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The Belief Doctor (Steaphen Pirie)   Infoworks (Steven Lesser)

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Please be aware that the opinions, beliefs and materials of contributing authors need not reflect the beliefs or opinions of other contributing authors. As a general rule articles are posted on this website which infer or in some way point towards, or add weight to an "integral systems" or 'holodynamic systems" world-view.

Theories of Consciousness

Zeno's Paradoxes: A Thought Experiment

Overview

It is widely accepted that the solutions to the dilemma of explaining physical movement (commonly known as Zeno's Paradoxes), lies in assuming that all physical movement is comprised of a continuous, and contiguous series of 'infinitesimal' little movements, which together provide "perfectly continuous" and seamless movement.

The mathematics of calculus has been used to show that we can traverse an infinite series of such movements in finite time, thus enabling our everyday experience of physical movement.

This continuity of movement enables and fuels a machine world-view, in that the continuity of movement also implies continuity and predictability of operation and behaviour.

However, this widely-accepted theory relies on an absolute, never-ending continuity, which is at odds with the evidence of quantum theory. A new holodynamic systems model (one that includes a discontinuous-space | continuous meta-space duality) is required to fit the facts.

...(the idea) that space is continuous is, I believe, wrong.

— Professor Richard Feynman
The Messenger Series: Seeking New Laws

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Applying Key Principles

Are there some rules by which we can clarify our understanding of life? Are there key principles that can be used for practical results, to yield greater creativity, understanding, ease, peace-of-mind?

Clearly, a key principle must exist .. some connecting mechanism or principle has to be operating at a root level of life. Furthermore, whatever that principle, it has to accommodate the theories and proofs of science, particularly science's most successful physical theory in history (quantum mechanics).

How might we recognise this principle? What should we look for? Can we use it in any area of life, to more deeply understand any experience?

Introducing the Pairadox Rule -- a useful tool by which to assess 'truth' and by which to advance understanding, insight, creativity and effectiveness.

Q. Is Darwinian Evolution correct, or "Intelligent Design"?

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The Birth of Science, Sin and Autism

[Copyright Steaphen Pirie, 2006]

Excerpt of "Maya Sends Her Love":

Grandfather Johann telling young Maya a bedtime account of humanity's history and development:

Once upon a time the many peoples of Earth were one with nature. They lived in a veritable Garden of Eden ... theirs was an instinctive paradise, naturally engaged and lived.

As a people they were like new-born babes, fresh from the nurturing womb of Mother-Nature. And just like new-born babes they felt and knew themselves to be nurtured and nourished by their Mother-Earth. They felt at-one with Her rocks and trees and things. Even though they killed, or were themselves killed for food, they understood the deeply interconnected harmony of life.

Naturally as children do, they began taking little steps, exploring and learning about themselves and the world around them. They were a young race ready to stand alone, apart and independent. They were ready to think for themselves, to take on free-will, independent of instinct.

This was written in their holy Book of Genesis – that to remain in nature’s paradise, God had said they must not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, for if they did their eyes would be opened and they ‘shall be as gods, knowing good and evil’.

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The Complementarity of Consciousness

[Reprint of 1991 paper by Robert G. Jahn, Emeritus Professor, Princeton University]

The concept of complementarity, originally proposed by Bohr in a microphysical context, and subsequently extended by himself, Heisenberg and Pauli to encompass subjective as well as objective dimensions of human experience, can be further expanded to apply to many common attitudes of human consciousness. At issue is the replacement of strict polar opposition of superficially antithetical consciousness capacities, such as analysis and synthesis, logic and intuition, or doing and being, by more generous conjugation that allows pairs to operate in constructive triangulation and harmony. In this format the physical principle of uncertainty also acquires metaphoric relevance in limiting the attainable sharpness of specifications of any consciousness complements, and may serve to define their optimum balance in establishing reality. These principles thus lend themselves to representation of wave-like vs. particle-like operations of consciousness; to trade-offs between rigor and ambience in consciousness research; to generic masculine/feminine reinforcement; and to the interplay of science and spirit in any creative enterprise.

 

* Revised version of a presentation to the L.E. Rhine Centenary Conference, “Cultivating Consciousness for Enhancing Human Potential, Wellness, and Healing,” November 8-10, 1991

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Consciousness and Quantum Physics

by Prof. Amit Goswami (August 13, 2008)

There was a revolution in physics at the beginning of the last century, consisting of the discovery of quantum physics. The message of quantum physics is this: the world is not made of matter neither is it determined entirely by material causation that we sometimes call upward causation because it rises upward from the building blocks of matter–the elementary particles . There is a source of downward causation in the world. You can call this source consciousness if you like and think of it as the ground of all being.

To be sure, the mathematics of quantum physics is deterministic and based on the upward causation model above, but it predicts objects and their movements not as determined events (as in Newtonian physics) but as possibilities (for which the probabilities can be calculated enabling us to develop a very successful predictive science for large number of objects and/or events). And yet when we look at a quantum object, we don’t experience it as a bundle of possibilities, but as actual localized event much like a Newtonian particle. Moreover, quantum mathematics does not allow us to connect the upward causation-based deterministic theory with experimental data. How do the possibilities of the theory become actualities of experience simply by our looking at them? This is the mysterious “observer effect.”

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Can Science and Religion be Integrated?

by Prof. Amit Goswami (August 10, 2008)

Can science and religion be integrated? What comes to mind immediately is that religions themselves cannot agree with one another whereas science is basically monolithic. How can there even be trade between the two, let alone integration?

First, it is only a perception that religions are pluralistic and science is not. Science is monolithic only so far as science of matter–physics and chemistry–is concerned. Psychology, the science of the psyche, has three different paradigms–behavioral-cognitive consisting of hard science orientation, depth psychology consisting of Freudian psychoanalysis and Jungian analytical psychology and their derivatives with psychotherapy orientation, and humanistic-transpersonal-yoga psychology with positive mental health orientation. Both the later paradigms of psychology acknowledge downward causation and subtle bodies in some form or other. Medicine has the conventional allopathic medicine and also alternative medicine practices that complement it. A prominent part of alternative medicine is Eastern medicine that emphasizes subtle energies called variously as prana, chi, and ki. And biology is in transition right now. The materialist biology is highly developed but with some unsolved (maybe unsolvable) problems. Alternative biology is biology that sees life as the handiwork of a purposive designer with the power of downward causation; but at present it is so poorly developed that hardly anyone can call it a genuine alternative biology.

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Scientific Proof of the Existence of God

Quantum physics, as well as a number of other modern sciences, he feels, is demonstrating that the essential unity underlying all of reality is a fact which can be experimentally verified. Because of the enormous implications he sees in this scientific confirmation of the spiritual, Goswami is ardently devoted to explaining his theory to as many people as possible in order to help bring about what he feels is a much needed paradigm shift. He feels that because science is now capable of validating mysticism, much that before required a leap of faith can now be empirically proven and, hence, the materialist paradigm which has dominated scientific and philosophical thought for over two hundred years can finally be called into question.

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Belief-System Tune-Ups

Many people easily forget how muich they rely on mental-maps (belief-systems) to navigate through life.

What we believe defines, shapes and creates us. What we believe possible will reveal itself by what we attempt to achieve.

Belief-system tuneups are designed to reveal the deeper, more congruent frameworks of life -- those that you can rely on, irrespective of time and circumstance.

Belief-System Tune-Ups can be tailored for the industry, circumstances and needs of clients.

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A Clearer Light (reprint)

There is absolutely no reason we cannot switch humanity to a correct perception of the world—and there are profound benefits in doing so. The first benefit does not affect physicists (as physicists), and that is the spreading of the philosophical joy of discovering the mental nature of the universe. We have no idea what this means; and we seem to have no hope of ever learning what it means; but—the great thing is—it is true. Physics cannot help anyone from this point onwards. You may, if you wish, descend into solipsism (but do be careful not to blush); or, you can expand to the Deism of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Adams and Thomas Jefferson and the other non-Christian founders of America; or … something else, if you can justify it—just don’t ask physics for help!

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Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.

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William Hutchinson Murray