Posted on 08/22/2021 12:48:41 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Without mind, there might as well be nothing. Colin McGinn at the University of Miami, believes that no matter how much scientists study the brain, the mind is fundamentally incapable of comprehending itself. “We’re rather like Neanderthals trying to understand astronomy or Shakespeare,” McGinn observed in Consciousness and Space. Human brains suffer from a “cognitive gap” in understanding their own consciousness.”
“Consciousness May Exist by Itself, Even in the Absence of Matter”
“Is it possible that consciousness may exist by itself, even in the absence of matter, just like gravitational waves, excitations of space, may exist in the absence of protons and electrons?” asks Andrei Linde, Russian-American theoretical physicist and the Harald Trap Friis Professor of Physics at Stanford University. “Will it not turn out, with the further development of science, that the study of the universe and the study of consciousness will be inseparably linked, and that ultimate progress in the one will be impossible without progress in the other?”
“I have a much easier time imagining how we understand the Big Bang than I have imagining how we can understand consciousness.”
Recently, Princeton physicist Edward Witten, who has been compared to Isaac Newton and Einstein, addressed the problem of human consciousness. Witten is largely responsible for the popularity of string theory over the past several decades. String theory holds that all of nature’s forces stem from infinitesimal particles wriggling in a hyperspace consisting of many extra dimensions.
Witten is pessimistic about our ability to comprehend the origins of human consciousness: “I think consciousness will remain a mystery. Yes, that’s what I tend to believe. I tend to think that the workings of the conscious brain will be elucidated to a large extent. Biologists and perhaps physicists will understand much better how the brain works. But why something that we call consciousness goes with those workings, I think that will remain mysterious. I have a much easier time imagining how we understand the Big Bang than I have imagining how we can understand consciousness.”
Universe and Observer Exist as a Pair
“The universe and the observer exist as a pair. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of the universe that ignores consciousness,” says Linde. This is the great question –perhaps the central unsolved mystery of the 21st Century. Linde is one of the world’s leading proponents of the inflationary universe theory. The paragraph below from LinEe’s essay Universe, Life, Consciousness brilliantly examines this great question.
“According to standard materialistic doctrine, consciousness, like space-time before the invention of general relativity,’ writes Linde “plays a secondary, subservient role, being considered just a function of matter and a tool for the description of the truly existing material world. But let’s remember that our knowledge of the world begins not with matter but with perceptions. I know for sure that my pain exists, my ‘green’ exists, and my ‘sweet’ exists. I do not need any proof of their existence, because these events are a part of me; everything else is a theory.”
Quantum theorist John Wheeler’s “it from bit” hypothesis anticipated Linde, speculating that consciousness is fundamental to reality, wrote John Horgan for Scientific American in “Do Our Questions Create the World”. Wheeler, observed Horgan, was one of the first prominent physicists to propose that “reality might not be wholly physical; in some sense, our cosmos must be a ‘participatory’ phenomenon requiring the act of observation–and thus consciousness itself.”
“It to Bit”
Wheeler explained his “it from bit” hypothesis as follows: “…every it–every particle, every field of force, even the spacetime continuum itself–derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely–even if in some contexts indirectly–from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits.”
“We Still Live in the Childhood of Mankind”
“We live still in the childhood of mankind,” Wheeler said about the many unexplained mysteries of science. “All these horizons are beginning to light up in our day: molecular biology, DNA, cosmology. We’re just children looking for answers. As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.” Wheeler was convinced that we will someday find “the answer,” and we will be astounded by its simplicity.
“Someday,” Wheeler wrote, “surely we will see the principle underlying existence as so simple, so beautiful, so compelling that we will all say to each other, ‘How could we all have been so stupid for so long.”
Scientists leaving room for G-d?
HERESY!!!!
>> Quantum theorist — “Do Our Questions Create the World”.
Do our questions create the world?
Naturally in the spirit of Quantum madness, the above is a question concerning the influence of questions.
Quantum concepts are fascinating.
Then look at our satellites...nuts and bolts and brilliant minds...but our satellites, these "creations" are not alive like the universe we see before us.
Man knows so little.
Those that refuse to contemplate God who created the universe, the earth, and all therein will never understand that which He created.
There’s nothing like the universe to bring you down to earth!
Fascinating how “quantum questions” begin to resemble Zen koans.
We tend to think of matter as being “something” and space as “nothing”, when it may be closer to the other way around. All the particles that make up matter are just ripples through space-time, like waves on the surface of a pond. What is more “real”—the water or the waves? We’re in a universe of illusion.
Good point. Linguistic charm
We reject that which we know to be true because the truth removes us from the center of reality.
Poor pagan materialists! They generally boast of their brilliant thinking but then refute this self-conception because they say they are without souls, the source of ‘self’ and consciousness (thinking, logic, reason).
The ultimate consciousness created reality, the consciousness that simply stated “I AM”. And the ultimate consciousness created other consciousness in his image. That created consciousness is us.
CC
That’s the part of us that worships God. Some use this to understand while others write papers to try and understand. It’s all been written in the Book.
That is where understanding is.
It is also the best comment I have read on this site in quite a while.
Thank you. I’m medically retired in my mid-fifties and thus able to spend my day pondering the mysteries of existence.
CC
The most merciful thing in the world is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance amidst the black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we voyage far. H.P. Lovecraft
I’m also retired, mainly because I am lazy...
CC
It totally depends upon the definition of “mind.”
Enlightenment or transcendence is not the tree realizing it is “in the forest”, it is the tree realizing it “is One with the forest.”
When we are truly “Born of the Spirit” we begin to perceive directly with our consciousness beyond our physical bodies. As we expand this conscious awareness even further beyond our physical bodies we become aware of the greater reality in which we exist.
This is why Jesus stated “My Father and I are One.” And why Buddha stated, “ I am One with Everything. “
In John 14, Jesus stated. “ The things that I do and even more, you too shall do in my name.” It is the truth..
We are souls, using these physical bodies as seeds pods to sprout and grow here on earth. (Read Jesus’ explanation of the Tares in the wheat” parable st the end of Matthew 13.)
Perception beyond our physical bodies is only available on a sustained basis when our operating frequency of consciousness exceeds about 40 Hz. As measured on an EEG. It actually goes far higher as consciousness expands, but to do so, Love within must be very strong to stabilize consciousness. Otherwise is starts quaking and shaking, a natural attribute of higher consciousness entering an impure body. Thus the names of the Quakers and Shakers.
The greatest sin is to reject this higher frequency consciousness we call the Holy Spirit. It helps us in this growth process.
This is why I have the ability to read the stored memories in people’s souls as physical objects.
The neuroscience of it is actually pretty simple and it’s what all religions are trying to teach.
The Bible is accurate.
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