that created space/time and evolved into planets with conscious beings on them. That’s what I tune in to.
Genus wrote: What I said was it’s very likely that “universal consciousness” exists prior to the human capacity to experience that consciousness and every individual enters into this universal consciousness to varying degrees. A person who is introspective to a very subtle degree is a very different kind of person from one who is crude and thoughtless which is why we call such people thoughtless.
You could also look at universal cosmic consciousness from the other direction.
Let me share the steps.
I myself am fine with believing every living creature has a spirit/soul, in direct proportion to it’s neural and physical sensory and manipulatory abilities. At death this spirit is reabsorbed by the “universe”, so yes, the individual is fini (we need to get over that detail).
The Cosmic What If. What if Evolution was all about the “universal consciousness” trying to understand itself.
Of course, atoms are limited in their interaction with the universe. Molecules less so, basic living cells must constantly interact with their universe, complex animals engage in even more interaction, and thus appreciation and awareness for the increasingly complex universe surrounding them.
Now we have humans on this Earth for a short while, and the “universal consciousness” can gaze back upon itself through our eyes as never before.
To know things “it” could never know if limited to the eyes and awareness of dinosaurs, or that of flat worms, etc.
Of course, this is all philosophy and mind games, that fit with my personal perspective and sound harmonious with my basic outlook on life.
But that’s how it’s always gone, we create our religions to please our personal desires - not to comprehend the universe.
I think you’re exactly right Mr. Lausten in stating that researchers and clinicians who study these near death experiences must be both tentative and open minded in trying to decipher what some dying patients are reporting. I also have more respect for your general reluctance to accept things solely on face value than you may assume. Your skepticism reflects the careful, “wait and see” approach that has guided all genuine research and scientific inquiry. The scientist who designs an aircraft wing and the metallurgist who formulates the alloys holding the plane together, or the immunologist working on a vaccine, or the engineer working out the stress patterns of a high rise apartment building where families will be living know they have to get it right the first time because the consequences of not getting it right could be deadly. I have enormous respect for science and its stunning record of achievement. As I said, I trust science. When I said that science has a grudge against religion, that was a general statement more about the history of science and its undeniable suppression from religious authority. The free inquiry of science and rationalism was opposed for centuries by the most dominant institutions of religion, the churches and the encrusted hierarchy that oversees them. That’s changed, especially in the last hundred years or so and as a result the world is a much better place. As much as I respect science I firmly believe there are questions that are simply beyond its purview. I wouldn’t use a microscope to look at the moon and I wouldn’t use a telescope to search for microbes not because these instruments aren’t valuable tools of research, they work wonderfully when applied and used for their specific function, it’s because they simply can’t provide data they weren’t designed to detect. In the same way that science and its rigorous empirical methods can tell us volumes about how our universe works but is limited and indeed incapable of answering questions of its origin, ultimate purpose and eventual destiny.
As far as your experience with attending church, I had a similar experience and found that I didn’t learn much but the people were very friendly and welcoming but the tacit acceptance of doctrine and orthodoxy however gentle and non-threatening it was presented made me feel as if I was surrounded by a clique inviting me into its fold. It simply wasn’t for me.
Wow, citizenchallenge has just made what I consider to be a logically flawless statement and his last sentence is nothing less than completely accurate, “We create our religions to please our personal desires- not to comprehend the universe.”
The universe is trying to become self-aware through us.
When Shakespeare said, “We are such stuff that dreams are made on.” he was speaking more accurately then he might have known.
When I said that science has a grudge against religion, that was a general statement more about the history of science and its undeniable suppression from religious authority.
Actually, Michael, your comment was fairly specific. In context:
Do you really think that most scientists are going to accept the testimony of a dying patient claiming they are entering into the light? They will not because it smacks of religion and religious belief, and science has a long standing grudge against religion
You're suggesting that scientists are ignoring (at best) evidence of life after death, or at least near death experiences, because they're still sore at Religion after all these years.
Up at #312484 I replied to this, with some local reasons why this suspicion is likely false.
I also included links to multiple articles on NDE studies.
