The Purpose Of This
¹ “Beyond a Materialist Worldview — Towards an Expanded Science,” Harald Walach, on behalf of the Scientific and Medical Network, 2019, pg 6
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
Regarding The Levels and Development of Consciousness, Confusion Therein, and the Foundation of All
¹ “Brains Are Not Required When It Comes to Thinking and Solving Problems—Simple Cells Can Do It,” Scientific American Magazine Vol. 330 No. 2 (February 2024), page 44 doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0224-44
² N. David Mermin, who was a solid-state physicist at Cornell University, was known for his now often-quoted line, “Shut up and calculate!”
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
Why We Continue To Be Confused About Consciousness
¹ “Bodhisattva - The Ethical Phase in Evolution" by Herbert V. Guenther in The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhism, Edited and introduced by Leslie S. Kawamura, page 123, note 1.
Dr. Herbert Guenther (1917-2006) was one of the first translators of the Vajrayana and Dzogchen teachings of Tibetan Buddhism into English. His quote relates to the drift of the meaning of translations that occurs when translators are not intimately knowledgeable of the intended meaning, and the culture, in which a text was written, when it is being translated.
Our Reality is Responsive, Not Chaotically Determined
¹ In 1877, the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) characterized inquiry in general, not as the pursuit of truth per se, but as the struggle to move from irritating, inhibitory doubts born of surprises, disagreements, and the like, and to reach a secure belief, the belief being that on which one is prepared to act. His characterization agrees with the pre-Galileon focus of science on discovering practical knowledge, rather than the Truth.
² “Reality,” Peter Kingsley, The Golden Sufi Center, 2003, page 77
³ Harrison Gray Otis Blake (ed.), The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, March 23, 1853 (p. 213-214)
⁴ “Dubliners” by James Joyce, The Egoist Press, London, Second Edition, 1922
⁵ See, for example, “Being You — A New Science of Consciousness,” Anil Seth, Faber & Faber Ltd, 2021
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
The Mystery Staring Us In The Face: Our Ability To Perceive Fluid Motion From Video Images
¹ “The results of both experiments show that conceptual understanding can be achieved when a novel picture is presented as briefly as 13 ms and masked by other pictures.” Note: 13 ms is approximately 77 fps. Quoted from: “Detecting Meaning In RSVP At 13 ms Per Picture,” Mary C. Potter, et al., of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in “Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics,” 2014 76:270–279, DOI 10.3758/s13414-013-0605-z
² There is a salient difference in the approaches of neuroscientists and computer scientists regarding how much time is required to perform the requisite processing, as well as, the energy loads that such processing requires. Neuroscientists do not seem, on the whole, to concern themselves with these factors since the only possible solution is that the brain is already doing it, and therefore, all we need to understand is how it is done by the brain, without any need to balance the proposed solutions against how much time and energy would be required. Computer scientists, on the other hand, are not so constrained in their reasoning in this regard, and they universally are concerned about how much time it takes a computer to do the processing, and how much energy is required to support that processing. For example, in the introduction for a recent paper dealing with ways of implementing fluid motion for various machine deployments, the time and energy requirements are an expected aspect of any solution: “Dynamic machine vision (DMV) technology has numerous significant applications in video analysis, robotic vision, self-driving technology, and intelligent transport. The ability to use present vision to recognize past motion and predict future trajectories is crucial in DMV. Current imaging systems utilize multiple modules, including sensors, signal converters, memory, and processors, to recognize and predict motion by analyzing massive frame-by-frame image sequences and using complex algorithms, engendering redundant data flows and high-energy consumption.” Found in: Tan, H., van Dijken, S. Dynamic machine vision with retinomorphic photomemristor-reservoir computing. Nat Commun 14, 2169 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-37886-y
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
What is Experience, Where is Mind, What is Consciousness, and Time?
¹ This is explained in the discussion “Plato On The Necessarily Nondual Nature Of Reality”
² The Poem of Parmenides, Translated by John Mansley Robinson, An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy (Boston: Houghton Mifflen, 1968)
³ “The Mysterious Universe,” Sir James Jeans, 1930, Cambridge University Press
⁴ Saint Augustine, Confessions [397 - 400], Book XI
⁵ From “Appendix II” of “The Syntax of Time,” by Peter Manchester, Brill
⁶ Taken from the paper “The Entangled Puzzle Room - A Thought Experiment” by Professor Gar Mar, Stony Brook University, July 2019. It is based on the insights of Kurt Gödel, renowned as the greatest logician of the 20th century.
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
What Is A Paradigm, And How Does It Enable And Limit Intelligence?
¹ “Physics and Philosophy,” Werner Heisenberg, page 56, Prometheus Books, 1999.
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
Inherent vs. Intrinsic: Two Ways to Shape Our Thoughts About Reality
¹ Taken from: Meister Eckhart, Sermon fourteen(b): "Like A Solid Golden Vessel Adorned With Every Precious Stone," found in “Sermons & Treatises,” Volume I, translated and edited by M.O'C. Walshe, Element Books Limited, 1979, page 123, retrieved 22-Oct-2023 at: https://archive.org/details/meistereckhartse00eckh/mode/2up
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
Breaking the Mirror
¹ “The Śūraṅgama Sūtra,” Buddhist Text Translation Society, 2009, page 253
² Ibid., page 255
³ A mutatis mutandis reference to Parmenides, fragment B8: “This alone yet, the account of the route, remains, how it is. And along this route signposts further (you), many indeed, (indicating) how, being ungenerated and unperishing, (it) is whole, monogeneric as well as untrembling, and not without finish; and never once was, never will be, since now (it) is at once total: One coherent.”
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
What Can Fluid Motion Of Videos In A Moving World Tell Us?
¹ “Mind-Brain Interaction: Mentalism, Yes; Dualism: No,” Roger Sperry, Neuroscience 5, no. 2 (1980), pg 195
² “Consciousness,” Christof Koch, MIT Press, 2017, pg 43
³ “Reality,” by Peter Kingsley, The Golden Sufi Center, 2003, pg 36
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
The Needed Distinction Between Reality and Existence
¹ Loy, David, in the afterword to Swedenborg, “Buddha of the North,” page 104, Swedenborg Foundation, ISBN 0-87785-184-0.
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
The Axiom of Responsive Naturing
¹ “The Mysterious Universe,” Sir James Jeans, 1930, Cambridge University Press, pg 13
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
Why Do We Have A Brain If We Also Have A Mind?
¹ Albert Einstein, “What is the Theory of Relativity?” published in The London Times, November 28, 1919
² See: “A role for the claustrum in cognitive control,” Maxwell B. Madden, et. al., Trends in Cognitive Sciences, December 2022, Vol. 26, No. 12, Elsevier Ltd., "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2022.09.006"
“The NICC model posits that the claustrum instantiates cortical networks through synchronization of cortical network nodes in a manner commensurate with the cognitive demand of a given task. This function is achieved in three parts: the claustrum receives frontal cortical task demand information, transforms and amplifies this signal, and finally synchronizes targeted cortical areas to instantiate a cognitive network.”
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
It Was Inevitable That Science Would Declare We Have No Free Will
¹ “The Libet Experiment: Is Free Will Just an Illusion?” BBC Radio 4 & The Open University on YouTube: "https://youtu.be/OjCt-L0Ph5o"
² “Benjamin Libet and the Denial of Free Will,” Steve Taylor Ph.D., Psychology Today, Posted September 5, 2017
³ “There’s No Such Thing As Free Will - But We’re Better Off Believing In It Anyway,” Stephen Cave, The Atlantic, June 2016
⁴ “Free Will Exists and Is Measurable,” Stephen Cave, The Atlantic, June 2016
⁵ “Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers,” Max Planck, 1949, Philosophical Library
⁶ “The Systems View of Life - A Unifying Vision,” Fritjof Capra & Pier Luigi Luisi, Cambridge Press, 2016
⁷ “On Free Choice And The Will,” Saint Augustine, 1964, pg 88, Bobbs-Merrill The Library of Liberal Arts
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
The Creativity of Responsive Naturing vs. The Chaos of Determinism
¹ “Papers and Patents are Becoming Less Disruptive Over Time,” Michael Park, Erin Leahey & Russell J. Funk, Nature, Volume 613, 5 January 2023 "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05543-x"
² “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle,” Carl Gustav Jung, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Ishi Press International, 2012, pgs 141-142
³ “The Russell-Einstein Manifesto,” Betrand Russell, polymath philosopher, mathematician, and logician, and Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist, issued in London, July 9th, 1955.
⁴ “Physics and Philosophy,” Sir James Jeans, physicist, astronomer and mathematician, Cambridge, 1942, pg 127
⁵ Monroe, J.G., Srikant, T., Carbonell-Bejerano, P. et al. “Mutation bias reflects natural selection in Arabidopsis thaliana.” Nature 602, 101–105 (2022). "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04269-6"
⁶ “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican,” Galileo Galilei, astronomer, physicist, engineer and mythic hero of modern Science, Florence, 1632 CE
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
How Do We Reason? (Part 2)
¹ “The Influence Of Archetypal Ideas On The Scientific Theories Of Kepler,” W. Pauli, in “The Interpretation Of Nature And The Psyche,” Ishi Press International, 2012
² Edward Vul et al, 2008, “Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience,” Perspectives on Psychological Science.
Joshua Carp, 2012, “On The Plurality Of (Methodological) Worlds: Estimating The Analytic Flexibility Of fMRI Experiments,” Frontiers in Neuroscience | Brain Imaging Methods.
Anders Eklund et al, 2016, “Cluster Failure: Why fMRI Inferences For Spatial Extent Have Inflated False-Positive Rates,” PNAS | July 12, 2016 | vol. 113 | no. 28, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1602413113
³ “Another one of our findings was that the vast majority of the experiments we analyzed supported the theories, rather than challenging them. There appears to be a built-in confirmation bias in our scientific praxis, though the philosopher of science Karl Popper said that science advances by refuting theories, not by confirming them,”
"Moreover, when you put together all of the findings that were reported in these experiments, it seems like almost the entire brain is involved in creating the conscious experience, which is not consistent with any of the theories. In other words, it would appear that the real picture is larger and more complex than any of the existing theories suggest. It would seem that none of them is consistent with the data, when aggregated across studies, and that the truth lies somewhere in the middle."
Prof. Liad Mudrik, Tel-Aviv University, “The nature of consciousness experiments found to largely determine their results” at Medical Xpress (March 16, 2022)
See also: Yaron, I., Melloni, L., Pitts, M. et al. The ConTraSt database for analyzing and comparing empirical studies of consciousness theories. Nat Hum Behav (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01284-5
⁴ “One might think that the logical problems with materialism would insulate 21st-century neuroscience from its influence, but that is not so. Most contemporary neuroscientists work from an implicitly materialist perspective — in part because they’re unreflective, in part because materialism is the metaphysical correlate of the atheistic scientism that infests modern science, and in part because public admission of a dualist perspective is perceived (correctly) to be a career impediment in neuroscience. I recently had a friend (a tenured and accomplished neuroscientist) who is a devout Christian tell me privately that if he ever publicly questioned materialism, he would never get another grant." Michael Egnor, “Why So Many Neuroscientists Are Unreflective Materialists” at Mind Matters (November 19, 2021), from “Michael Egnor, “Can materialism explain human consciousness?” (Ch 19) in The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos (2021), p. 215
⁵ “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle,” Carl Gustav Jung, Ishi Press International, 2012, pg 142-143
⁶ Berntsen D. 2021 “Involuntary autobiographical memories and their relation to other forms of spontaneous thoughts.” Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 376: 20190693. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0693
Kalina Christoff, et al, 2004, “Neural Basis Of Spontaneous Thought Processes” Cortex, (2004) 40, 623-630
⁷ Jung, Ibid., pgs 141-142
⁸ “Harmonices Mundi,” Book IV, Frisch, V, p.224 found in “The Influence Of Archetypal On The Scientific Theories Of Kepler,” W. Pauli, Ishi Press International, 2012, pg 162-163
⁹ “Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle,” Carl Gustav Jung, Ishi Press International, 2012, pg 124
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
On The Origin Of Complex Life
¹ “History In English Words,” by Owen Barfield,” Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1926, pgs 169-70
² Ibid. pg 178
³ “The Mysterious Universe,” Sir James Jeans, 1930, Cambridge University Press
⁴ See FH Bradley's "Appearance and Reality" on the ‘unmeaning’ of relation; i.e. the lack of any inherent possible meaning to the idea of relation, when you deeply analyze what is being communicated when it is said of a thing or things that they are related.
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
A Revolutionary Paradigm Must Be Judged By Its Own Evidential Rules
¹ “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” Thomas S. Kuhn, 1962, Fourth Edition, 2012, The University of Chicago Press, pgs 92-93
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།