Posted inReligions Science

What are the odds of alien civilizations believing in our gods?

Astonomers have come up with an estimate of how many earth-like planets there are in our galaxy: some 40 billion. Wow.  The known odds of something — or someone — living far, far away from Earth improved beyond astronomers’ boldest dreams on Monday. Astronomers reported that there could be as many as 40 billion habitable Earth-size planets in the galaxy, based on a new analysis of data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft. One out of every five sunlike stars in the galaxy has a planet the size of Earth circling it in the Goldilocks zone — not too hot, not too cold…
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Posted inReligions Science

Faith is pretending to know things you don’t know

To most people, faith is a positive quality. Perhaps it is, if "faith" is construed as "hope" or "positive thinking." As in, I have faith that I'll be able to make it to the top of this mountain.  You don't know if you'll be able to reach the summit, but you hope that you will. Nothing wrong with this. Somewhat similarly, faith can be viewed in probabilistic terms. I have faith that my laptop will start up when I raise the lid in the morning, because so far it has every time I've done this. But in his book, "A…
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Posted inReality Science

Wisdom is humility in the face of mystery

The title of this post is a sub-heading in the final chapter of Robert Burton's "A Skeptic's Guide to the Mind: What Neuroscience Can and Cannot Tell Us About Ourselves."  Burton cautions against taking neuroscientific claims about how the human brain/mind works too seriously when they aren't backed up by solid evidence. Yet even when they are, he reminds us that our interpretation of evidence is guided by processes in the very brain/mind we're trying to understand. Naturally this applies to religious, mystical, spiritual, and philosophical claims equally, if not more so. Just because we feel like we can stand…
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Posted inScience

We humans think we’re special. What makes us believe that?

Oh, you're so special! Just about every parent has thought this about a child. Their child. Because in the realm of parenthood, as in Lake Woebegon, every child is above average.  Ditto for us humans as a whole. Why, it's just so obvious that Homo sapiens is a unique species. Somewhat like other animals, of course. But on the whole we're so special.  Ditto for every religion humans have come up with. Every religion, faith, spiritual belief system, mystical practice, and meditation approach considers that it is uniquely able to bring believers closer to truth, God, ultimate reality, enlightenment, whatever.…
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Posted inReality Science

“Soul Dust” shows how we create an enchanted world

Here's my new loving it book: "Soul Dust," by Nicholas Humphrey. I loved his "Seeing Red" also. Blogged about that earlier book of Humphrey's here and here. Intimations of "Soul Dust" are evident in this quote from "Seeing Red" that I included in the second post. My suggestion is that in the course of human evolution, our ancestors who thought of their own consciousness as metaphysically remarkable -- existing outside normal space and time -- would have taken themselves still more seriously as Selves. The more mysterious and unworldly the qualities of consciousness, the more seriously significant the Self. And…
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Posted inBuddhism Science

Unbiased thought or pure perception is impossible: Neuroscience 101

Like I said before, now it's really tough for me to read books that reflect pre-scientific understanding of the human mind. Or to seriously consider any form of spirituality/meditation/philosophy that doesn't address what Robert Burton, M.D. says in the opening pages of his "A Skeptic's Guide to the Mind: What Neuroscience Can and Cannot Tell Us About Ourselves." Our brains possess involuntary mechanisms that make unbiased thought impossible yet create the illusion that we are rational creatures capable of fully understanding the mind created by those same mechanisms. Our brains have evolved piecemeal; contradictions, inconsistency, and paradox are hardwired into…
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Posted inBuddhism Science

Buddhism is too serious and unscientific for me

I must really be entering the churchless deep end. Which is great! I enjoy diving into the depths of reality, rather than swimming around in the shallows of religious and philosophical concepts. For a long time I've enjoyed reading Buddhist books, so long as they aren't overly traditional. But now even edgy writings like "Rebel Buddha" seem too dogmatic to me. How can this quote be justified? Is mind the brain or a by-product of the brain? Is it chemicals and neurotransmitters lighting up pathways in the brain that spark sensation, thought, and feeling, and lead up to the brilliance…
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Posted inGod Science

God is as real as human consciousness

Below is a highly persuasive answer to the question, "Is God real?" I like the answer a lot, mostly because it is the answer I would have given to the question if I was as neuroscientifically wise as Michael Graziano, author of "Consciousness and the Social Brain," a book I've blogged about here and here. (Check out my Amazon review of the book.) Near the end of his book, Graziano asks Does God Exist? Here's extended quotes from that section. Graziano is such a good writer and thinker, I'm wary of paraphrasing this Professor of Neuroscience at Princeton University. Across all…
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Posted inScience

A puppet is as conscious as you are

I'm back!... to writing about Michael Graziano's super-interesting book, "Consciousness and the Social Brain." It was the subject of my Awareness is a fictionalized sketch of attention, which encapsulated the central theme of his neuroscientific theory. Every time I pick up the book I'm challenged to look at myself and the world in a fresh way. A believable way. Yet sometimes, a rather disturbing way. Like when I read this morning, after Graziano described how a ventriloquist makes a puppet look like it is alive, he said: It seems crazy to insist that the puppet's consciousness is real. And yet,…
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Posted inScience

Awareness is a fictionalized sketch of attention

The title of this post is a quote from p. 79 of Michael Graziano's highly persuasive and fascinating book, "Consciousness and the Social Brain." As noted in my previous post about neuroscientist Graziano's creative theory about what awareness is, I bought the book after reading an article by the author. I'm loving it. Probably the best book about the brain I've ever read, and I've read a lot. Graziano is an excellent writer (cover says he is "an award winning novelist). His take on awareness makes more sense than anything mystics, philosophers, meditators, or other scientists have come up with.…
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Posted inScience

Religionists get fact and opinion backward

I'm almost 65, but I like to think of myself as a modern with-it guy. Hey, I've got an iPhone 5; I ride five miles on my longboard/skateboard several times a week; I watched the entire freaking MTV Video Music Awards (and could even understand some of the song lyrics). But there's one thing I'm decidedly old-fashioned about: I believe in facts. This goes against the grain of some widely pervasive viewpoints. Like post-modern deconstruction. And pre-modern religiosity. Sorry, fact-deniers. I'm going to cling to my beloved facts. When I was a kid my mother used to buy the World Almanac…
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Posted inScience

Consciousness, magic, and scientific rationalism

Here's a really interesting piece by neuroscientist Michael Graziano, "Consciousness and the Unashamed Rationalist." Naturally I just ordered Graziano's book, Consciousness and the Social Brain. His distinction between attention and awareness makes a lot of sense. As Graziano says below, his theory posits that awareness "is the brain's own fuzzy description of attention. A brain attends to thing X; the brain constructs the description, 'I am aware of thing X.'" Read the whole thing: Theories of consciousness are always a difficult sell because the topic is fraught with religious and spiritual issues. Almost all people who think about the question,…
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Posted inScience

Relativity “mysticism”: no time and no space at speed of light

Who needs spiritual/religious mysticism? Science has plenty of it. And here's the great thing: it is real! In the August 31 issue of New Scientist magazine I came across a letter to the editor that blew my mind. Repeatedly. Because every time I re-read the letter, I got the same Whhhhhaaaaaatttttt? sensation. Wilken Sporys from Christmas Hills, Victoria, Australia commented on a New Scientist story about the nature of reality that I blogged about last month. The basic notion of the story was "Something has to go -- reality, relativity, causality, free will. They can't all coexist as how they…
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Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

Metacognition tip: don’t worry about your worrying

I used to believe in positive thinking. Now, that seems like way too much trouble. I've become a lot more accepting of myself the way I actually am, rather than setting up some sort of Ideal Me that I'd compare myself to unfavorably. This is one of the big problems with religiosity. Being human is viewed as not good enough. Divinity, perfection, enlightenment -- that becomes the goal of life. So when I was browsing in central Oregon's marvelous Paulina Springs Bookstore and saw a book called "The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking," I had to…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth Science

Near-death experiences could be hyperactivity of dying brain

Here's another nail in the near-death experience (NDE) coffin for those who believe that NDE's point to some sort of supernatural, non-physical, soulful, heaven'ish aspect of reality. The brains of dying rats show signs not of a lack of brain activity, but of hyperactivity. A last neurological gasp, so to speak.  A burst of brain activity just after the heart stops may be the cause of so-called near-death experiences, scientists say. The insight comes from research involving nine lab rats whose brains were analyzed as they were being euthanized. Researchers discovered what appears to be a momentary increase in electrical…
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Posted inScience

“Scientism” is a compliment, not an insult

I've never understood why so many people fear science. Science has never harmed me. In fact, I have no idea how I'd ever recognize this "Science."  Kind of difficult to be afraid of something that doesn't exist. Science isn't an actual entity. It is an abstraction. Likewise, nobody has ever listened to Music. They have heard actual pieces of music, compositions of one sort or another, but never Music with a capital "M." So when people criticize Science, I have no idea what they are talking about. Often their dislike is expressed through the supposedly perjorative word, "scientism." Another abstraction.…
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Posted inScience

Uncertainty principle doesn’t support observer-created reality

I wish I could create reality through my intention. Believe me, I've tried. After the Mini Cooper (modern version) was released, I put a lot of time and energy into visualizing a Mini manifesting in our carport.  I even promised whatever god might be hearing my "prayer," that if he/she/it made a Mini Cooper appear, along with a clear sign of the god's identity in the driver's seat (holy book, divine icon, other form of sacred communication), I'd make a highly public conversion and start worshipping that god. Alas, no luck. Eventually I did get a Mini Cooper, but only…
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Posted inScience

Your brain on drugs is like your brain NOT on drugs

Even though I used lots of psychedelic drugs in my college years, my brain is able to readily remember the War on Drugs campaign that featured the slogan, "This is Your Brain on Drugs." Along with a photo of eggs sizzling in a pan.  Ooh! Scary! If I take drugs, my brain will be cooked! Well, not really, because I functioned just fine before, during, and after my drug years. Here's an even better non-anecdotal neuroscientific reason: the brain is always on drugs. If the brain wasn't, it couldn't function.  So explains Steven Johnson in his book, Mind Wide Open.…
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Posted inScience

Science (and common sense) finds no sign of the soul

I'd happily believe that I have, or am, a soul if there was any good evidence that soul animates the body. Instead, it's pretty damn clear that the physical human brain is the source of notions about the soul.  A nice fantasy, because almost everyone likes the idea of living on after the body dies. However, Stephen Cave's article in Skeptic magazine, "What Science Really Says About the Soul," demolishes familiar arguments for the existence of a non-material me. I was pleased to see that Cave makes many of the same points that I have in posts about the brain/soul.…
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Posted inScience

There isn’t any science of the soul

Being scientifically-minded and liking the notion of an immortal soul (dying and living forever beats dying and being gone forever), I used to believe that a "science of the soul" was possible. Meaning, we humans could experiment with our own consciousness -- tweaking normal ways of thinking, perceiving, feeling, and such until evidence of soul'ness was unmistakable. Mostly this would happen through closed-eyes meditation, "going within" one's self until the essence of consciousness, soul, was separated from the non-essential aspects. Dualism, of course, is the basic philosophical premise of a science of the soul. Soul is distinct from body; spirit…
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