Consciousness
Anyone following the blog will be somewhat aware of my personal spiritual journey from "doubter" to "spirituality".
For me the crux of the matter comes down to one particular issue: where do I land on the question of the phenomenon we call Consciousness.
Current mainstream scientific thought is materialist and reductionist in character: in this paradigm all observable phenomena are reducible to the behavior of matter and "energy".
The specific observable phenomena that science can permit as the brute facts of "Consciousness" are the internal states reported by humans, or (if you're generous in your definition) those which may be inferred from the behavior of animals.
The current, most broadly accepted model for this is that these represent "epiphenomena": internal experience arises from and is wholly determined by electro-chemical events within neurological tissue. While this is surely a reasonable hypothesis which can account for many of the related facts, it does not account for many others (as I relate below).
I take "science" to mean the investigation of nature, using evidence and sound reasoning to arrive at models of nature that satisfactorily account for the observed phenomena and permit making further predictions about the likely implications of said models.
If science is defined thus, an issue with reductionist materialism is that it's an unproven, arbitrary, and self referential/self reinforcing postulate, which was assumed true as part of the original formulation of the scientific method. No means was provided (or even deemed necessary) to reevaluate the postulates of the classical formulation of "Science" in the face of contradictory evidence.
Individuals married to the materialist model of reality are often loath to allow it to be questioned, typically for fear of permitting some kind of religious dogma in by the back door as Scientific Truth.
I myself struggled mightily with this very issue personally, precisely because I did not want to permit wishful thinking or self deception to cloud my judgement about what was possible and real.
My readings on the subject; and, clearly now, personal experience lead me inescapably to the conclusion that Consciousness can, and indeed does, operate outside of living, functional brains.
Beyond my personal stake in this (who goes by the name of Penelope), the facts that I personally find must be accounted for arise primarily in the form of reports of Out of Body (OOBEs) and Near Death (NDEs) experiences that have been broadly reported both across time and, more recently, in detail by reliable observers.
In particular reports of OOBEs/NDEs wherein the experiencer apparently is able to observe matters outside of their immediate physiological access; and (even more critically) these NDEs reported by individuals who at the time of the reported NDE possessed no detectable neurological functioning; imply conscious perception can occur beyond the limits of the physical body.
The fact that these phenomena are relatively rare, not easily reproducible in controlled contexts, and whose details can be varied and somewhat ambiguous; does not invalidate their admissibility as data points in determining the nature of Consciousness.
The claim that these counter examples to the materialist/reductionist model must, by definition, be either misinterpretations, hallucinations, or outright fraud merely begs the question: It assumes the model is correct and automatically denies the validity of counter evidence, no matter how well or frequently reported.
History shows that some phenomena are not easily captured in easily predictable/reproducible fashion (the existence of meteorites and giant squid being two common examples of this principle); summarily discounting the data merely due to it consisting of anecdotal reports of internal states is a more subtle and pernicious bias serving to maintain materialist reductionism as sacrosanct.
So, what does all this mean? To me it says these reports are valid data and indicative of areas of inquiry that are currently neglected by mainstream Science.
It means I can rationally postulate the continuation of consciousness after physiological death.
It further means I can rationally speculate about and argue for the existence of non-corporeal intelligences (ghosts, spirits, even gods and angels?).
This is in no way meant to imply that any current religious practice is therefore correct; quite the contrary, it appears to me that no historical religious or spiritual tradition can be wholly true to the exclusion of others, it may be true that each of them hold some hints or pieces of the puzzle, but only a dispassionate and rational evaluation of the evidence can lead us beyond dogma.
For me the crux of the matter comes down to one particular issue: where do I land on the question of the phenomenon we call Consciousness.
Current mainstream scientific thought is materialist and reductionist in character: in this paradigm all observable phenomena are reducible to the behavior of matter and "energy".
The specific observable phenomena that science can permit as the brute facts of "Consciousness" are the internal states reported by humans, or (if you're generous in your definition) those which may be inferred from the behavior of animals.
The current, most broadly accepted model for this is that these represent "epiphenomena": internal experience arises from and is wholly determined by electro-chemical events within neurological tissue. While this is surely a reasonable hypothesis which can account for many of the related facts, it does not account for many others (as I relate below).
I take "science" to mean the investigation of nature, using evidence and sound reasoning to arrive at models of nature that satisfactorily account for the observed phenomena and permit making further predictions about the likely implications of said models.
If science is defined thus, an issue with reductionist materialism is that it's an unproven, arbitrary, and self referential/self reinforcing postulate, which was assumed true as part of the original formulation of the scientific method. No means was provided (or even deemed necessary) to reevaluate the postulates of the classical formulation of "Science" in the face of contradictory evidence.
Individuals married to the materialist model of reality are often loath to allow it to be questioned, typically for fear of permitting some kind of religious dogma in by the back door as Scientific Truth.
I myself struggled mightily with this very issue personally, precisely because I did not want to permit wishful thinking or self deception to cloud my judgement about what was possible and real.
My readings on the subject; and, clearly now, personal experience lead me inescapably to the conclusion that Consciousness can, and indeed does, operate outside of living, functional brains.
Beyond my personal stake in this (who goes by the name of Penelope), the facts that I personally find must be accounted for arise primarily in the form of reports of Out of Body (OOBEs) and Near Death (NDEs) experiences that have been broadly reported both across time and, more recently, in detail by reliable observers.
In particular reports of OOBEs/NDEs wherein the experiencer apparently is able to observe matters outside of their immediate physiological access; and (even more critically) these NDEs reported by individuals who at the time of the reported NDE possessed no detectable neurological functioning; imply conscious perception can occur beyond the limits of the physical body.
The fact that these phenomena are relatively rare, not easily reproducible in controlled contexts, and whose details can be varied and somewhat ambiguous; does not invalidate their admissibility as data points in determining the nature of Consciousness.
The claim that these counter examples to the materialist/reductionist model must, by definition, be either misinterpretations, hallucinations, or outright fraud merely begs the question: It assumes the model is correct and automatically denies the validity of counter evidence, no matter how well or frequently reported.
History shows that some phenomena are not easily captured in easily predictable/reproducible fashion (the existence of meteorites and giant squid being two common examples of this principle); summarily discounting the data merely due to it consisting of anecdotal reports of internal states is a more subtle and pernicious bias serving to maintain materialist reductionism as sacrosanct.
It means I can rationally postulate the continuation of consciousness after physiological death.
It further means I can rationally speculate about and argue for the existence of non-corporeal intelligences (ghosts, spirits, even gods and angels?).
This is in no way meant to imply that any current religious practice is therefore correct; quite the contrary, it appears to me that no historical religious or spiritual tradition can be wholly true to the exclusion of others, it may be true that each of them hold some hints or pieces of the puzzle, but only a dispassionate and rational evaluation of the evidence can lead us beyond dogma.
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