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Summarizing these more historic views, we can conclude that from Parmenides through Spinoza, Ernst Mach and William James through to Bertrand Russell that mind-matter questions burned brightly. The human intuition that mind is not matter and matter is not mind is given credence by their thoughts and ideas. But the “easy” solution of simply separating them into two essentially unconnected substances as Descartes preferred did not rest easily with those who came after the French philosopher. Like the mystics, they sought and believed they found a fundamental unity underlying everything including mind and matter. A one world, so to speak, a unus mundus. And to that idea we turn next.

More to the point, the erroneous claim of scientism is not that science is useful in the humanities, but that science can replace the humanities. It is the latter claim that needs to be resisted if we are to maintain the integrity both of the humanistic and the scientific elements of our Western intellectual heritage.

A talk about Consciousness and how the new Life/Intelligence Symmetry theory discussed in previous talks provides the key to convincing solving both the so called Easy and Hard problems of Consciousness.

Of all the fads and foibles in the long history of human credulity, scientism in all its varied guises — from fanciful cosmology to evolutionary epistemology and ethics — seems among the more dangerous, both because it pretends to be something very different from what it really is and because it has been accorded widespread and uncritical adherence. Continued insistence on the universal competence of science will serve only to undermine the credibility of science as a whole. The ultimate outcome will be an increase of radical skepticism that questions the ability of science to address even the questions legitimately within its sphere of competence. One longs for a new Enlightenment to puncture the pretensions of this latest superstition.

I have not been attempting here to respond to a request that has been made that I provide convincing proof of the reality of the paranormal, since ‘being convinced’ is a matter of psychology, as much as it is of data. My aim has been purely to discuss the psychology and sociology involved in the relevant belief process.

People don’t realise it but materialism, our dominant paradigm, is not backed by any scientific evidence, and it never has been. It is nothing more than a belief system that emerged as a reaction to religion and faith, and that is associated with the rise of ‘modern science’.

However, if a brain were just a bag of tricks, then it would be difficult, if not impossible, to discover unifying theories of how brains make mind. The work that my colleagues and I have done contributes to a growing understanding that, in addition to opportunistic evolutionary adaptations in response to changing environments, there is also a deeper level of unifying organizational principles and mechanisms upon which coherent theories of brain and mind can securely build.