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Isn't part of the point of TEDx to provider a broader venue of speakers? Keep in mind that almost every major idea in the history of science was at one time con
by aneth4 14y ago
Isn't part of the point of TEDx to provider a broader venue of speakers? Keep in mind that almost every major idea in the history of science was at one time considered unlikely quackery. Spiritual and philosophical conjecture have a place where the science of today is unable to even speculate.
Consciousness of inanimate objects and the universe itself is not as crackpot as it sounds. Of course it is not something scientifically verifiable at this time, but science has negligible understanding of the nature of consciousness, awareness, the illusion (or reality) of free-will, the reason for existence itself, and what might exist outside space-time. Many such fundamental questions are wide open, and neither can they be addressed by current science, nor can wild ideas be discounted. How do we know consciousness is not a property of the universe as a whole if we do not even know what consciousness is or how it arises?
If you suggested that a massive explosion of energy would result in a stable universe that would come to know itself through intelligent, self-aware bundles of molecules, you'd be shouted out of the cosmos, yet that seems to be why we are here discussing such things.
EDIT: After watching the video, I don't agree that all of his "scientific dogmas" are false, nor does he say they are. I do agree that some of them possibly are false and should be questioned, which is all he suggests. What is science worth if it does not allow the questioning of it's own assumptions? What is the use of science applied to realms it is unable to address?
Most emphatically, we do not understand the nature of consciousness, and we do not know that consciousness is not comprised of something more than the matter in our brains. Yet all we know enters, or perhaps exits, through that window of consciousness and perception. Science works from what Sheldrake calls a materialistic view to explain the testable laws of the universe based on our perception. Science does nothing to help us with larger questions of what this all is and why we are in it.
"Morphic resonance" is indeed a "bizarre" idea, but it is also not implausible nor is it untestable. At one time, relativity was a bizarre idea. And is string theory and quantum entanglement really not a bizarre idea? "Morphic resonance" could arise in any number of ways, from a unified dimension of consciousness, to some as yet unknown quantum interaction, to simple electromagnetic field sensitivity, to some yet undiscovered energy field that is impacted by consciousness.
The arrogance of the "scientific" folks to push out alternative ideas they can not disprove is akin to the arrogance of a religious leader. Science is amazing. So are the things science can not yet explain.
- andrewfelix 14y ago..."almost every major idea in the history considered unlikely quackery". Every major idea? Perhaps many hypotheses were considered inconceivable. But certainly not quackery. Scientific ideas tend to me testable. A lot of what this guys suggests is entirely unfalsifiable. He may as well be discussing Pastafarianism.
- jonasvp 14y agoHave you heard anything about Sheldrake apart from this blog post? For every one of his hypothesis he provides experiments to test and falsify them. The problem is that he's already condemned for drawing the "wrong" conclusions so every scientist who even goes near his ideas and tries to test them is ostracized.
- j2d3 14y agoum, he said, even in the part you actually quoted: "...ALMOST every major idea" - so yeah - ALMOST Every...
- aneth4 14y ago> Every major idea? Ok, maybe not even almost every major idea (I did use the word "almost"), but pretty much by definition every major conceptual shift, from a round earth, to relativity, to microorganisms. > Scientific ideas tend to me testable. A lot of what this guys suggests is entirely unfalsifiable. He may as well be discussing Pastafarianism. Scientific ideas do tend to be testable. This doesn't mean we can't have ideas that are not testable or not yet testable. Hopefully, every idea will some day be falsifiable, but we can't rely on that. We may need to speculate in untestable territory before we find a plausible and reasonable theory that is testable. And as you know, science does not tell us that anything is true, only that some things can't be proven false. There is more to life than testable scientific understandings. I could love my mother or I could not love my mother. Can you test that? Because you can not test it, does it mean it should not be mentioned and is not important? Human love, creativity, and consciousness are perhaps the most interesting and important parts of existence, yet they are not currently testable from an experiential viewpoint, and they may never be. There are qualities of the consciousness, which by definition are qualities of existence - love, color, taste, beauty, suffering, pain, joy - which can only be explained scientifically in their mechanical reflections in brain matter. Science can not tell us anything about the qualitative conscious experience of these qualities are, yet those qualities may be the most important part of the universe. What would the universe be without the conscious experience of its wonder and beauty?