Are we beginning to see a major paradigm shift, steadily moving away from the prevailing physicalist, materialist.mechanistic mindset?
Integral theory is one attempt to move beyond any narrow,exclusive views of reality proclaimed by representives of science, religion, philosophy, spiritual traditions or whatever. Jennifer Gidley writes about integral thinking and the evolution of consciousness here
There are periods in human and cultural evolution when humanity passes through such fundamental transformations that our reality shifts and new patterns of thought are required to make sense of the unfolding human drama . . . The profound transformation we are now witnessing has been emerging on a global scale over millennia and has matured to a tipping point and rate of acceleration that has radically altered and will continue to alter our human condition in every aspect. We must therefore expand our perspective and call forth unprecedented narrative powers to name, diagnose, and articulate this shift… Integral philosopher Ashok Gangadean in the opening quotation encapsulates what many integral theorists have been voicing over the past decade. It is this integral research on emergent movement(s) of consciousness that I am referring to as the evolution of consciousness discourse This research points to the emergence of a new structure,stage(s) or movement of consciousness that has been referred to by various terms, most notably, post-formal integral and planetary.
Jude Currivan says that instead of big bang we have the big breath. The “outbreath” that gives rise to the physical unverse. Matter and energy are the products of information. The physical universe is in-formed as she puts it.
She discusses her views here in “Restating and reunifying reality: Our in-formed and holographic universe”.
This is part of an annual Mystics and Scientists conference promoted by The Scientific & Medical Network
The metaphor of the big bang conjures up images of a destructive explosion leading to chaos. But we should imagine the universe as a birth of order and organisation and this is more in keeping with a breathing process by which we communicate compositions of song, poetry and prose. Evolution is the creation of order out of chaos.
So are we seeing a movement to a more integrated, holistic understanding of reality where, rather than being a mere by product of a particular arrangement of matter, consciousness plays a primal, central role? The cosmos is breathed into existence, the out-breathing Word, the Logos, creates the living universe. Consciousness is the alpha and omega.
I know, Alan, I know 😞
Whatever happened to the idea of using TSZ as practice for answering the type of questions you get in first year philosophy courses that you teach?
My Semester With the Snowflakes
That hasn’t worked out as I would have hoped.
I read that article and enjoyed it. But it also angered me, because here’s this reasonably intelligent and well-meaning guy who had been fed a massive amount of utter bullshit about higher education, about “kids these days”, about professors and campuses, etc. — all of it coming out of the far-right wing, and being used to turn a significant percentage of the US population against higher education as such. And while it’s great that James Hatch saw through the propaganda, there are millions who won’t — and they vote.
By exposing yourself to views that you find frustrating might be a good way of learning to control your frustrations. My beliefs and opinions would not have such an effect on your emotions if you had more control over them.
Do you only listen to students who have a similar worldview to your own? Is it a stipulation of the classes you teach that your students are not allowed to question your teachings?
I say thank goodness that we are all free to voice our own opinions.
The condescending tone you have adopted here is precisely why I find interaction with you so deeply unpleasant.
I invite my students to question my views and I question theirs. But every single time I have presented criticisms of your views you have completely ignored them. So I simply don’t feel like wasting my time and energy in this discussion any more.
Thank you. But I think J-Mac should be cut some slack. We can all disagree while trying to understand the position of the other. Hopefully nobody here wants perceived heretical ideas to be censored.
Funny, naked eye astronomy does not seem very conducive to observing galaxies, much less determining the motion of the those galaxies. But if you say so, still that doesn’t exactly answer the question.
http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/no-copernican-principle-no-dark-energy-needed/#comment-265293
Seems more like a suicide, they never determined a difference between speed of light with the vector of motion and at the perpendicular. The experiment failed to show the proposed effect. Einstein provided a better model.
If it has not failed, how do you know something is missing, he asked inquiringly
That is what happened to Newton, and even now Newtonian Mechanics is still useful.
I hope you’re not saying that only those who conform to the prevailing view should be allowed a vote 🙂
As I see it the problem lies in the fact that there is never anyone worth voting for. Left, right or anywhere in between,
Then the question becomes which is one capable of the most harm, given the reality that government exists.
I don’t see anyone here as being anti-science. But you seem to only want those who are in line with your beliefs to have a voice. You get to determine which ideas are acceptable and which are bullshit.
I’m with Gary Lachman,anti-scientism not anti-science.
Why? Isn’t that a request for others to be less than honest?
Neither of which this crackpot voted for 🙂
I try. But it would be easier if he could get over his obsession with quantum woo.
No, that’s not what I want and I have no idea how you came to that conclusion. Well, I sort of do. You like to think of yourself as a groundbreaking thinker in possession of this gnostic truth that people like me are fighting hard to suppress. Just your garden variety crackpot with a Galileo’s syndrome really
J-Mac, like phoodoo et al is happy to tell you what you are thinking despite correction and continually spout obvious lies that they refuse to address even after evidence is presented. Nothing anybody says will ever reach them, that is not their goal.
The best that can be done is to counter their lies to show everyone else (lurkers) how they operate. They do not need any slack cutting they need to be held accountable and their lies pointed out.
Reality does that. And in any case what ‘ideas’ are you talking about? The only ideas I see coming from the people you want to ‘cut some slack’ for are basically ‘you are wrong’. They have no idea what is right, they just know that you are an atheist and therefore what you think is by definition incorrect. All they want is to show you are wrong, they have no interest in what is right.
Phoodoo has admitted that the supernatural by definition cannot be understood by us. And yet it’s the ‘solution’ he offers continually that should replace actual science. If you want to go live in a cave with phoodoo, Charlie, be my guest.
That he does not even understand or come close to understanding. When this is pointed out in one OP he just starts another and ignores points raised previously. But let’s cut him some slack eh?
So go be a politician and be the change you want to see. Or continually whine. Up to you.
Yes, that is the issue. What is critical thinking? How should one decide what set of conflicting ideas to accept?
I tried to give you my standards for (1) accepting what counts as scientific inquiry and then (2) how to approach which set ideas to accept or at least give a higher credence to.
In summary, for scientific inquiry:
– allow for human limitations by looking for a community of inquirers trying self-critically to operate under the Merton norms, which to me are common sense ways to account for human cognitive limitations
– [ETA] for scientific inquiry, understand how empirical work has been incorporated into the inquiry
– look for evidence that the ideas resulting from that community of inquirers are successfully meeting the scientific goals of explanation, prediction, control
My question to KN about teaching was of course partly in jest, but it did have a serious part. Namely: talking about critical thinking in a domain of inquiry: Why should we not that all viewpoints are equally valid? What should the standards be to prefer some viewpoints over others in that domain of inquiry?
You talk as if J-Mac is raising legitimate points. You talk as if someone who wanders in from the street to a lecture regarding quantum physics and starts shouting how it’s all wrong should be listened to with respect and their worldview properly considered.
All those things have to be earnt. The internet and blogs like this may seem to bypass all that, but in reality this is nothing, mere sport, while real research and learning continues to happen in those lecture halls.
It’s basically the mistake that has been made with the climate change deniers. Give them a platform and their argument now is equal to the actual science despite not being scientific at all. Because there are scientists here arguing with that man off the street you seem to have mistaken that for the student/teacher relationship. But that student had to pass exams, had to pay money, had to show some ability. All J-Mac had to do is register. And yet you dare spout shit like wondering if students are not allowed to question KN’s teaching?
I suspect if you’d spend some time getting a degree in a relevant field you’d have a bit more respect for earning the right to question teachings in an informed manner rather than an ignorant screed.
And what student would write a paper (OP) and then simply ignore all feedback and questions and write another and then, most amazingly of all, cite a previous paper in support of his newer ones even when that previous paper has outstanding issues? And this is someone you want to cut more slack? Should everything he says remain unchallenged then? Or what do you imagine more slack actually entails?
Your drawing of this false equivalence just illustrates the depth of your lack of understanding of what it means to actually question a scientific claim scientifically. If you think what J-Mac has been doing is equivalent to a student challenging a teacher you are very deluded indeed.
I apologise for being so blunt.
I will need to go back and re-read our exchanges as I don’t remember ignoring your criticisms. I try to understand what people write to me and about me here and to reply when I think an answer is needed. I’m sorry my comments might have driven you away. I was merely trying to stir things up a bit at your expense (not a very smart move).
I don’t thing that your time is being wasted. Your conversations with BruceS usually provide good food for thought for the rest of us who might want to look in from the outside without always butting in. Please don’t let me stop you participating in this thread. You can ignore me and still have fruitful discussions with others here if you are inclined to do so.
Yes and that is why I still use my vote even if I have little faith in whoever I am voting for. Usually the one I deem to be the best of a bad bunch 🙁
I don’t mean his ideas, I mean his person. But then again, it’s only a certain few that engage in that sort of behaviour and I wouldn’t say you are among them.
Criticising the ideas of others is what this place is all about and I’m all for that.
Good strategy.
Thanks for the clarification.
I post so many quotes from and links to people who I would say are groundbreaking thinkers precisely because I believe they have the intelligence and clarity to be able to express things. Personally I find difficult to put these things into words and so I let them do the talking. I’m sorry to disappoint you but I see the groundbreaking thoughts coming from others, not me.
J-Mac puts up an OP, makes a number of absurd claims and then usually vanishes.
Given it is not possible to critique his ideas as he does not respond to such critiques and therefore learns nothing, it is legitimate then to cast aspersions on his character. What sort of person acts like that? Why is he doing this? Why does he refuse to learn? Exactly how stupid is he? What other recourse is there? J-Mac has already been responsible, imo, for a substantial decline in the quality of the OPs on average. If you want to encourage him to turn this site into a trash fire where every random thought he has about “the quantum” is posted as an OP and then ignored, go the fuck ahead and do it.
Yet to me, much of what you post seems either shallow or superficial or wrong.
There are more than few problems with Einstein’s theory its predictions:
Why only the Sun in 1919 eclipses experiment conformed to Einstein’s theory and many other stars, over 12, didn’t? Shouldn’t relativity apply everywhere equally?
Why the bending of light only happens near the surface of the sun and not further away, as relativity predicts? And so on and so forth… Why are there still so many unanswered questions if relativity works so well?
If we were to apply tychonic model of the universe, and used Paul Gerber’s theory of gravity, what would the same experiments show? Would they be more accurate than Einstein’s?
The scientific community doesn’t even want to consider such probability but we only get hints from well-respected physicists and cosmologist, like Weinberg or Ellis, that many other models could work just as well, or better with a different reference frame…
Did you look it up? No, eh?
Hint: length contraction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment#Length_contraction_and_Lorentz_transformation
The wave-particle duality explanation is not satisfying to many…
If the new spacetime theory is produced to explain instantaneous quantum entanglement, then it could be easier… 😉
Quantum woo, and Einstein’s spooky action at the distance, show the same kind of skepticism.
Even though Einstein was wrong about the “spooky action at the distance” some, even at TSZ, still think he wasn’t, because they can’t accept that relativity could have been wrong about quantum entanglement…
But as someone once said:
“The crying need remains what it has been for the past two decades, that of marrying together general relativity and quantum mechanics. As things are, they are like chalk and cheese. It will be a great surprise if general relativity survives that marriage unchanged.”
Newtonian mechanics has experience the same fate relativity is already experiencing… It’s just a matter of time, one funeral at the time… unfortunately…
A yet everyone is arguing about what we mean by reality.
What ‘ideas’? Ideas such as the existence of higher realities. IMO the only other realities that are allowed to exist are in parallel universes which are out of our reach and having no effect on our little (relatively speaking) bubble. They are not supernatural, they are other natural.
If, as I believe, we have been given the task of reaching these higher realities in freedom then, even if we are not alone, we must be allowed to believe that we are on our own. Atheism is the logical conclusion we draw from this feeling of being alone and insignificant. We have progressed from a feeling of being abandoned by the Divine to a feeling that there is no Divine.
Does Phoodoo want to replace science? I’ll let him answer that for himself.
As for myself, natural science by its definition should not concern itself with the supernatural. But this does not mean that it should leave out the supersensible.
I’d make a terrible politician so I suppose I’ll just have to carry on whining and ranting 🙂
There are those who argue and those who do. I know what I mean by reality. I have an idea of what you mean by reality.
And there are those that are just inchoate.
I’m just saying that by proposing that we “cut J-Mac some slack” you are contributing to the ills of the world, not helping.
Prior to the internet their audience was limited to as far as their voice could carry on the street corner. Let’s not pretend to any non-commenters that are lurking that J-Mac actually has something to say that is worth listening to. You simply demean those who do by doing that.
Even phoodoo, once in a blue moon, makes a decent comment and/or responds specifically to a point.
J-Mac never has.
He has said so many times. You’ve just not been paying attention, not that I blame you in his case.
And despite that, he also admits that the supernatrual cannot actually be investigated
So he complains that the supernatrual is not considered as an explanation but also notes that it cannot be investigated any further. It’s a science stopper but he will never admit that. Peruse those threads. Decide for yourself.
We don’t know everything therefore we know nothing.
Thank you, Charlie! But, even if all my comments were 100% scientifically verifiable, the great majority here wouldn’t like it. Why? Because they prefer the magical-natural selection over a magical man in the sky…Any time something threatens their worldview, even if it is experimental evidence, they lash out, because they hate the truth. They think they created “a world of truth”, as they see it, which is just an ensemble of fables…
J-Mac,
It sort of reminds how, if you read Wikipedia they try to claim the The Hafele–Keating experiment to test relativity were successful. What a bunch of bullshit.
Totally bogus, fabricated results, and yet all the skeptics here still think those are real.
Laughable. Wikipedia is a joke.
I still can’t figure it out how this was cooked…
I guess Steven Weinberg explained it best:
I did take a quick look at Merton norms after you brought the subject up. But the discussion tends to drag us along and it’s sometimes hard to keep up and to give everything the attention it deserves at the same time.
I believe that Steiner’s idea of knowledge gained through thinking in his early philosophical books conform to what the four Merton norms of science should be.
This science should be communal and not private, universally valid, not done for self gain and it should be open to scrutiny.
Steiner saw epistemology as the primary science that needs to be figured out if any further scientific endeavour is to have a solid foundation and he made this argument in the book linked to below.
Steiner from the book, Goethean Science
This book can be read alongside the original German version ,a href=”https://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA001/”>here
Being tasked with the job of editing Goethe’s scientific writings Steiner was in an ideal position formulate a cohesive Goethean science. Something which Goethe himself never did.
That’s a good reason to be skeptical of Steiner (in my opinion).
There is plenty of evidence that Steiner existed so your scepticism is unfounded 🙂
If you were to argue about your scepticism of any part of the book I linked to, then I might be able to engage with it. Otherwise I can make nothing of your vague scepticism.
Doesn’t get much more solipsistic than that.
Science continues to flourish because digital watches, figuratively speaking.
Science has become so entangled in everything necessary for civilization that every other mode of knowing and thinking assumes the mantle.
The general modes of research and demonstration are nearing the status of arithmetic and logic.
And if we are able to find “real being” how else can we achieve this other than by means of thinking?
Steiner doesn’t start from a position of “I think”, he starts from, “there is thinking” and proceeds from there. In order to make the claim “I think” or “a nervous system thinks” or “my brain thinks” means that the activity of thinking has already been used.
Do you see that as a good thing or a bad thing?
For me to consider inquiry to be scientific, it also has to include empirical work as parting of meeting the goals of prediction, explanation, control.
It also has to be successful. Success means active research communities with young people joining. It means success in prediction (or retrodiction). Success means that scientists in related domains respect the work. And, at least for the economies of that last 200 years or so, it means governments and private companies invest in both R&D in and in buying technology based on the science.
Not all of these apply all the time, but I look for most of them. (I’ve omitted discussing the nature of scientific theories: I’ll just note that omission).
I don’t agree that philosophy or epistemology in particular provides a foundation for science. There is no first philosophy — science is what successful scientific communities do. It does not need philosophers or anyone else to set standards for doing science. Scientific communities set their standards.
Quine was eloquent on that point, and most contemporary philosophers of science agree with him. Here’s a nice look at Quine, centering on his ideas of “starting from the middle”.
That’s all I have to say on this topic of the nature of science and its relation to other domains of inquiry.
Have a great New Year.
I am skeptical of the usefulness of epistemology.
Steiner