Excerpt of a very interesting discusion on blending science with metaphysics. Acknowledging consciousness...
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have to identify two different revolutions that are taking place, I think simultaneously. One is a revolution within science -- quantum physics, for example; chaos theory. A lot of things are being reassessed in the light of those frontier areas of science. The other revolution is a revolution of science, where for the first time in the history of science a few scientists and philosophers are saying the time has come when we have to go back and look at those very basic assumptions, and the fundamental driving thing here is the realization that we have to incorporate consciousness in somehow.
MISHLOVE: Consciousness has always been a problem for science, and one, I think, for the most part that's been sort of shoved under the rug.
HARMAN: That's true, and I think it was really quite a landmark conference that was held at the University of Arizona in 1994, where for the first time, as far as I'm aware, you had this whole spectrum of people, from the ones that are pretty strongly positivist and reductionist, to the ones that are out in the area of phenomenology and transpersonal psychology and the very soft areas, and the point was for all of these people somehow to learn to talk with one another.
MISHLOVE: I suppose while this conference was an important one, the debate goes back nearly a hundred years.
HARMAN: Debate goes back a long time, and it really was very closely related, of course, to the debate between science and religion. But by the time you get to the middle of this century, it became pretty clear that science has won and religion has lost and the debate's over. And then that's why it becomes so fascinating to see that since then the movement has been in the direction of somehow including spirit into the scientific world view. Now admittedly, it hasn't gone very far, but you can see the direction.
MISHLOVE: Well, there are some interesting words that have now come up, challenging sort of the orthodox scientific metaphysics -- spirit, consciousness. These words, which most people can identify with at one level or another, have been excluded. And it's striking to me that scientists, who use their own consciousness, and very often their own deep intuitions, to develop their theories, have operated on assumptions that deny the very existence of those intuitions.
HARMAN: Well, we all have a certain amount of ability to shut out certain kinds of experience while we're involved with others. But while you raise these questions, it's in no way denigrating the kind of science that we have and the things that it can do. But we have a science that was dedicated to prediction and to control and to devising manipulative technologies, controlling the physical environment, and for that purpose it's absolutely superb. But the mistake was made, largely by the non-scientists, I think, in elevating that kind of a world view into the position of a world view by which you try to guide your life, and in particular guide the powerful institutions of society.
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Dr. Laurie Nadel has been conducting research into psychic phenomena since the mid-1970s when she began to have direct experience of the paranormal. She is the author of Dr. Laurie Nadel's Sixth Sense: Unlocking Your Ultimate Mind Power, with Judy Haims & Robert Stempson. The book contains 110 interviews with remote viewers, consciousness researchers, and neuroscientists, including former astronaut Edgar Mitchell, the late President of the Institute of Noetic Sciences Willis Harman, Russell Targ, Ernest Rossi, Jonas Salk, and the late Roger Sperry who won the Nobel Prize in 1983 for discovering the cognitive functions of the left and right neocortex.
Laurie Nadel has doctorates in cognitive psychology and clinical hypnotherapy. Her ongoing psi research has led her to study viewing the human aura with Barbara Brennan and the late Barbara Bowers, an engineer who could see both infrared and ultraviolet spectrums. She has also studied psychonavigation and divination with shamans in South America.
Dr. Nadel discussed her quest to quantify and enhance intuition and consciousness, as well as to understand other planes of existence. She reported that shamans in South America practice an ancient form of remote viewing called 'psychonavigation' which combines mental focus with an altered state of consciousness.
There is some evidence that traumatic events can open a person up to PSI abilities,
and some more ideas to explore...
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strings of fate, on 17 March 2010 - 11:54 AM, said:
