Thinking is a strange thing. So strange, in fact, that most people think that whatever is doing the thinking must have a life of its own. This idea, commonsense dualism, has been around a long time and is the default position for most people regardless of culture. It’s a hard habit or intuition to break, [...]
Tags:commonsense dualism·Descartes·Franz Joseph Gall·monism·neuroscience·phrenology·soul beliefs·strict materialism
A friend recently pointed me to Michael Graziano’s article “Is Spirituality a Byproduct of Evolution?” Because it is posted over at Huff or Fluff-Po, I was immediately skeptical.
Anyone who has perused Fluff-Po’s Religion section knows it is filled scientific sounding metaphysics and countless articles by progressive religionists telling us that their non-progressive counterparts have gotten [...]
Tags:Antonio Damasio·awe·byproduct·emotion·feeling·hierarchy·Matt Rossano·Michael Graziano·neuroscience·ranking·sociality·spirituality
In 1902, Rudyard Kipling published his wonderfully imaginative Just So Stories. What child does not thrill to learn “How the Camel Got His Hump” or “How the Leopard Got His Spots“? When I was six years old, my grandmother read “How the Whale Got His Throat” to me and I swallowed it hook, line, and [...]
Tags:adaptationist·desire·empiricism·epigenetic·evolutionary psychology·imagination·Jaak Panksepp·Jonah·Jules Panksepp·Just So Stories·modules·myth·neuroscience·Panglossian·Rudyard Kipling·science·seven deadly sins·Seven Sins·spandrels·speculation·storytelling·tales·whale·wish fulfillment
In “Quantum Consciousness: The Way to Reconcile Science and Spirituality,” Kingsley Dennis elegantly discusses what has proven to the most intractable issue in neuroscience: consciousness. Because fluctuations and altered states of consciousness are so often linked to the supernatural-religious, I have examined it in many posts, including Consciousness and the Supernatural, which provides a brief [...]
Tags:Abner Shimony·absolute unitary being·altered states of consciousness·atomic·biological systems·biophotons·biophysics·Butterfly Effect·classical mechanics·connection·consciousness·David Lewis-Williams·dependence·eastern metaphysics·electromagnetism·energy·entanglement·field matrix·fluctuations·Fritz-Albert Popp·interdependence·Kingsley Dennis·Leibniz·Mae-Wan Ho·matrix·metabolic processes·nature of reality·neuroscience·New Age·panpsychic·photon emissions·quantum coherence·quantum consciousness·quantum mechanics·quantum waves·resonating field·Roger Penrose·Spinoza·Stuart Hameroff·Stuart Kauffman·subatomic·The Rainbow and the Worm·universal consciousness·wave mechanics·Whitehead
