A friend of mine just sent me this video. It’s basically an advertisement for the work of The Institute of Noetic Sciences and the book Entangled Minds by Dean Radin.
We are a nonprofit membership organization located in Northern California that conducts and sponsors leading-edge research into the potentials and powers of consciousness—including perceptions, beliefs, attention, intention, and intuition. The institute explores phenomena that do not necessarily fit conventional scientific models, while maintaining a commitment to scientific rigor.
I’m currently reading Radin’s The Conscious Universe which details the scientific evidence for psi phenomena. Not surprisingly, I’m reading the book with skepticism and the new-agey language and design of the IONS website isn’t helping to relax my doubts. That said, I’m enjoying the book and it is raising a lot of interesting questions.
While some may call Radin’s work pseudoscience, you cannot ignore the fact that the scientific community is currently delving into the realms of human existence that used to be reserved for religion and mysticism. I have the two most recent issues of Discover Magazine in front of me and between them, the cover stories include the following:
- Morality Hardwired: Is Right and Wrong In Our DNA?
- The Search for the Human Soul
- Is there a Gay Gene?
- The Complexity of Nothing.
As I mentioned in my recent blog post, I think science has a much better chance at answering the big questions about human existence and the meaning of life than religion does. At the very least, we should subject theories about our existence to the same intellectual rigors as those that have furthered our understanding about the world around us.
I’m personally extremely interested in the idea of a collective consciousness and the suggestions from quantum physics that our dualist view of the world which separates consciousness from matter may just be fundamentally incorrect. While I do not know enough about this particular research (though I’m reading more) to speak to it in detail, I find it endlessly fascinating. And even if it’s all proven to be crap, at least we won’t be sentenced to an eternity in Hell for coming to that conclusion.
We must work together to rid the world of the scourge of religion and to use the tools at our disposal to learn more about our universe and how we fit into it.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Careful…. where have you been reading about quantum physics and consciousness? Watch out for pseudo-science – it is everywhere and often seems quite reasonable and innocuous.
– Recovering Physicist
Yeah, of course. I’m reading all this stuff with great skepticism and I plan to look out for reviews of the work I’m reading as well. I’m not vouching for any of it, I’m just saying I’m happy to see the discussion of this type of thing moving beyond the protected walls of religion. Thanks for your comment!
BTW, I came across your blog after catching some of your video blogging. It’s refreshing to see an atheist out “in the wild”. All of the atheists I know come out of scientific disciplines. Glad to see it!
The idea of a collective consciousness is intriguing, but I’d relegate it to the realm of pseudo-science. There isn’t any evidence for telepathy or telekinesis. Most of the Princeton group’s results have not been able to be duplicated, which dismisses it as good science. In addition, some questionable practices in the experiment have been called to light.
Micki -
If you’d like a real mindf*ck, you might want to read Jerry Fodor’s review of Galen Strawson’s new book on consciousness. I’ve always liked Strawson and his views on free will and determinism, etc., but his new book seems quite out there. I haven’t read the book, only the review. Drop me a line and let me know what you think about human consciousness.
Here’s the link: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n10/fodo01_.html
Best,
Juno