The Religion word

[Anonymous]

SocialistPunk wrote:

Oh and by the way!I’ve been critical of Jonathan for thinking humans are instinctually aggressive.Looking at some of the stuff being said on this topic, maybe he has a point?

  Were you being critical of me? I didn’t notice.  I thought you were just trying to be funny.  Mind you, it was hard to see clearly with all those toys flying around!

[ALB]

robbo203 wrote:

Actually, as a matter of fact, the Observer Effect  is  even evident in the realm of the natural sciences.  Perhaps you with your obsession with paranormal phenomena might want to explain something even  wackier  which developments in quantum physics have brought to light.  See for example this http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/02/980227055013.htm.  To me as a non-physicist this is just simply bizarre beyond words and yet one must trust the scientists that such a thing actually happens.(….)The observer effect in quantum physics mentioned above has also given fuel to the idea  that the universe is essentially "conscious" at some deep level and this is the point made by  Peter Russell, a physicist,  in his book "From  Science to God". In a sense what he is saying is quite " rational" and to deny it would be "irrational".  The fact that a beam of electrons is actually affected by. or seems to respond to,  the mere act of observing it , would seem to imply a very crude kind of sentience of some sort.  How else do you explain it? .

I think we should transfer this to the new thread on materialism DJP has started, if that's ok by you.

robbo203 wrote:

You said northern light was twice welcomed to apply for membership of the Party. You said this knowing full well that northern light had expressed a belief in the idea of a creator.  So unless you are playing some kind of cynical game here,  this can only mean that you think belief in a creator is compatible with membership of the SPGB.  I am asking you  -is it ? If it is not why then did you suggest northern light apply for membership  when that would require a conference resolution to change the entry requirements to the Party?

This is all part of the Great Misunderstanding on this thread of which you've been a victim like the rest of us. I had assumed northern light to have said that he held the same views on religion as Einstein and, as to me at least, Einstein's views (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Albert_Einstein) on this seemed to be acceptable, invited northern light to apply. It now seems that he doesn't hold the same views as Einstein as, unlike Einstein, he believes in a personal "Creator".

robbo203 wrote:

"Scientism" might be loosely described as the over-reliance or  overemphasis on science and the scientific method  as a means to knowledge.  Where did you get the idea  that  this is "said to reject all metaphysical claims"  (a link would be appreciated).

Fair enough. The wikipedia definition of scientism says that the word is frequently applied in a perjorative sense to the arguments to "the more extreme expressions of logical positivism". AJ Ayer's Language, Truth and Logic, which introduced logical positivism to the English philosophers in 1936, is a conscious attack on all "metaphysics". He wrote:

Quote:

We may accordingly define a metaphysical sentence as a sentence which purports to express a genuine proposition, but does, in fact, express neither a tautology nor an empirical hypothesis. And as tautologies and empirical hypotheses form the entire class of significant propositions, we are justified in concluding that all metaphysical assertions are nonsensical.

This probably belongs to the discussion in the new materialism thread, but it does have some significance here, as the late Comrade Les Cox (no relation, a member of the old Fulham branch some of whose members were influenced by logical positivism. Ken Smith was another) when he spoke at Hyde Park used to refuse to pronounce the word "god" on the grounds that it was meaningless as it referred to nothing. He used to pronounce instead the letters "G-O-D".It is also perhaps significant that religionists also say that "scientism" repudiates all "metaphysical" claims (of which of course religion is one). See: http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/sciism-body.html

[ALB]

PS.

robbo203 wrote:

The observer effect in quantum physics mentioned above has also given fuel to the idea  that the universe is essentially “conscious” at some deep level and this is the point made by  Peter Russell, a physicist,  in his book “From  Science to God”. In a sense what he is saying is quite ” rational” and to deny it would be “irrational”.

Just looked up who this Peter Russell is and see that he is a mystic and believer in a god. So maybe this discussion does belong here after all!From here:  http://www.peterrussell.com/SG/index.php

Quote:

From Science to God is the story of Peter Russell’s lifelong exploration into the nature of consciousness. Blending physics, psychology, and philosophy, he leads us to a new worldview in which consciousness is a fundamental quality of creation. He shows how all the ingredients for this worldview are in place; nothing new needs to be discovered. We have only to put the pieces together and explore the new picture of reality that emerges.Integrating a deep knowledge of science with his own experiences of meditation, Russell arrives at a universe similar to that described by many mystics — one in which science and spirit no longer conflict. The bridge between them, he shows, is light. From Science to God invites us to cross that bridge to a radically different, and ultimately healing, view of ourselves and the universe — one in which God takes on new meaning, and spiritual practice a deeper significance.

I haven’t read the book myself, but what is the “new meaning” he says “God takes on”? Is he a pantheist or what?

[ALB]

The Economic Argument against the Paranormal (from http://xkcd.com/808/ )   

[robbo203]

ALB wrote:

PS.

robbo203 wrote:

The observer effect in quantum physics mentioned above has also given fuel to the idea  that the universe is essentially “conscious” at some deep level and this is the point made by  Peter Russell, a physicist,  in his book “From  Science to God”. In a sense what he is saying is quite ” rational” and to deny it would be “irrational”.

Just looked up who this Peter Russell is and see that he is a mystic and believer in a god. So maybe this discussion does belong here after all!From here:  http://www.peterrussell.com/SG/index.php

Quote:

From Science to God is the story of Peter Russell’s lifelong exploration into the nature of consciousness. Blending physics, psychology, and philosophy, he leads us to a new worldview in which consciousness is a fundamental quality of creation. He shows how all the ingredients for this worldview are in place; nothing new needs to be discovered. We have only to put the pieces together and explore the new picture of reality that emerges.Integrating a deep knowledge of science with his own experiences of meditation, Russell arrives at a universe similar to that described by many mystics — one in which science and spirit no longer conflict. The bridge between them, he shows, is light. From Science to God invites us to cross that bridge to a radically different, and ultimately healing, view of ourselves and the universe — one in which God takes on new meaning, and spiritual practice a deeper significance.

I haven’t read the book myself, but what is the “new meaning” he says “God takes on”? Is he a pantheist or what?

 Well, bearing in mind my  previous comments about the  “observer effect”   (see this link for further info:  http://theobservereffect.wordpress.com/the-most-beautiful-experiment/ ) and how the mere fact of observing can have a measurable, if infintesemal effect, on a  beam of electrons, Russell deduces from this, if I remember correctly that the universe  in a certain sense , is conscious or sentiient  inasmuch as its “responds”  to the mere fact that we obserrve it.  Or to put it differently, we are part of the very thing we observe and if that is so then the fact that we are conscious means it too  is “conscious.” at least in this special sense .  There is more to Russell’s argument than this and he goes into some detail about the significance of light in Physics and how this relates to his  argument about religion .  My  take on him is that he is some sort of neoplatonist – or “panpsychist” – with a kind of religious materialist  -or materialistic religious – perspective,  if I can put it like that. Its a while since I read the book so I cannot remember all the details but I have it in  front of me  and here is a rather relevant passage from the book  (p.34) “The underlying assumption of the current  metaparadigm is that matter is insentient. The alternative is that the faculty of consciousness is a fundamental quality of nature.  Conscousness does not arise from some particular arrangement  of nerve cells or processes going on between them, , or from any other physical feautures, it is always presentIf the faculty of consciousness is always present , then the relationship between consciousness  and nervous systems needs to be rethought. Rather than creating consciousness. nervous system  may be amplifiers  of consciousness, increasing the richness and quality of  experience. In the analogy of a film projector , having a nervous system is like having  a lens in the projector.  Without the lens  there is still light on the screen , but the images are much less sharp” Russell goes on to talk about the fruitless attempt to try to link mind states to brain states – that is, to trace thoughts to the biochemistry of the brain  – and as someone who supports “emergence theory”  or “non-reductive physicalism” I have some sympathy for this part of his extended argument.  There is now a huge amount of evidence that in my view flatly contradicts the old fashioned crude materialism that went under the name of so called “identity theory” – identifying mind states with brain states. However, I dont know if I would go along with the rest of what Russell is talking about  but whatever else one might think of this point oif view, one thing is certain –  I dont think you can can reasonably come away from it with the dismissive  notion that this is just  some sort of irrational mubo jumbo. It is a highly thoughtful attempt to make sense of reality whether in the end  you agree with it or not.  Which kind of illustrates my basic point   – to dismiss religious people or bar them entry to the SPGB on the grounds that they are ” irrational”  is a gross caricature. We are all both irrational and rational  whether we are religious or not.

[DJP]

Here’s Galen Strawson on Panpsychism:http://philosophybites.com/2012/05/galen-strawson-on-panpsychism.html

[ALB]

robbo203 wrote:

However, I dont know if I would go along with the rest of what Russell is talking about but whatever else one might think of this point of view, one thing is certain –  I dont think you can can reasonably come away from it with the dismissive notion that this is just some sort of irrational mumbo jumbo. It is a highly thoughtful attempt to make sense of reality whether in the end you agree with it or not.

Well, having looked at his CV, his website and what others have said of him, I’m afraid I’m inclined to the opposite conclusion: that, as someone has put it, he’s just spouting “New Age nonsense pseudo-scientific babble”. One of many who have misconstrued quantum physics as a repudiation of materialism and a confirmation of idealism, mysticism and religion. Not our cup of tea.For an opposite view to “quantum mystics” like Russell see:http://www.csicop.org/si/show/quantum_quackery/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mysticism

[Young Master Smeet]

Lo All,just to try a different take.  The existence or otherwise of Bod isn’t a scientific matter, it is a question of a social relation.Being Savannah apes, we can only relate to entities using our theory of mind we have evolved with.  Any supposedly greater being produces mental states of submission, obligation and obedience.Whether these mental relations are expressed in formal ritual or not, they are there, and we have every reason to want to challenge such mental processes.

[robbo203]

ALB wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

However, I dont know if I would go along with the rest of what Russell is talking about  but whatever else one might think of this point oif view, one thing is certain –  I dont think you can can reasonably come away from it with the dismissive  notion that this is just  some sort of irrational mubo jumbo. It is a highly thoughtful attempt to make sense of reality whether in the end  you agree with it or not.

Well, having looked at his CV, his website and what others have said of him, I’m afraid I’m inclined to the opposite conclusion: that, as someone has put it, he’s just spouting “New Age nonsense pseudo- scientific babble”. One of many who have misconstrued quantum physics as a repudiation of materialism and a confirmation of idealism, mysticism and religion. Not our cup of tea.For an opposite view to “quantum mystics” like Russell see:http://www.csicop.org/si/show/quantum_quackery/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mysticism

 It might not be your “cup of tea” but it does not mean the guy is not attempting to put forward a rational argument to support his thesis and that surely is the point.  His thesis may or may not be correct but that doesnt necessarily make it “irrational” I really dont know what to make of Russell’s argument.  I’m not a physicist, and neither, I think,  are you,  but I would be wary of just  dismissing someone as spouting ” New Age nonsense pseudo-scienttific babble” without fully understanding the arguments.  – though I note that the references you provide don’t make any mention of Russell and it is not clear  to whom you are attributing this quote.   Appealing to authority may well be a source of comfort and a means of reaffirming one’s prejudices but it is not a substititude for rational argument and only goes to show that you, like me – indeed like everyone else – has an irrational side. As a layperson I do find phenomena such as the Observer Effect,  which seems to be an established fact in quantum physics to be somewhat troubling.  How can the mere fact of a person observing a laboratory experiment actually affect the result – in this case when  a beam of electrons is emitted?  I can’t get my head around this one .  If this is indeed the case what does it imply?  .  Can you explain that to me in simple plain terms because it is precisely phenomena like this  that people like Russell see as providing providing scientific proof  for their theories of the universe

[Young Master Smeet]

robbo203 wrote:

As a layperson  I do find  phenomena such as the Observer Effect,  which seems to be an established fact in quantum physics to be somewhat troubling.  How can the mere fact of a person observing a laboratory experiment actually affect the result – in this case when  a beam of electrons is emitted?  I cant  get my head around this one .  If this is indeed the case what does it imply?  .  Can you explain that to me in simple plain terms becuase it is precisely phenomena like this  that people like Russell see as providing providing scientific proof  for their theories of the universe

You had me worried for a second there that I had misunderstood the observer effect, but a quick cross check to Wikipedia: “In physics, the term observer effect refers to changes that the act of observation will make on the phenomenon being observed. This is often the result of instruments that, by necessity, alter the state of what they measure in some manner.” Seems simple to me, in experiments, measuring can change the state of things being measured.  At a macro scale, most often not a problem, but at the micro and below, this is significant.

[ALB]

I wasn’t appealing to authority, just referring people following this thread to the opposite point of view.But I don’t see what your problem is. Those studying sub-atomic particles observed that this part of the universe (of everything) moves in a different way from other parts and came up with a theory to explain this (quantum physics). I don’t see how the Observer Effect is a problem, it’s just another observation to be taken into account when formulating a theory (essentially describing the pattern observed). It doesn’t mean that the universe has a mind or is a mind. That’s a hypothesis of course just as is that a god created the universe in 5 or 6 days. Whether it’s worth testing any more than the Creationist view is a matter of debate, not that I can see how it could be tested. It doesn’t seem to be taken seriously by most people involved in this research and analysis.I’m not an expert in quantum or any other kind of physics, but this is an argument about what do we mean by knowledge. See this I wrote on the other thread discussing materialism, etc (the quote is from Anton Pannekoek, a noted astronomer as well as a socialist and a Marxist):

Quote:

Incidentally, just like the theory of relativity, the theory of quantum physics is also “only a mental abstraction, a set of formulas, better than the former, hence more true, because it represents more phenomena which the old law could not explain.”  It’s only a way of describing a part of the universe, how sub-atomic participles are observed to move. It doesn’t have relevance outside the field of sub-atomic particles, and in fact is not an accurate description of other parts of the universe. The fact that human behaviour could also be described as “uncertain” and “indeterminate” is just a co-incidence.

[Young Master Smeet]

Some of this debate has put me in mind of Grant Allen’s The British Barbarians(link)please forgive the extended quote

Grant Allen, 1848-1899 wrote:

Now, don’t be deceived by nonsensical talk about living beings in other planets. There are no such creatures. It’s a pure delusion of the ordinary egotistical human pattern. When people chatter about life in other worlds, they don’t mean life—which, of a sort, there may be there:—they mean human life—a very different and much less important matter. Well, how could there possibly be human beings, or anything like them, in other stars or planets? The conditions are too complex, too peculiar, too exclusively mundane. We are things of this world, and of this world only. Don’t let’s magnify our importance: we’re not the whole universe. Our race is essentially a development from a particular type of monkey-like animal—the Andropithecus of the Upper Uganda eocene. This monkey-like animal itself, again, is the product of special antecedent causes, filling a particular place in a particular tertiary fauna and flora, and impossible even in the fauna and flora of our own earth and our own tropics before the evolution of those succulent fruits and grain-like seeds, for feeding on which it was specially adapted. Without edible fruits, in short, there could be no monkey; and without monkeys there could be no man.””But mayn’t there be edible fruits in the other planets?” Frida inquired, half-timidly, more to bring out this novel aspect of Bertram’s knowledge than really to argue with him; for she dearly loved to hear his views of things, they were so fresh and unconventional.”Edible fruits? Yes, possibly; and animals or something more or less like animals to feed upon them. But even if there are such, which planetoscopists doubt, they must be very different creatures in form and function from any we know on this one small world of ours. For just consider, Frida, what we mean by life. We mean a set of simultaneous and consecutive changes going on in a complex mass of organised carbon compounds. When most people say ‘life,’ however,—especially here with you, where education is undeveloped—they aren’t thinking of life in general at all (which is mainly vegetable), but only of animal and often indeed of human life. Well, then, consider, even on this planet itself, how special are the conditions that make life possible. There must be water in some form, for there’s no life in the desert. There must be heat up to a certain point, and not above or below it, for fire kills, and there’s no life at the poles (as among Alpine glaciers), or what little there is depends upon the intervention of other life wafted from elsewhere—from the lands or seas, in fact, where it can really originate. In order to have life at all, as WE know it at least (and I can’t say whether anything else could be fairly called life by any true analogy, until I’ve seen and examined it), you must have carbon, and oxygen, and hydrogen, and nitrogen, and many other things, under certain fixed conditions; you must have liquid water, not steam or ice: you must have a certain restricted range of temperature, neither very much higher nor very much lower than the average of the tropics. Now, look, even with all these conditions fulfilled, how diverse is life on this earth itself, the one place we really know—varying as much as from the oak to the cuttle-fish, from the palm to the tiger, from man to the fern, the sea-weed, or the jelly-speck. Every one of these creatures is a complex result of very complex conditions, among which you must never forget to reckon the previous existence and interaction of all the antecedent ones. Is it probable, then, even a priori, that if life or anything like it exists on any other planet, it would exist in forms at all as near our own as a buttercup is to a human being, or a sea-anemone is to a cat or a pine-tree?””Well, it doesn’t look likely, now you come to put it so,” Frida answered thoughtfully: for, though English, she was not wholly impervious to logic.”Likely? Of course not,” Bertram went on with conviction. “Planetoscopists are agreed upon it. And above all, why should one suppose the living organisms or their analogues, if any such there are, in the planets or fixed stars, possess any such purely human and animal faculties as thought and reason? That’s just like our common human narrowness. If we were oaks, I suppose, we would only interest ourselves in the question whether acorns existed in Mars and Saturn.” He paused a moment; then he added in an afterthought: “No, Frida; you may be sure all human beings, you and I alike, and thousands of others a great deal more different, are essential products of this one wee planet, and of particular times and circumstances in its history. We differ only as birth and circumstances have made us differ.”

[northern light]

I found this on my Facebook site. Can anyone tell me if it is a SPGB publication?
 
TEN SIGNS YOU ARE AN UNQUESTIONING CHRISTIAN
 
1. You actually know a lot less than many Atheists and Agnostics do about the bible, Christianity and church history, but still call yourself a Christian.
 
2 You define 0.01% a high sucess rate, when it comes to answering prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works, and you think that the remaining 99.99% failure was simply the will of God.
 
3. While modern science, history, geology, biology and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around the floor, “speaking in tongues,” may be all the evidence you need.
 
4. You believe that the entire population of this planet, with the exception of those who share your belief (though excluding those in rival sects) will spend eternity in an infinate hell of suffering. Yet you consider your religion, the most tolerant and loving.
 
5. You are willing to spend your life looking for loopholes in the scientifically established age of the Earth (4.55 billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by pre-historic tribesmen sitting in their tents and suggesting that the Earth is a few generations old.
 
6You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about Gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who came to give birth to a man-god, who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.
 
7  Your face turns purple when you hear the atrocities attributed to Allah, but you don’t even flinch, when hearing about God/Jehovah, slaughtering all the babies in Egypt, in “Exodus” and ordering the elimination of entire ethnic groups in “Joshua” including women, children and animals.
 
8.  You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Trinity god.
 
9.  You feel insulted and dehumanized, when scientists say that people evolved from lesser life forms, but you have no problem believing we were created from durt.
 
10.  You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of your god.

[Anonymous]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Some of this debate has put me in mind of Grant Allen’s The British Barbarians(link)please forgive the extended quote

Grant Allen, 1848-1899 wrote:

Now, don’t be deceived by nonsensical talk about living beings in other planets. There are no such creatures. It’s a pure delusion of the ordinary egotistical human pattern. When people chatter about life in other worlds, they don’t mean life—which, of a sort, there may be there:—they mean human life—a very different and much less important matter. Well, how could there possibly be human beings, or anything like them, in other stars or planets? The conditions are too complex, too peculiar, too exclusively mundane. We are things of this world, and of this world only.

This is no longer necessarily the case with the discovery in recent years of solar systems with ‘earth-like’ planets.Take the star known as Gliese 581. It’s utterly unremarkable in just about every way imaginable.  It’s a red dwarf, the most common type of star in the Milky Way, weighing in at about a third of the mass of the sun. At 20 light years or so away, it’s relatively close to us.But Gliese 581 does have one distinction — and that’s enough to make it the focus of intense scientific attention. At last count, astronomers had identified more than 400 planets orbiting stars beyond the sun, and Gliese 581 was host to no fewer than four of them — the most populous solar system we know of, apart from our own. That alone would make the star intriguing. But two years ago, a team of astronomers announced that it had found two more planets circling the star, bringing the total to six. And one of them, assigned the name Gliese 581g, may be of truly historic significance. For one thing, the planet is only about three or four times as massive as our home world, meaning it probably has a solid surface just like Earth. Much more important, it sits smack in the middle of the so-called habitable zone, orbiting at just the right distance from the star to let water remain liquid rather than freezing solid or boiling away. As far as we know, that’s a minimum requirement for the presence of life. For thousands of years, philosophers and scientists have wondered whether other Earths existed out in the cosmos.

[robbo203]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

As a layperson  I do find  phenomena such as the Observer Effect,  which seems to be an established fact in quantum physics to be somewhat troubling.  How can the mere fact of a person observing a laboratory experiment actually affect the result – in this case when  a beam of electrons is emitted?  I cant  get my head around this one .  If this is indeed the case what does it imply?  .  Can you explain that to me in simple plain terms becuase it is precisely phenomena like this  that people like Russell see as providing providing scientific proof  for their theories of the universe

You had me worried for a second there that I had misunderstood the observer effect, but a quick cross check to Wikipedia: “In physics, the term observer effect refers to changes that the act of observation will make on the phenomenon being observed. This is often the result of instruments that, by necessity, alter the state of what they measure in some manner.” Seems simple to me, in experiments, measuring can change the state of things being measured.  At a macro scale, most often not a problem, but at the micro and below, this is significant.

 Well yes I understand the point you are making but – and here I might be qute wrong as I am not a physicist –  I thought that the “observer effect” entailed more than just what is called the “measurement problem” – the influence of  some measuring instrument on what is being measured.  After all,  to determine whether there has been effect at all you surely have to measure both before and after  the event  which suggests that what is being measured is the effect of the presence of the human observer  independently of the measuring intrument itself and not the effect of this measuring instrument as such.  At any rate, thats how I understood it. The more wacky interpretation of this is that it is the actual “thought wave” or “force field”  of the observer that is somehow interfering with the behaviour of the electrons. But then what do I know.  Perhaps what we we need on this forum is a competent physicist who can puts us all out of our misery! Anyway for what its worth I came across this at Belief.net  (which means it will probably go down like a lead balloon on this forum!):In the late 1920s, scientists-led by Neils Bohr–were convinced, based on observations of their data and mathematics, that our reality was dependent on an “observer effect,” an interplay between how our reality manifests and how we observe it. It became known as the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Meanwhile, Albert Einstein’s followers, by far the majority of physicists at the time, disagreed, and spent the next 40 years searching for the “hidden variable” that would explain quantum mechanics and enable them to do away with the Copenhagen interpretation.Finally, in 1964, physicist John S. Bell came up with a mathematical theorem, known as Bell’s inequality (or theorem), which, for the first time, made it possible to physically test which of these two views was the correct one. Henry Stapp, a physicist at the University of California at Berkeley and an authority on the implications of Bell’s theorem, believes that all the strange concepts we have learned to adjust to since Einstein–where time goes slower as we goes faster; where the mass of the sun bends space such that earth travels in an ellipse while also going in a straight line through space; the atom bomb; quantum tunneling; and the like–are merely the tip of the iceberg. The heavy-duty, bottom line all along has been, “Is the observer effect real?”The first experimental test of Bell’s theorem was conducted eight years later, in 1972, by Professor John Clauser at UC Berkeley. Clauser conceived his experiment in 1969 while at Columbia University, and completed it in 1972 at Berkeley using calcium atoms. The results were that reality is based on an observer effect. In 1973, Holt and Pipkin repeated the experiment using mercury atoms, which was repeated by Clauser in 1976-and both showed conclusively the observer effect is real.In 1975 scientists at Columbia repeated a 1974 experiment done in Italy, again confirming the observer effect. In 1976, Lamehi-Rachti and Mittig at the Saclay Nuclear Research Center in Paris carried out another experiment, which again confirmed the observer effect.The final bit of evidence came in a March 1999 article in Nature by Alain Aspect from the University of Paris-South, in Orsay, France. He announced the conclusions of his team’s experiment, which closely aligned with the requirements of Bell’s theorem. Again, the results were in favor of the observer effect.So here we are, faced with the most startling discovery in the scientific history of mankind, and very few people know a thing about it. Recall that when we were faced with the discovery that the earth goes around the sun, it took the general population well over a century to adopt this as fact. We still speak of the sun rising and setting.Now we are faced with the notion that there is an interplay between our local space-time reality and human consciousness. Worse yet, it means objects are not really solid. Here I will summarize points made by Evan Harris Walker, writing in his book, The Physics of Consciousness: Strained by the conflicts between Einstein and Bohr over the ultimate meaning of quantum mechanics, subjected to further stress in Bell’s theorem, and finally ripped through in recent tests, the whole cloth of the materialistic picture of reality must now be rejected. We must now recognize that objective reality is a flawed concept, and that consciousness is a negotiable instrument of reality.We stand at the threshold of a revolution in thinking that transcends anything that has happened in 1,000 years. Now the observer, consciousness, something self-like or mind-like, becomes a provable part of a richer reality than physics or any science has ever dared to envision.Why hasn’t this incredible discovery reached the front cover of Time magazine? Give it a couple of decades. We have yet to figure out how to handle it.http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Pagan-and-Earth-Based/2003/12/Shamanic-Healing-Why-It-Works.aspx?p=1

[Author]

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