Posted inMystics Science

“The Beginning of Infinity” — inspiring science

I don't know whether physicist David Deutsch's optimism expressed in his new book, "The 'Beginning of Infinity," is justified. I'm only about a quarter of the way through it, so maybe his later chapters imply more of a downer that what I've read so far. His basic thesis, though, is both inspiring and believable. There are no limits to knowledge. Human life -- individual or collective -- is a never-ending journey on the path to more. Whenever there has been progress, there have been influential thinkers who denied that it was genuine, that it was desirable, or even that the…
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Posted inScience

We are natural born dualists

There's something strange about people who say "All is One" while believing in an immaterial soul or some other supernatural entity. This is a dualiistic idea that's at odds with oneness. Materialists actually are the true monists, because they hold that everything in existence is formed of the same substance. Michael Shermer makes this point nicely in his book, "The Believing Brain." This process of explaining the mind through the neural activity of the brain makes me a monist. Monists believe that there is just one substance in our head -- brain. Dualists, by contrast, believe that there are two…
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Posted inReligions Science

Null hypothesis makes God a nothing

It's been a while since "null hypothesis" passed through my brain. Probably a college statistics class was the last time those words were thought about. So I felt like I was saying hello to an old acquaintance when I came across references to the null hypothesis in the final chapter of Michael Shermer's latest book, The Believing Brain. Science begins with something called a null hypothesis, Although statisticians mean something very specific about this (having to do with comparing different sets of data), I am using this term null hypothesis in its more general sense: the hypothesis under investigation is…
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Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

Religious Naturalism: sound science with a topping of awe

Thanks to a comment by Alex on a recent post about the wonders of the universe, I learned about Religious Naturalism -- which I wasn't very familiar with before. (Alex is with the Unitarian Universalists Hong Kong, UUHK.) May I introduce the philosophical/religious position which explores the religious depth (feelings of wonder, awe, inspiration, reverence, and humility; and contemplation of life and death) of the Universe as understood by science: Religious Naturalism More information: http://faculty.uml.edu/rinnis/2000_stone_2_1.pdf http://www.religiousnaturalism.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_naturalism In my opinion, your article is a wonderful exposition of Religious Naturalism (if you don't mind being so described). No, Alex, I don't…
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Posted inScience Universe

No need for God with “Wonders of the Universe”

I felt awe, inspiration, reverence, humility. Not from a religious ritual, holy book, or spiritual sage -- from the first episode I've watched of a BBC science program, "Wonders of the Universe." Youthful-looking physicist Brian Cox explained in Children of the Stars how the same 92 naturally occurring elements are found everywhere in the universe. So what we are, the universe is.I've heard this before, many times. But the way Cox put it seemed new and fresh. In the clip below he says that the building blocks of the universe -- protons and neutrons -- formed within the first few…
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Posted inScience

“Why?” is a tricky question

Yesterday Jim, a long-time friend, sent me a link to a video of physicist Richard Feynman responding to a question about why two magnets repel/attract each other. Simple question. But the answer isn't. At least, not if we consider "why?" in the depth that this word deserves. Feynman, a brilliant guy, talks about how difficult it is to isolate anything from what really is an virtually endless chain of interrelationships that extend through much vaster reaches of space and time than we normally envison when we ask "why?" Science understands this. Religions don't. They like to offer up ridiculously simplistic…
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Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

Pure awareness: beyond subjective and objective?

This morning I picked up "The Mystical Mind," a book I've read several times. With every re-reading I get something more out of it. It's a terrific blend of neuroscience, philosophy, and mysticism. I was planning to write something new about stimulating ideas I came across in the Consciousness and Reality chapter. Then I decided to check blog posts about the book that I'd shared back in 2007. (See here, here, here, here, and here.) Reading them over, I saw that just about everything I was planning to say, I'd already said. So if you're looking for some non-religious "spiritual"…
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Posted inGod Science

Is consciousness a “president” or “press secretary”?

Yesterday my Tai Chi instructor asked a question after about twenty minutes of class, during which we'd repeated the short Five Animal form several times. "Did the Five Animal feel differently the first time you did it, compared to the last time?" I was one of the first to answer. "At first," I said, "I was thinking about how to open and close my rear foot, among other things. But eventually it seemed like my body was doing what it need to do by itself, naturally, no thinking required." Other people made similar comments. By and large, with one exception,…
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Posted inScience

Isaac Asimov: some wrongs are wronger than others

One of the more ridiculous criticisms of science by religious believers is "Scientific facts often turn out to be proven wrong." Well, in a narrow sense that's true, but American author and biochemist Isaac Asimov shows how it's also broadly false in an interesting essay, "The Relativity of Wrong." His basic point is that there are gradations of wrongness. In response to someone who wrote him a letter praising Socrates' proposition that the wisest man knows he knows nothing, Asimov said: My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought…
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Posted inGod Science

Religion’s bad arguments against the big bang

The day after I wrote my previous blog post, "Mystery of existence eludes both religion and science," I returned to reading Michael Shermer's new book, The Believing  Brain. I came across a section in his "Belief in God" chapter that reminded me of points made in my post -- which isn't surprising, given that (1) Shermer's arguments are fairly obvious, and (2) almost certainly Shermer and I have read the same ungodly books by Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, and other religious skeptics. Have a read: The problem we face with the God question is that certainty is not possible when we…
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Posted inReality Science Universe

Mystery of existence eludes both religion and science

"Why is there something rather than nothing?" This is the ultimate question. So ultimate'y, it shouldn't be viewed as a question, because questions imply answers. I prefer, "There is something rather than nothing." Leave out the "why." Embrace the stark, unarguable reality of existence. Forget God. Something must exist or God couldn't exist. So my awe is directed toward existence, not God. Existence is everlasting, eternal, omnipresent, unfathomable. Wild! If I want to feel a tingle up my psyche's spine before I fall into sleep, I ponder there is something rather than nothing as I doze off. (Some reflections of…
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Posted inReality Science

The three wisest words in the world: “I don’t know”

I've got some affirmations for you that will change your life. Repeat them over and over in your mind until they seem to be part and parcel of you. Because in truth, they already are. "I don't know." "I'm clueless.""I have no idea what's going on.""It's all a mystery to me." None of us knows how we know. That's a neuroscientific fact. I talked about this a few years ago in Knowing that you know: impossible. This blog post was based on a terrific book by Robert Burton, "On Being Certain." One of Burton's central points, which seems as certain…
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Posted inReality Science

Mathematics is both invented and discovered

I'm fascinated by the question of whether the laws of nature are "out there" in an objective external world, or "in here" within the subjective confines of the human brain. A recent post on my other blog about male/female conversation styles mentions how I'd talk about this topic with another philosophically-minded man. When men talk, most of the time they aren't trying to either reveal, or gain access to, inner feelings. My wife and I used to get another with another couple. The other guy and I would converse in one corner of our living room, while the wives huddled…
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Posted inScience

Believing comes first, reasons and evidence follow

Most of us like to believe that our beliefs are well-founded. It's the other guy who isn't looking at the evidence, is drawing false conclusions, has his or her head in the sand while we're staring straight at reality. Well, that's an unfounded belief. Each of us, everyone on Earth, is prone to making wrong conclusions. Michael Shermer explains why in his new book, "The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and God to Politics and Conspiracies -- How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths." The brain is a belief engine. From sensory data flowing in through the senses the…
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Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

How to be happy without a soul

I'm pretty much convinced that I don't have a soul. If it shows up one day like a lost puppy that managed to find its way home, I'll be pleasantly surprised. (At least, if it wags its tail and licks my face.) Quite a while ago I gave up the search for my self, impelled in part by a source of great spiritual wisdom, The Onion, which told the tale of another guy who did the same thing. As neuroscience learns more and more about how the brain functions, my decision appears increasingly wise to me. Of course, what else…
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Posted inBooks Science

“The Ego Trick” — selves exist, but not as we believe

Who are we? Is there an essential "me"? Am I an unchanging self? I'm fascinated by these sorts of questions. Ever since I started practicing yoga and meditation more than forty years ago, I've been trying to understand who or what I am. For much of that time I believed in the adage, "self-realization before God-realization." Yet as I said in a blog post, Religions are wrong about self-realization: But the fact remains that whatever our "self" may be, it isn't something simple, obvious, supernatural, or transparently evident to awareness. So this makes traditional religious/spiritual notions of self-realization laughably out…
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Posted inReligions Science

Religion, like fast food, makes you unnaturally large

Since I've given up religion, I've become a lot more content with my smallness. As noted before, I'm no longer obsessed with expanding my consciousness, enlarging my connection with God, or growing my spiritual understanding. Small things please me now much more than they did before. I guess you could say I've lost a lot of ego-weight after discarding a religious belief system that had grandiose goals and taught that human beings could attain perfection. This morning I forgot to put the canned dog food back in the refrigerator. There goes my claim to perfection. To which I say, good…
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Posted inReligions Science

Religious believers are acting in accord with evolution

Having arrived at a churchless view of reality, I'm amused when true believers accuse me of taking the easy way out by being a skeptic about God and other things divine'ish. They see religious belief as a courageous stand against rampant secularism -- a bold independent search for ultimate reality that transcends materialistic boundaries. Actually, the truth is far different. Religious belief is the default human condition. What takes courage, effort, and determination is going against the religious current that sweeps the vast majority of people into a faith-based ocean. Interestingly, the evidence for this is scientific. Evolutionary psychology has…
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