Moving beyond a 2,450-year-old era

The Art and Science of Blinking

Around 2,450 years ago the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea was perhaps the first to methodically question a simple fact of life - how do we physically move, such as when blinking an eye, running, or simply falling down?

Culturally we are about to fall off a philosophical cliff. Fortunately, a safe landing in a far more compassionate, sane and exciting world awaits those who come to the edge with the understanding of how to fly.

His questions and arguments, which have become widely known as Zeno's Paradoxes, pointed to the seemingly logical impossibility of the everyday experience of physical movement.

His considerations have perplexed and troubled philosophers and scientists even since. Various assumptions that underpin our modern technologies and sciences were taken for granted. We take for granted that there is always a physical cause for every physical effect - as exemplified by scientists researching to find physical cures for disease, cancer and viruses; and to find the physical genes or brain cells responsible for thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and the experience of love, creativity and joy. 

Now, with the advances in the field of quantum physics, we know that a 2,450 year era is nearing its end .. an era in which it has been assumed that our physical brains, bodies and the entire physical universe is continuously existent. An era in which each part (atom, virus, cell, organ, person, planet) was assumed to be continuously existent and functional, with every part contributing to the running of, or dysfunction of, the machinery of life.

We stand at the edge of a grand new understanding of our universe, and ourselves. As Visa International founder Dee Hock foretells, a new era

is struggling to be born -- a shifting of culture, science, society, and institutions enormously greater than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, the possibility of the regeneration of individuality, liberty, community, and ethics such as the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with one another, and with the divine intelligence such as the world has never dreamed."

 

Process Theology

Process-relational theologians integrate implications of a thoroughly interdependent universe into how we live and express our faith.

We are convinced that everything is dynamically interconnected; that everything matters; that everything has an effect. Such insights can be adapted to many faith traditions, but this particular booklet applies them to Christian faith.

Proof of the impossibility of physical movement

Overview

Standard scientific beliefs are that when we move, say a finger through a small distance, it does so by moving through an infinite number of very small "infinitesimal" steps. This proof asks a very basic question: What is the electrical, chemical activity in the body that can account for, and control that infinite-step process?

"If infinite-series do not track physical movement in the details, they cannot be used in the details of physical movement." [Stephen Pirie, 2011]

Introduction

Proving the impossibility of physical movement,
using the assumptions of modern science

This proof, based on the assumptions of modern science and medicine, reveals how we are unable to move our bodies even for the simplest of tasks, such as blinking an eye, or lifting a finger. In view of our easy ability to blink, or move a finger, we may confidently conclude that standard scientific theories -- reliant on the assumption of 'perfectly contiguous and continuous' movement  -- are inappropriate and incorrect at the micro-scaled dimensions of space-time, but approximately correct in the macro-scaled events of everyday life.

As is more fully explained in this proof, modern deterministic science (including and especially medical and biological science) requires that

for each and every physical effect (ie. for each and every infinitesimal physical step) there MUST BE an identifiable physical (NEUROLOGICAL) cause

This expectation (of perfect biological determinism) is unable to accommodate the quantum facts: the majority of contemporary science is based on incorrect assumptions. A new scientific paradigm is required.

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

Posted 30 Nov. 2008, 10:51pm, by Stephen Pirie

Both are "wrong" (within the context of the general understanding, analysis and discussions). Within a broader, deeper holodynamic-systems context (as covered by the Key Principles of Life, for Life) both are "right" in that the system we experience is newly forming and being formed by intelligent interaction with the physical environment.

Lamarck was ahead of his time: We physically affect our genetic structure (and children's inherited characteristics) by what we think, feel and believe - as required by the Key Principles.

According to some estimates, our physical system is rapidly being refreshed somewhere around 18.54 x 1042 times each second (the inverse of the Planck time). In other words, the universe, and everyone and everything in it, is newly cycling into physicality trillions of times each second. It is being intelligently designed by us and the greater unconscious-collective within which we exist. That is to say, "it" -- the system, comprising our bodies, planet and the entire universe -- is being "intelligently designed, and re-designed" many trillions of times each second. And each part within is co-creating the system as experienced. As physicist John A. Wheeler remarked, we live within a participatory universe.

As introduced elsewhere on this site, science and religion are "sister belief-systems", in that both objectify physical and meta-physical realities, respectively. Both rely on, and posit theories based on an objective separation of perceiver from some 'functionally separate'  aspect of existence (physical and meta-physical). Scientific and religious beliefs are reliant on a fundamental disconnect between individual (part) and whole (universe); between individual-consciousness and collectives of unconscious/nonlocal cooperation and influences; between One and All.

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.

 

The Complementarity of Consciousness

[Reprinted with permission, posted 12 October, 2010, 4:50pm, by Stephen Pirie]

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

The Ladder of Credibility

By Dr Johanna de Groot, [posted 1 Oct 2008]

Bridging the Infamous Gap: Current developments in consciousness studies and initial presentation of a Ladder of Credibility

[Paper read by author at the meeting held at Killarney Heights of the Sydney Science and Medical Network Group on 15th April 2007. Originally published at the smn.org.au website, and reproduced here with permission ]

Introduction

Consciousness is undoubtedly one of the areas of most controversy amongst scientists. Not so long ago I mentioned my interest in consciousness as described by Jung to a fellow scientist and got the reply: 'Well, they haven’t even proved consciousness yet!' To acknowledge further that I am moving into a ‘risky venture’ with this paper, I will share what David Wulff, a leading American psychologist, had to say: ‘The valorising of transcendental experience [as a subset of consciousness] is…risky for the field of psychology, for to take it seriously…is to open oneself to a worldview that fundamentally challenges the assumptions, theories, and procedures of modern empirical psychology.’ He adds, ‘the initial, great challenge is accessing such experiences as fully and openly as possible.’ (Wulff, 2005:430).

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