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Elaborates a materialist view of consciousness. The central thesis of the book is that while conscious states are material, we humans have two quite different ways of thinking about them. We can think about them materially, as normal parts of the material world, but we can also think about them phenomenally, as states that feel a certain way. These two modes of thought refer to the same items in reality, but at a conceptual level they are distinct. By focusing on the special structure of phenomenal concepts, David Papineau is able to expose the flaws in the standard arguments against materialism, while at the same time explaining why dualism can seem so intuitively compelling. The book also considers the prospects for scientific research into consciousness, and argues that such research often promises more than it can deliver. Once phenomenal concepts are recognized for what they are, many of the questions posed by consciousness research turn out to be irredeemably vague.
Journal for the Study of Spirituality
The significance of consciousness studies and quantum physics for researching spiritualityThe purpose of this paper is to argue that researchers interested in studying spirituality may benefit from paying attention to the phenomenon of consciousness. Despite consciousness being integral to human experience, it is largely ignored in research into spirituality. Yet there is evidence to suggest that the study of spirituality, and explorations of consciousness, have much to offer each other. My contention is that the subject of consciousness has not received much attention within mainstream social and educational research, due to the prevailing, often unconscious, influence of Newtonian science, which assumes consciousness to be an epiphenomenon of the brain. However, developments in science, particularly in quantum physics, have shown that the world cannot be explained by Newtonian principles of separation and atomism. At the same time, a growing disillusionment with science has resulted in the emergence of a grassroots spirituality which challenges a materialist scientific paradigm. In science and spirituality, there is a growing realization of the interconnectedness of everything, with the quantum principle of ‘entanglement’ suggesting that differentiation between objectivity’ and ‘subjectivity’ is an artificial one. Instead, there is a meaningful relationship between experiences of consciousness in inner and outer worlds, with neither existing independently of the other. I conclude by presenting a case for developing research methods which reflect a secular spiritual world view that creates harmony between science, spirituality and our experience of consciousness.
Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy
Consciousness, Mind and Spirit2019 •
The explosion of interest in consciousness among scientists in recent decades has led to a revival of interest in the work of Whitehead. This has been associated with the challenge of biophysics to molecular biology in efforts to understand the nature of life. Some claim that it is only through quantum field theory that consciousness will be made intelligible. Most, although not all work in this area, focusses on the brain and how it could give rise to consciousness. In this paper, I will support this challenge, but I will suggest that the focus of work in this area reflects the failure to fully overcome the assumptions of Cartesian thought, associated above all with a defective understanding of consciousness as a 'thinking substance'. Firstly, as Bergson, Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty argued, consciousness is embodied. Secondly, as Jacob von Uexküll argued, consciousness is only comprehensible in relation to the organism's world defined as such by the organism. Thirdly, in the case of humans, this is a 'with-world', a world shared with others. The consequent social nature of human consciousness is better captured by the German word for mind: Geist, which also translates as 'Spirit'. And as Hegel argued, along with Subjective Spirit, there is also Objective Spirit, the realm of institutions, and Absolute Spirit, the realm of culture, with Subjective, Objective and Absolute Spirit being conditions, and even components, of each other. My argument is that this broader notion of mind as Spirit should be embraced, but without abandoning the work in biophysics. What is required is a further expansion of the notion of mind and Spirit as humanity comes to appreciate that it is part of nature and that it is through the development of institutions and culture that nature, through human subjects, is becoming conscious of itself and its significance. The development of process philosophy inspired by Whitehead, associated with the development of the concepts of field and ecology, should be seen as a development of the semiosphere and the advance of the Spirit of Gaia, essential for the creation of a global civilization able to augment the life of the current regime of the global ecosystem of which we are part. It is to orient humanity to create an ecologically sustainable civilization; an ecological civilization.
In this article the author proposes nonscientific and nonanthropological resolution of " the problem of consciousness " and denies the possibility to explain the nature of consciousness with the help of physics, neuroscience, cognitive science and also analytic philosophy. The author stresses that 1) consciousness transcends Me (selfhood) and does not belong to it, 2) consciousness perceives being; being is consciousness. " The problem of consciousness " is not theoretical problem at all. In order to know what consciousness is, it is necessary to work with consciousness. Therefore, we do not theorize about consciousness. It is a practical task of a human being. The author argues that meditation, as a kind of practice, is the best way to work with consciousness and enter into it.
2011 •
Many people implicitly trust science because they believe its methods are neutral and objective. The Spiritual Brain argues, however, that science has been hijacked by a dogmatic presumption of materialism: materialism is not the inevitable conclusion of scientific evidence, but an assumption made before investigation even begins. The book focuses on the impact of materialistic bias on neuroscience. Authors Mario Beauregard (a neuroscientist at the University of Montreal) and Denyse O’Leary (a Toronto-based journalist of science and religion issues) contend that materialism leads scientists to offer highly implausible explanations of the powers of the mind and especially of what they call “religious, spiritual, and/or mystical experiences” (RSMEs). The book also explores what neuroscience looks like without a presumption of materialism.
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