(Missing key to) A Scientific Explanation For God? | Joe Scott

Joe started 2016 with one of the biggest questions of all - does God exist?

I started Joe's video with a cynicism that evaporated as Joe’s perspective unfolded. His well told story impressed.  It helped that his words resonated with my own evolving experience.  

Still while listening, at times, an image of playing basketball in zero gravity crept into my imagination because, like so many others, Joe lacked a fundamental frame of reference to stabilize the mind boggling complexities and conflicting notions of our inner and outer worlds that he was doing his best to rationally discuss.

Something so fundamental it’s never thought about, ergo its implications remain lost to us.  Namely, recognizing the profound difference between our Human Mindscape (individual and collective) and Physical Reality.

This lack of a clear baseline appreciation for our own brain’s* place in the universe leads to all sorts of hubristic assumptions, and a reflexive disregard for information outside of one’s own realm. 

Let me go through that key again quoting from an essay I wrote a couple years ago.

“… missing was a much more fundamental division crying out for recognition.  Specifically, the magisteria of Physical Reality vs the magisteria of our Human Mindscape. …”

What’s important about that is that it forces us to recognize that both science and religion are products of the “realm of Our Mindscape.”

Science seeks to objectively learn about our physical world, but we should still recognize all our understanding is embedded within and constrained by our mindscape and all that we’ve learned through our minds.  

Religion is all about the human mindscape itself, with its wonderful struggles, fears, spiritual undercurrents, needs and stories we create to give our live’s meaning and make it worth living, or at least bearable.  

What’s the point? Religions, Science, political beliefs, heaven, hell, even God they are all products of the human mindscape, generations of imaginings built upon previous generations of imaginings, all the way down.  

That's not to say they are the same thing, they are not!  

Though they are both valid/necessary human endeavors, 

but they are certainly fundamentally and qualitatively different.

Religion deals with our interiors, inside our minds, hearts, feelings and souls,

Science does its best to objectively understand the physical world beyond all that.

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*Or more specifically our mind, that thing our brain creates, during its short dance of life.

Considering the most fundamental Cosmic Truth

There is Physical Reality following the Arrow of Time.

We can clearly see that expressed in Evolution’s pageant upon this most unique planet.

Earth's Evolution has, when taken as a whole, been an unrelenting drive towards ever greater cognition and manipulatory abilities, it has crawled back from every setback, adapted, thrived till conditions radically changed again.

This Evolutionary drive created humans during this particularly benign Era in Earth’s ever evolving biosphere.

Emergence is Inherent in Evolution

Four limbs forced the creation of new areas of the brain and new awarenesses.  All the way up to a brain that could observe, learn, remember, reflect and mull over observations combined with memories.  Then communicate those personal thoughts to other brains, then pass those memories onto generations long after it dies and goes away.

In humans, evolution found its most spectacular emergent property yet, the crown jewel of Life’s long striving.  That is, our Mindscape.  

Our mind’s increasing ability to focus on observations: watching, cataloguing, listening to that something inside, that's constantly chattering away to whatever part of our brain is hearing it.  All the while striving to make sense of itself, it’s own inevitable death, its place in the world, and the world in general.

This emergent something in our brain created a self-aware mind, or more accurately, Our Mindscape.  The home of all our thoughts and feelings, fears and convictions.  Something unique in Earth’s Evolution.

Ergo, we can break down human reality to two fundamentals:

The realm of "Physical Reality", and the realm of our "Human Mindscape."

I also believe, none of us can really understand the rest of our world without first coming to terms with and absorbing that simple fundamental “Truth” in one way or other.

      

Reaching back to my essay:

…  Science was so successful that today all too many people believe we are the masters of our world and too many have fallen into the hubristic trap of believing our ever fertile mindscape is reality itself.  Thus the endless reams of fruitless dialogue, where learning is the last thing too many care about.

Which brings me back to Gould’s missing key.

Demystifying Roger Penrose's Three Mysteries of Reality

In a recent discussion about Sir Roger Penrose’s '3 realms' view of reality, Penrose set the stage by listing his Three Mysteries:

1)   “Mysteries (of) the physical world, physical stuff.”

2)   Mystery of the “mental world that's our experiences, consciousness, feelings about things.”

3)   Mystery of “the world of mathematical abstraction”

(Below the fold I’ve transcribed the full quotes in context.)

Those points stopped me right there.  Before continuing I needed to be able to enunciate why I found the above so inadequate for such an exploration of reality.

Here I take a moment to suggest a more fruitful approach.  When Penrose mentioned “the mystery of physical stuff,”  there was no talk of Evolution.  Why?  

After all, all the physical stuff around us is the product of an evolutionary process that started billions of years before humanity and will continue billions of years after we are dust and forgotten - why ignore that this Earth created us and we will die back into it?  

Seems to me acquiring such an awareness is a prerequisite for any subsequence discussion.  While the omission relegates understanding Evolution to insignificance leaving our outlook on “reality” decidedly egocentric and myopic.

Mike Hulme's Tenacious Grip on Physical Reality. An examination.

After reading Hulme's "Am I a denier, a human extinction denier?" he invites us to read: "‘We Always Get the Weather We Deserve’: The Tenacious Grip of Moral Accountability."   So I did.  It was an even deeper exploration into his Mindscape rather than climate science.  Needless to say, this essay also deserves a serious examination.

I'm looking for a job, researcher and writer, 
dedicated to confronting the deliberate calculated lies 
of the climate science contrarian community!
PO Box 56
Durango, Colorado 81326
citizenschallenge - at - gmail com

@ mikehulme.org  |  25/01/2018

TEXT REPRINTED UNDER PROTECTION OF FAIR USE COPYRIGHT LAWS. 

My intention is a review of ‘libertarian' deception in action. 

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Abstract: 

Different cosmologies, religious thought, political ideologies, social practices and scientific paradigms of knowledge all contribute to the rich cultural matrix in which theories of climatic change and causation have emerged, flourished and declined. 

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Sure, but lets be clear, this is about our inner perceptions and not about understanding our climate system.

Earth Centrist, why it matters.

The human spirit keeps us striving.  Making an effort matters.  Lately, I've been telling myself I need to speak up, as in go beyond just writing.  Not an exciting idea for an introvert.  Still, these days there are go-arounds.  I'm old enough to be in total awe at this iPhone of mine.  I mean beyond phone, it's a good camera and mic, texting apparatus, adding machine, compass, internet connection, I mean it's better than Star Trek which was outta this world not that long ago.  

So here it is, my Take #1,  "Earth Centrist" introduction, less than two minutes.  A short overview of why it matters to me.  Spoiler, I'm not big on staring into the screen, besides it's the words and ideas they are trying to describe that are important.  Also, I love where I've been blessed to live and might as well share some of the beauty.  It's prettier than I am, that's for sure.   ;- )

If you're curious about what comes next you might like reading, 

"Peter, why are you an Earth Centrist?"*

http://citizenschallenge.blogspot.com/2019/04/citizenschallenge-why-you-earth-centrist.html

(*Needs some work, but it's a good start.)

Citizenschallenge, why are you an Earth Centrist?

First there was a lifetime of living and absorbing lessons, then there was an essay, then there was an invitation to give a talk, then the challenge to inject some relevant bio and double the essay into 20 minutes that hold the audience's attention, okay can do, at least I’ll try.   

Then the skeptics’ group that invited me imploded.   

So it goes. 

Life is busy and now the script sits here, I like it, though I keep tinkering with it. Guess foremost it’s a continuing education project for me.  Still now with spring loading me up with chores and distractions I want to do something with it. So, I’m putting it out here and I invite thoughtful responses.

{For a fun distraction, any Bluegrass fans out there? }

Rational comments, pro, con, observational, are all welcome, nonsense will be ignored.  Thoughtful will be respected and posted no matter what it says.   

Hello, my name is Peter Miesler and I am an Earth Centrist,

… and I admit, I’m hoping you’re wondering what in the world is that and why on Earth should you care.

I even spent a couple weeks last year writing an essay describing this particular perspective.  It turned out pretty good, it was tight, flowed well, told a good story that held attention and people liked reading it.

I sent it around, even received a couple attaboys from some genuine science Who’s Who, who are usually silent, which did me a bit of good.  I’m not the crazy one after all.  :-)  I have enunciated something valuable.  But that was about it, then a return to the good 'ol sound of one hand clapping.

© Steven Orfield 

https://www.orfieldlabs.com/sorfield.html

When reading it to friends, though they listened with interest, it left them a bit perplexed rather than enlightened.  Okay? Fun interesting read, now what am I supposed to do with it?  What is it actually about?  And so on.  In responding I was down to, ‘it’s about perspectives and how we process the information that’s flowing through our senses.’  

Thinking on it some more I know that it's about much more than that.  It's about grasping for an appreciation of DeepTime, Evolution, and the dance of life and geology that created this world we were born out of and will die back into.  Something that offers individuals a path to understanding their own place in time and the universe within a sane reality based over-arching perspective.

Something that offers peace in the face of our individual mortality and that eternal question of “Why?”.

Something that offers spiritual fulfillment through a visceral appreciation for how time and life on this Pale Blue Dot created us and this world we inhabit today and will return to upon finishing our short dance across life’s stage.  Why isn't that cosmic gift enough?

Something that can offer rationalists and atheists a sense of our own spiritual fulfillment - in contrast to the faith-shackled's nonstop trumpeting about praising EGO and being intolerant towards others.  

Something that offers us Children of the Intellectual Enlightenment the inner moral foundation and spiritual fortitude to step up and lovingly, constructively, challenge and confront those sad brainwashed souls eye to eye.  

All of us have them in our lives, why not discover ways to ask them how they live with the cognitive dissonance inherent within their “my way only” religions? 

Maybe slow down those self-certain ME FIRST Trumpkins from steamrolling rationalists into oblivion.  Listen to them, lordie knows it's what they’re dreaming of doing.  We had better stop ignoring that or a genuine horrendous civil war will unfold in parts of our country.  They haven’t been stocking piling those straw men and contrived angry passions and weapons and ammo for nothing! (4/3/19)  But I digress.

Before I get to the Earth Centrism, I think I need to look at some of the origins of my own individual perspective.  After all, give the same book to a dozen readers of diverse backgrounds, …  

Considering critique of "Missing Key to Gould’s “Nonoverlapping Magisteria” "

I received an interesting critique on my column - The Missing Key to Stephen Gould’s “Nonoverlapping Magisteria” - I appreciated the questions and enjoyed the opportunity to correct the writer's misunderstanding regarding what I wrote.  I invited the writer over here to share, but alas, it never happened.  So, I'm going to share his critique anyways. 

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Critique:  It appears to me that the author is considering every product of the human mind just as imaginary as every other. 

For instance the completely subjective religious experience, and the striving to be objective science are both: "products of the human mindscape, generations of imaginings built upon previous generations of imaginings, all the way down." 

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Citizenschallenge:  That’s an incorrect assumption.  

"Imaginings" is more akin to “inventions of the mind” or products of our mindscape.  

The critique misses out on the evolutionary aspect.  Religion was amongst the mindscape’s earliest inventions, probably a couple hundred thousand years ago.  

It took humanity tens of thousands of years and even civilized humans took many more millennia before the human mindscape developed the understanding and discipline that enabled it to invent science, barely 500 years ago.

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Now, it is true that every single recorded phenomena, experience and so on must have either begun as some sort of sensory input influencing our mindscape, or came as a product of the workings of said mindscape (something commonly known as imagination). 

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Precisely my point.

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Of course just because something is relayed through a human mind, this doesn't automatically make it imaginary. 

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I never implied it did!

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In a sense the author is trying to put a divide between the real world and the way we perceive and interpret the real world, equating the latter to imagination.