... the Mystery Be #2, vw

         A few days ago, a friend brought up my last post (can it, really, have been over 2 months ago?).

         She stated that she had been thinking about Stephen Hawkins’ hypothesis (reference April 4 – Think I’ll just let the mystery be...vw). That post considered the question as to why technology has leaped so far ahead of our ability to create heathy sustainable ecosystems on our planet. She reflected that “something is missing in Hawkins’ response.” How exciting to me that someone else out there also wonders ….

“Something is missing ….”

I agree with Hawkins’ statement that, emotionally and spiritually, we have evolved very little while there has been considerable change in the physical and intellectual aspects of our existence. But the huge question is “why”.

 Last year my daughter loaned me a book which probed into the existence of “consciousness”. Galileo’s Error by Philip Goff, is a preliminary scientific and philosophical probing into Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness. It is well written, i.e., both user-friendly and intriguing.

In (very brief) summation, Goff explains the “error” and the 3 basic theories that currently revolve around the question of how scientists are dealing with the concept of consciousness, both human and universal. The book doesn’t directly deal with what’s missing in the Hawkins’ response but it certainly opens a door to further, and deepening, questions. [… and it definitely clarifies the problem brought up in Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, which criticizes the current inability of science to address the very real existence of consciousness in the interrelationships of the Whole].

 My friend is right. There is something missing. There’s a lot missing. The whole reality of psychology and the paranormal are largely ignored in the current scientific establishment.

 Hawkins’ statement is over-simplified and I think we would have to extend our readings of his writings to see if he’s simplifying for brevity’s sake. Has he more deeply probed this question elsewhere? Goff concludes that the reality of consciousness lies a step beyond the immediate realities of the physical world, i.e., "hard" science. These realities are much more outright, and thus more accessible to theorization and experimentation. (… and this does not discount the fact that “hard” realities, themselves, can be infinitely complex to human understanding.)

            I hope, this winter to reread “Galileo’s Error.” Things usually make more sense to me the second (and 3^rd J) time around and this subject is just too interesting to “… let the Mystery be!”

... the Mystery Be #3kg

 love your musings.

 I think part of the problem is equating technology and human consciousness with biological processes, and viewing all evolution as a process of "betterment". This highlights for me another issue of poorly defined definitions! It's one of the same problems that has gotten created in the school of Evolutionary Psychology that tries to distill the complex processes of psychology down to the harder science of biological processes. It causes smart, scientific people to make stupid, unscientific extrapolations.

 I do think it's true what Hawkins points out about the inevitability of specialization as regards science and technology and the glut of information. That's a sound argument. I just don't like how we start muddling up all the ideas of evolution, as though it's a process that ought to move towards an endpoint of perfection and enlightenment.

 My experience of working towards a goal of "enlightenment" is that we have to work against many of the forces of nature, most certainly the nature of the human mind!!! That's where many views of spiritual enlightenment fail, by not realizing how hard it is to evolve oneself in this direction.