Science Set Free

[Randall]

I honestly don't know if you're being serious or just being ironic? Regardless, I think it would be a serious mistake to deny the genius of Emerson, or his sensuality, or stunning language, regardless of one's own views ...

I'm being mostly tongue and cheek .

 

[Jimi H.]

I thought so, actually

 

[flipper]

I honestly don't know if you're being serious or just being ironic? Regardless, I think it would be a serious mistake to deny the genius of Emerson, or his sensuality, or stunning language, regardless of one's own views.

- I think of existentialism as brutal and lonely, not mystical, and certainly not magical.

- One of the major points of the American Transcendentalists was that claiming knowledge of absolute (moral/material) truths as found in traditional religious scripture is antiquated and human, all too human. Hence, Nietszche had no quarrels with Emerson. In fact, I think it's wrong to label the Transcendentalists as religious people. Their spirituality was most of all a sensibility, a way of interpreting and appreciating the totality of material nature and being, - at least that's how I'm inspired by them. They are an antidote to the inherent flaws of scientism.
I'm as mystically oriented as anyone who realizes that, in principle, the universe should not have been. Absolute nothingness makes more sense when you think about, but there is something. The mystery is fundamental to me, and it encompasses everything, and so you might call this a transcendental mystery, the mystery is in the all but at the same time in the specific, because it eventually originates from the same source. What was the Big Bang, and how can you really understand it? Denying the material reality of this fundamental mystery appears to me like a fear of accepting the unknown, or fear of accepting our own ignorance.

PS: all these ideas about life being a simulation etc is to me a reaction to the inexplicable. We'd rather deny our own existence than not have some kind of explanation that we can relate to. These days people idealize technology and computers, so now the universe is 'software', and some incredible and awesome 'programmer' supposedly made it all. So, the big programmer becomes God. The Silicon Valley God. Problem is, who created the 'programmer'? It never ends..

exactly

 

[Tyger]

How To Think About Science, Part 1 - 24 (Listen) | Ideas with Paul Kennedy | CBC Radio

Flipper, this link has become a source of many happy hours of listening. Many thanks for supplying it. It has also brought me back to my undergraduate years with the seminal 'Structure of Scientific Revolutions' by Thomas Kuhn.

Loved this wonderful talk on common sense - also a very good delineation of Aristotle and the formation of concepts through the rooting of the senses in the world.

Episode 11 - Sajay Samuel
LINK: How To Think About Science, Part 1 - 24 (Listen) | Ideas with Paul Kennedy | CBC Radio

"In 1543 Nicolai Copernicus published On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, the book that displaced the earth from the centre of the cosmos. Ninety years later, in hisDialogue Concerning the Two World Systems, Galileo Galilei praised the achievement of his predecessor. Copernicus, he said, had made reason conquer sense.

Today it is a commonplace that science requires us to renounce the evidence of our senses if we are to understand the true nature of things. The truth lies behind or beneath the appearances. This loss of the senses has fateful consequences, according to Sajay Samuel, a professor at the Pennsylvania State University. Without common sense, he says, science fills ours entire horizon - leaving us no place to stand outside of science, and no basis on which to judge what science produces. Sajay Samuel shares his reflections on science and sense with David Cayley."

 

[Tyger]

From your link, Flipper, here is Arthur Zajonc - a physicist working at the cutting edge of quantum physics (author of 'Catching the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind') - and someone very much a researcher and embedded in academia. It is interesting to hear him speak. (I have been present in one of his lectures - very thought provoking).

Another title under his authorship: 'Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love'. This will be disconcerting for some, but those who are genuinely immersed in the scientific world invariably have compelling philosophical observations to make.
Episode 7 - Arthur Zajonc
LINK: How To Think About Science, Part 1 - 24 (Listen) | Ideas with Paul Kennedy | CBC Radio

"One of Arthur Zajonc's inspirations is the great German poet Goethe. Goethe died nearly two centuries ago. Arthur Zajonc works at the cutting edge of contemporary quantum physics. But it is the old poet, Zajonc thinks, who can best show us how we ought to contemplate the puzzling discoveries of modern physics. In this episode, physicistArthur Zajonc talks to David Cayley about Goethe's way of knowing, about the philosophical challenge of contemporary physics, and about the role of contemplation in science. And since his name so closely resembles the name of his subject, you also hear many unintentional rhymes as Zajonc discusses science."

NOTE: At approx 30:00 Zajonc begins to talk the science (and philosophical implications) of quantum physics - where he talks about doing the math - but that it requires a new mentality to understand this new 'non-clockwork' universe. This stuff is gold - for there are few who can so lucidly delineate the consequences of quantum physics in phrases that are accessible to the lay mind. Zajonc has that gift.

 

[flipper]

From your link, Flipper, here is Arthur Zajonc - a physicist working at the cutting edge of quantum physics (author of 'Catching the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind') - and someone very much a researcher and embedded in academia. It is interesting to hear him speak. (I have been present in one of his lectures - very thought provoking).

Another title under his authorship: 'Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love'. This will be disconcerting for some, but those who are genuinely immersed in the scientific world invariably have compelling philosophical observations to make.
Episode 7 - Arthur Zajonc
LINK: How To Think About Science, Part 1 - 24 (Listen) | Ideas with Paul Kennedy | CBC Radio

"One of Arthur Zajonc's inspirations is the great German poet Goethe. Goethe died nearly two centuries ago. Arthur Zajonc works at the cutting edge of contemporary quantum physics. But it is the old poet, Zajonc thinks, who can best show us how we ought to contemplate the puzzling discoveries of modern physics. In this episode, physicistArthur Zajonc talks to David Cayley about Goethe's way of knowing, about the philosophical challenge of contemporary physics, and about the role of contemplation in science. And since his name so closely resembles the name of his subject, you also hear many unintentional rhymes as Zajonc discusses science."

NOTE: At approx 30:00 Zajonc begins to talk the science (and philosophical implications) of quantum physics - where he talks about doing the math - but that it requires a new mentality to understand this new 'non-clockwork' universe. This stuff is gold - for there are few who can so lucidly delineate the consequences of quantum physics in phrases that are accessible to the lay mind. Zajonc has that gift.

I will listen to him again, THANKS, with a new keen hear.

 

[Tyger]

What Zajonc speaks about 'models' is very important. He does this around approx 18:00. The loss of reliance on direct experience (the source of all conceptual development) - and the use of 'models' (in Newton's time - as he indicates - a 'hypothesis') as filters by which we interpret the world is not a minor problem in our current times. It means that more often than not the abstractions with little bearing on the actual world of effects get 'substantialized into thinking' - interesting phrase Zajonc uses . ('Misplaced concreteness' he quotes Whitehead). Love the part where he says 'the models are innocent'.

He goes further - that we 'fall in love with our models'. The models become our idols - and we practice a kind of idolatry and science becomes 'the practice'. When in fact the model is just a pointer towards a living principle. We routinely, in science, 'break through' these idols - and we are continually learning (over and over again) that these models are as much a picture of ourselves at a given juncture as of the world - the models (hypotheses) are. The models themselves are not reality, they are merely pointers in a given moment. Yet too often these models are argued like they are reality. [Have you ever heard the truism that the worst kind of believer of the Christian/Muslim/Jewish religions (take your pick) is the convert? Same with science imo.]

Mathematics is a way of recreating or 'remembering' an experience, says Zajonc (lovely way of putting it). (I am reminded of the anecdote told of Einstein. At one point his Relativity Theory was finally put into mathematical form and his comment to the news was: 'Now even I won't be able to understand it.') "Mathematics provides pristine clarity and lucidity to science - and an unearned, undeserved power" for with it one "finds [oneself] being led by the hand of mathematics further than you've gone yourself." "Mathematics becomes generative - it reveals layers one didn't notice phenomenologically - but because of the power of the mathematics one is able to develop ideas further than the original insight - and this is no more evident than in quantum mechanics."

Quantum mechanical systems defy understanding. He quotes an eminent physicist as saying: 'Anyone who think they understand quantum mechanics has rocks in their head.' He could do the mathematics 'dead easy' but the understanding defied even his brilliance. What Zajonc says between 25:00 and 30:00 is worth listening to closely. Pure poetry.

At 30:00 the real fun begins!

 

[Tyger]

The following is my attempt to scribe some of Zajonc's ideas at the 30:00 mark. It's hard to know where to stick in the quotation marks. I'll let those interested in following his ideas do so for themselves but I thought it worth noting the following -

Ambiguity is state of affairs. We have "disappeared the large-scale universe down to zero points." This is an "attribute of a new type which our minds are not competent to actually understand. Our mathematics is competent, our experiments are competent, we are driven to our conclusions, but to wrap our minds around this new state of affairs has proven impossible. Bohr felt it would always be impossible." This is what was meant by 'rocks in their head' - "we can do the mathematics, we can do the experiments, we can build the mechanical machines, even sell them in the marketplace - but can we understand them the way we understand the clock-work universe? No. To do so requires - one might say - a new mentality."

This is the exciting element of cutting edge science - it is always linked to philosophy - and in my experience the best scientists are a new breed of 'theologians'. It harbingers something new and what better place to learn of the dilemmas than in the words of one who is wrestling with the complexities himself.

 

[Tyger]

My last post for now - but just to say, Zajonc's book (that he mentions) is outstanding and is used as a textbook in universities for physics students: "The Quantum Challenge: Modern Research on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (Physics and Astronomy)" by Greenstein and Zajonc.

From an Amazon review of the book -

"This is the best book available, by far, on experimental results of the quantum measurement problem. It is one of the few books that are beyond popular accounts, which generally do not have the depth necessary to understand the measurement problem, and - on the other hand - very technical quantum optics volumes. I give it my highest recommendation for anyone with some science background to become acquainted with the quantum measurement problem in detail. It is a triumph and comprehensive in its coverage and reference to quantum measurement experiments. Every scientist should read this book."

And one more detailed review -

"Even after taking an advanced-level quantun mechanics course my junior year of college, I had only heard vague reference to Bell's Inequalities, and certainly had not heard of delayed-choice experiments or Bohm's formulation of quantum mechanics. I knew nothing about quantum computation, hidden variable theories, or really anything at all beyond the Copenhagen Interpretation.

Quantum mechanics tends to bring up philosophical questions in first-time students. I have a friend who after taking his first quantum course, was adamant, to near the point of hysteria, that quantum mechanics must be wrong because to him the collapse of the wave function simply did not make sense. For him, and for myself, The Quantum Challenge was exactly what we needed. It takes questions about the meaning of quantum mechanics and answers them firmly and concretely (to the extent that the answers are known) in light of experimental results. These are the sort of things they don't teach you in physics class, where you diagnolize matrices, solve Schrodinger Equations, and learn approximation methods for months without understanding how everything you're doing works in application.

I was a teaching assistant for an intensive, 4-week quantum mechanics course for high school students this summer. The Quantum Challenge was our text. At first, I was skeptical of using this route to introduce students to quantum physics, but now I realize that it is much more successful than a traditional approach towards the mathematics of quantum. After working with Quantum Challenge, my students had a better understanding of quantum physics than they would have if we had spent four weeks trying to teach differential equations and linear algebra to them.

The book does include some math and is not for a complete beginner in quantum mechanics. Before reading it, you should understand bra-ket notation and have enough quantum mechanics to do simple one-dimensional problems, but after that, dive into the arcane and fascinating world of the quantum."

Oy! These reviews are like eating popcorn - another excellent one that gives the flavor -

"There is a lore associated with quantum theory that plays a large role in introductory modern physics courses that are a traditional part of the third year university curriculum for students majoring in physics. This book does the best job that I have seen at describing these various gedanken experiments formulated in the 1920's by such giants as Bohr, Schrodinger,and Einstein, as well as discussing actual experiments based on their gedanken predecessors that were performed in the 1950's though the 1980's.

I found the experiments dealing with the wave/particle duality of photons in chapter 2 to be particularly illuminating, particularly the Aspect group's experiment discussed on pp.35-37. Using beam splitters, mirrors, and quickly moving shutters, physicists in the 1980's have found that any attempt to know which of two paths that a photon might take results in a loss of the diffraction effects associated with waves (Grangier, Roger, & Aspect, Europhys.Lett. 1,173,1986). Therefore, it does not seem possible to genuinely separate the wave nature of light from its corpuscular nature. Even more surprisingly, an experiment involving two different lasers as photon sources can result in wave-like interference obscuring even which laser might be the source of the interfering photon (Pfleegor & Mandel, Phys. Rev 159, 1084, 1967)! This "two lasers, one photon" experiment is discussed in the beginning of Chapter 3, pp.43-45.

A surprising number of important topics is addressed in this book, including the gedanken experiments of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) involving the suggestion of "spooky" action at a distance and hidden variables, as well as Bell's thoughts leading to the resolution of this enigma. David Bohm's view of quantum mechanics is also explored, where classical-style material particles move in a modified quantum potential in a manner in keeping with the Schrodinger equation--but where particle position and momentum are redefined as a hidden variables unconstrained by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle."

I'll leave whoever is so inclined to find the rest.

 

[flipper]

I was a teaching assistant for an intensive, 4-week quantum mechanics course for high school students this summer. The Quantum Challenge was our text. At first, I was skeptical of using this route to introduce students to quantum physics, but now I realize that it is much more successful than a traditional approach towards the mathematics of quantum. After working with Quantum Challenge, my students had a better understanding of quantum physics than they would have if we had spent four weeks trying to teach differential equations and linear algebra to them.

You are a teacher who likes your students to think and understand the big picture

 

[Randall]

I was a teaching assistant for an intensive, 4-week quantum mechanics course for high school students this summer. The Quantum Challenge was our text. At first, I was skeptical of using this route to introduce students to quantum physics, but now I realize that it is much more successful than a traditional approach towards the mathematics of quantum. After working with Quantum Challenge, my students had a better understanding of quantum physics than they would have if we had spent four weeks trying to teach differential equations and linear algebra to them.

You are a teacher who likes your students to think and understand the big picture

That sounds like a really good approach. It's not easy to translate math into visualizations that represent some reality. I once had the idea that one should be able to capture energy from the atmosphere ( still do for that matter ) and part of that involved using a superconducting storage unit, so I went to the library and got a couple of texts on the physics. If I hadn't first understood the basic principles in a conceptual fashion, the math would have looked like hieroglyphics. However because I already understood the basic relationships between energy, field strength, temperature, and pressure, I could look at the math and "read" what it was saying, even though the math itself was still beyond my ability to manipulate at will. Had I been able to only do the math according to the rules and symbols, and not known what it was for, I can see how it's possible that I would not have understood what it actually for.

 

[Tyger]

Episode 9 - Rupert Sheldrake
LINK: How To Think About Science, Part 1 - 24 (Listen) | Ideas with Paul Kennedy | CBC Radio

It is interesting that Sheldrake at a certain point in his scientific studies wanted to know why he was seeing the science he was, and began to study the history and philosophy of science. He shares this with other scientists who are able to sheer away the 'cultural accretions' of past scientific formulations. It's why his work is so stimulating - and threatening at the same time.

In his biology studies he could not explain the 'minute particulars of form' and he surmised that it must be a field phenomenon. He gave it a name: morphogenesis - and with that considered how does form arise and continue. It was not a new idea with Sheldrake - there is a respectable intellectual and scientific lineage for this idea. A Russian scientist in the 1920's observing mushroom growth - observed separate threads - distinct separate organisms - that organize themselves into the shape of the mushroom. In trying to come up with an 'answer' for what he was seeing, the Russian scientist suggested a field was shaping it, something akin, or like to, a magnetic field. Biologists adopted the field idea. Models were created but it went no further. Sheldrake felt that the idea was stuck in 'theoretical limbo'.

Next step - was the actual fields - and Sheldrake thought through the implications - realizing that such a field had to have memory, and be able to morph over time. Laws of nature would be like collective habits. Collective Memory = Morphic Resonance. Beech trees (for example) evolve and hence the field has to have the ability to evolve - so the beech tree influences and is also influenced by the field. This interplay causes Sheldrake to speak of habits rather than laws in nature. [Extremely important - here Sheldrake is going to the core of certain fundamental scientific beliefs - which might explain the 'religious-like' reaction to his ideas in certain quarters.]

As to why the above 'religious-like' reaction took place one must have insight into the history of science. Sheldrake has that and shares the following: In the 17th century scientists thought they were uncovering the mathematical laws of nature which were ideas in the mind of God. They didn't think they were uncovering models of nature but the basic truths of nature - mathematical, eternal and divine. God was omnipotent and the law-giver - so a theological model developed - and science became about laws of nature, which was very persuasive in the 17th century. By the end of the 18th century scientists had become deists or atheists and they had dropped the idea of a God that ran the universe, and the atheists got rid of God altogether, but they were left with the ghost of the God in the machine in the guise of the 'laws of nature' as well as a universal law enforcement agency system which no longer had any basis - it had become an inappropriate metaphor. He posits that we need to evolve past this metaphor of laws. He is suggesting the metaphor of habits. [There is nothing 'unscientific' about any of this - quite the reverse - it is cutting edge.]

Love his discourse on crystals around 16:00. [Take quartz - one can pound it into powder - add a solution - and it reforms into it's pyramidal shape - form persists - why? His idea of morphogenetic fields is very elegant catching all these loose ends.]

Morphogenetic Field - he discusses it at 18:00. Very clear. Nothing amiss. Seems to me he understands quantum and field theory. Understands the distinction with what he is suggesting. He is effectively describing something that has been described in ancient philosophies - as found in the Sanskrit, for example.

From 22:00 onwards the 'pseudoscience' epithet flung at him by Maddox in 1981 - and that gets repeated by the uninformed imo - is addressed. Very elegant theory, in fact. Ties up a lot of loose ends. At between 26:00 and 27:00 he begins to discuss animal behavior.

Field Theory of the Mind discussed at 30:00. 'The Sense of Being Stared At'. Very complex - this is interesting. Takes some working with. We're back to Plato.

'Lived experience' and 'science says' - interesting distinction. I see where this is going. From 35:00 - his daring to bring 'lived experience' into 'institutional science' is the taboo he has breached. Dogmatic rationalism is what he is up against and 'scientific vigilantes'.

Overall - outstanding, nothing amiss here with Sheldrake. At approx 42:00 I totally agree - far more are thinking in 'heretical' modes. Rigid scientific thinking is being left in the dust. Extremely important what he is saying in the last 10 minutes or so.

He sees science being revolutionized with popular participation and the leaving behind of the dead hand of mechanism, reductionism, and the out worn metaphor of scientific laws. The results of the current science we see around us is persuasion enough, in his opinion (and many others) to return to the once universal belief that nature is alive. Science is trapped in an obsolete philosophy, an outmoded metaphysics. We are returning to a view of an organic living nature which is what everyone believed prior to the 17th century - though they thought of it as in cycles - while we think of an evolutionary universe, a developing living nature or organism. Exciting times.

Brilliant! Who cannot like this man!

 

[flipper]

Episode 9 - Rupert Sheldrake
LINK: How To Think About Science, Part 1 - 24 (Listen) | Ideas with Paul Kennedy | CBC Radio

It is interesting that Sheldrake at a certain point in his scientific studies wanted to know why he was seeing the science he was, and began to study the history and philosophy of science. He shares this with other scientists who are able to sheer away the 'cultural accretions' of past scientific formulations. It's why his work is so stimulating - and threatening at the same time.

In his biology studies he could not explain the 'minute particulars of form' and he surmised that it must be a field phenomenon. He gave it a name: morphogenesis - and with that considered how does form arise and continue. It was not a new idea with Sheldrake - there is a respectable intellectual and scientific lineage for this idea. A Russian scientist in the 1920's observing mushroom growth - observed separate threads - distinct separate organisms - that organize themselves into the shape of the mushroom. In trying to come up with an 'answer' for what he was seeing, the Russian scientist suggested a field was shaping it, something akin, or like to, a magnetic field. Biologists adopted the field idea. Models were created but it went no further. Sheldrake felt that the idea was stuck in 'theoretical limbo'.

Next step - was the actual fields - and Sheldrake thought through the implications - realizing that such a field had to have memory, and be able to morph over time. Laws of nature would be like collective habits. Collective Memory = Morphic Resonance. Beech trees (for example) evolve and hence the field has to have the ability to evolve - so the beech tree influences and is also influenced by the field. This interplay causes Sheldrake to speak of habits rather than laws in nature. [Extremely important - here Sheldrake is going to the core of certain fundamental scientific beliefs - which might explain the 'religious-like' reaction to his ideas in certain quarters.]

As to why the above 'religious-like' reaction took place one must have insight into the history of science. Sheldrake has that and shares the following: In the 17th century scientists thought they were uncovering the mathematical laws of nature which were ideas in the mind of God. They didn't think they were uncovering models of nature but the basic truths of nature - mathematical, eternal and divine. God was omnipotent and the law-giver - so a theological model developed - and science became about laws of nature, which was very persuasive in the 17th century. By the end of the 18th century scientists had become deists or atheists and they had dropped the idea of a God that ran the universe, and the atheists got rid of God altogether, but they were left with the ghost of the God in the machine in the guise of the 'laws of nature' as well as a universal law enforcement agency system which no longer had any basis - it had become an inappropriate metaphor. He posits that we need to evolve past this metaphor of laws. He is suggesting the metaphor of habits. [There is nothing 'unscientific' about any of this - quite the reverse - it is cutting edge.]

Love his discourse on crystals around 16:00. [Take quartz - one can pound it into powder - add a solution - and it reforms into it's pyramidal shape - form persists - why? His idea of morphogenetic fields is very elegant catching all these loose ends.]

Morphogenetic Field - he discusses it at 18:00. Very clear. Nothing amiss. Seems to me he understands quantum and field theory. Understands the distinction with what he is suggesting. He is effectively describing something that has been described in ancient philosophies - as found in the Sanskrit, for example.

From 22:00 onwards the 'pseudoscience' epithet flung at him by Maddox in 1981 - and that gets repeated by the uninformed imo - is addressed. Very elegant theory, in fact. Ties up a lot of loose ends. At between 26:00 and 27:00 he begins to discuss animal behavior.

Field Theory of the Mind discussed at 30:00. 'The Sense of Being Stared At'. Very complex - this is interesting. Takes some working with. We're back to Plato.

'Lived experience' and 'science says' - interesting distinction. I see where this is going. From 35:00 - his daring to bring 'lived experience' into 'institutional science' is the taboo he has breached. Dogmatic rationalism is what he is up against and 'scientific vigilantes'.

Overall - outstanding. nothing amiss here with Sheldrake. At approx 42:00 I totally agree - far more are thinking in 'heretical' modes. Rigid scientific thinking is being left in the dust. Extremely important what he is saying in the last10 minutes or so.

He sees science being revolutionized with popular participation and the leaving behind of the dead hand of mechanism, reductionism, and the out worn metaphor of scientific laws. The results of the current science we see around us is persuasion enough, in his opinion (and many others) to return to the once universal belief that nature is alive. Science is trapped in an obsolete philosophy, an outmoded metaphysics. We are returning to a view of an organic living nature which is what everyone believed prior to the 17th century - though they thought of it as in cycles - while we think of an evolutionary universe, a developing living nature or organism. Exciting times.

Brilliant! Who cannot like this man!

I had the same reaction

 

[Randall]

What Zajonc speaks about 'models' is very important. He does this around approx 18:00. The loss of reliance on direct experience (the source of all conceptual development) - and the use of 'models' (in Newton's time - as he indicates - a 'hypothesis') as filters by which we interpret the world is not a minor problem in our current times!

Zajonc makes some really good points and doesn't fall off the edge into the land of dragons and magic. I'm not so confident about Sheldrake because I've already seen some of his videos, and my comments have evoked some defensive responses from his fans. I'll catch up later when I'm home from this Internet hotspot.

 

[flipper]

That sounds like a really good approach. It's not easy to translate math into visualizations that represent some reality. I once had the idea that one should be able to capture energy from the atmosphere ( still do for that matter ) and part of that involved using a superconducting storage unit, so I went to the library and got a couple of texts on the physics. If I hadn't first understood the basic principles in a conceptual fashion, the math would have looked like hieroglyphics. However because I already understood the basic relationships between energy, field strength, temperature, and pressure, I could look at the math and "read" what it was saying, even though the math itself was still beyond my ability to manipulate at will. Had I been able to only do the math according to the rules and symbols, and not known what it was for, I can see how it's possible that I would not have understood what it actually for.

I wish that everybody had that drive, confidence, and willingness to experiment!

 

[Tyger]

His reasoning is very unsound in many cases, e.g. the idea of Morphic Resonance is simply yet another expression of unverifiable Platonic idealism.

Nope. May resemble Plato - may have intellectual connections to Plato - but is not Plato. Morphic resonance - from my brief exposure to the idea - seems to be addressing something far more mundane than Plato's Ideals - which are at a totally different level than what Sheldrake is addressing regarding form and continuance.

Elsewhere he commits the classic New Age fallacy of throwing anything labelled as 'energy' into one basket, and he speaks about 'energy balances'. Again, he takes for granted that some ideal levels of 'energy' exist, as is typical among New Agers. Thus, he does not strike me as a scientist, he strikes me as a quasi-religious idealist.

There is no such thing as a 'New Age fallacy' - or 'New Agers' that I have ever known. Its sounds bizarre, to be honest. If you insist on categorizing ideas in this way you will be poking out your eye to spite your face. I have only ever heard this phrase here on this chat site and it is used to great disadvantage by the person who uses it.

I am having trouble listening to the second half of the second video - it stalls half way through and won't budge - but up until that point I heard nothing problematic. Check him out in flipper's link. Impressive intellect and well reasoned.

However, I'd like to suggest another branch of thinking which also comes from mixing the world of biology and philosophy

If you get anything from this thread it's that science - as in materialistic, mechanistic science - is very much a philosophy. It's assumptions are rooted in outmoded theological views, in fact. How 'bout that!

The 'models' that we construct - the hypotheses - are determined by our philosophy. There is no 'mixing' as in apples and oranges. It is a seamless 'one', though it may not be conscious.

In bio-semiotics, you look at chemistry as communication (signs, from semiotics), not as pure chemical process. It is quite interesting, and most of all, it is not idealism dressed up as science.

Morphic resonance is not idealism. It is also very much science, in exactly the same way as Einstein's theory was science.

Also, biosemiotics deals with actual processes, in particular with surfaces that interact, not the supposed correspondence between material objects or beings across the universe. Besides the poorly hidden idealism of it, the morphic resonance stuff posits that we can disregard the distances of the universe itself, and expect that stuff can be like, 'inspired' by similar stuff 20 light-years away, and thereby become. I don't know where to begin with that, it sounds like b.s. to me.

You've got to read more about it, I think. You've got a lot of stuff mixed up in there. It's all scrambled.

 

[Tyger]

"Rationality as a ritual form of authority"

It sounds enticing, but what's the alternative? Irrationality? Religion?

You have to go into the link and listen to the conversation/interview I am quoting to fully get what this is referring to. He says this to explain what he sees to have taken place with public hearings regarding the building of a nuclear facility. The outcome was actually never in question - it was going to be built - but the proceedings, with lawyers arguing 'the science', was: "rationality as a ritual form of authority".

 

[Tyger]

I was a teaching assistant for an intensive, 4-week quantum mechanics course for high school students this summer. The Quantum Challenge was our text. At first, I was skeptical of using this route to introduce students to quantum physics, but now I realize that it is much more successful than a traditional approach towards the mathematics of quantum. After working with Quantum Challenge, my students had a better understanding of quantum physics than they would have if we had spent four weeks trying to teach differential equations and linear algebra to them.

To be clear - the above text was part of an Amazon review of the Zajonc book. This is not me talking about me.

You are a teacher who likes your students to think and understand the big picture

So the above comment you made is a comment addressing the Amazon reviewer.

Got that sorted.

 

[Tyger]

Elsewhere he commits the classic New Age fallacy of throwing anything labelled as 'energy' into one basket, and he speaks about 'energy balances'. Again, he takes for granted that some ideal levels of 'energy' exist, as is typical among New Agers. Thus, he does not strike me as a scientist, he strikes me as a quasi-religious idealist.

My response to the above was this: "There is no such thing as a 'New Age fallacy' - or 'New Agers' that I have ever known. Its sounds bizarre, to be honest. If you insist on categorizing ideas in this way you will be poking out your eye to spite your face. I have only ever heard this phrase here on this chat site and it is used to great disadvantage by the person who uses it."

However, I have just had a change of heart after a long afternoon conversation with a friend awhile listening to the waves of the ocean under the brilliant expanse of sun and sky - it may have been the dulcet sweetness of that milieu that softened me. For I have decided to take this on - being a New Ager! I do believe it's the winning side, in the end, as best as I can make out. So henceforth, I will make every attempt to be a staunch defender of the New Age Faith - or Way of Thinking. Onward!

 

[Randall]

However, I have just had a change of heart after a long afternoon conversation with a friend awhile listening to the waves of the ocean under the brilliant expanse of sun and sky - it may have been the dulcet sweetness of that milieu that softened me. For I have decided to take this on - being a New Ager! I do believe it's the winning side, in the end, as best as I can make out. So henceforth, I will make every attempt to be a staunch defender of the New Age Faith - or Way of Thinking. Onward!

I really wish I had time for this. I'll offer up a starter. First agree on a process of analysis ( critical thinking ), and then get our definitions nailed down:

New Age adjective
of modern movement emphasizing spirituality: relating to a cultural movement dating from the 1980s that emphasizes spiritual consciousness, and often involves belief in reincarnation and astrology and the practice of meditation, vegetarianism, and holistic medicine.

spir·i·tu·al [ spírrichoo əl ] adjective
1. of the soul: relating to the soul or spirit, usually in contrast to material things
2. RELIGION of religion: relating to religious or sacred things rather than worldly things
3. temperamentally or intellectually akin: connected by an affinity of the mind, spirit, or temperament

• spiritual mother of the young artist

4. refined: showing great refinement and concern with the higher things in life

noun (plural spir·i·tu·als)

1. MUSIC, CHRISTIANITY folk hymn: a religious song, especially one arising from African American culture
2. things of the spirit: matters concerning the spirit

• He was deeply concerned with anything to do with the spiritual

mys·ti·cism [místə sìzzəm] noun

1. RELIGION belief in intuitive spiritual revelation: the belief that personal communication or union with the divine is achieved through intuition, faith, ecstasy, or sudden insight rather than through rational thought
2. RELIGION spiritual system: a system of religious belief or practice that people follow to achieve personal communication or union with the divine
3. confused and vague ideas: vague or unsubstantiated thought or speculation about something.

Quantum mysticism is a set of metaphysical beliefs and associated practices that seek to relate consciousness, intelligence, or mystical world-views to the ideas of quantum mechanics and its interpretations.

The New Age Movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational psychology, holistic health, parapsychology, consciousness research and quantum physics".

Now is the time to propose additions, corrections or modest expansions of the above definitions and explain why those changes are necessary in order for accuracy. If this isn't done and the discussion is going to proceed on issues of faith rather than reason, then there's no point in continuing. Science won't be "set free" by faith, vagaries, and abandonment of sound methodology.