Expanding the Scope of Science
ORIGINS
David Lorimer introduces the Galileo Commission Report
REMIT
The Galileo Commission was founded in 2017 with a view to expanding the worldview of science beyond its limiting materialistic assumptions, which are seldom explicitly examined. A central and widely held assumption is that the brain generates consciousness and is therefore extinguished at death.
Following widespread consultation in 2018 with 90 advisers representing 30 universities worldwide, we have published the Galileo Commission Report, written by Prof Dr Harald Walach and entitled Beyond a Materialist Worldview – Towards an Expanded Science. The report has been widely endorsed as a groundbreaking document, so we encourage you to support our movement by joining the Galileo Commission either as a Professional Affiliate or a Friend. There is also a Summary Report and a Layman’s Report, and a brief summary of the argument is available in a number of languages. We encourage you to read and support Dr Athena Potari’s Call for a Renaissance of the Spirit in the Humanities and to read our edited book Spiritual Awakenings, which documents the transformative experiences of 57 scientists and academics.
A Call for a Renaissance of the Spirit in the Humanities
The “Call for a Renaissance of the Spirit in the Humanities”, written by Dr Athena D. Potari, is a pioneering project aiming to raise awareness regarding how the prevailing paradigm of materialism affects the ways in which knowledge is approached within the context of the Humanities. In line with the Galileo Report, which discusses the importance of liberating the positive sciences from the limitations of the paradigm of scientific materialism, this Call aims at making the case for the Humanities as well. The Call explores how recent developments in scientific studies on consciousness, and the ensuing understanding that consciousness is primary and unified, can inform our understanding of what it means to be “human” with correspondingly appropriate epistemologies, as well as how we approach key areas of human activity, including ethics, politics and the environment.What people say…
Featured book
Featured podcast
The Playful Universe – Marjorie Woollacott, David Lorimer and Gary Schwartz (Eds)
This volume consists of essays by scientists and academics describing their own experiences of synchronicity and how these experiences transformed both their worldview and the way they lived their lives. We truly believe that this is a fundamentally intelligent, benevolent, creative and playful universe in which we, as individual expressions of the one Universal Mind, co-create our reality.
Recent News
Federico Faggin – Science is Ready for Consciousness
In this fascinating interview Federico Faggin, designer of the first commercial microprocessor and pioneer in the movement to base mathematical theory on consciousness, urges science to embrace consciousness to explain the weirdness of quantum physics, and use it as the instrument of scientific investigation. "There need no longer be a duality between mind and matter," he says. "With consciousness you can reach reality from the inside." He makes a startling suggestion - that matter is the ink with which consciousness writes its own self-knowing.
Athena Potari – Know Thyself: Hellenic Philosophy as a Path to Awakening and Happiness
Although for many centuries now, ‘philosophy’ has been understood and practised as a rational, argumentative, armchair vocation, involving mainly discursive reasoning, in this talk Athena will explore how Hellenic Philosophy is essentially a spiritual tradition: an intimate, self-transformative, experiential path of self-enquiry, which combines the education of both heart and mind with the purpose of awakening to one’s true Self. She will discuss some of the psychological and spiritual tools employed by ancient philosophers, as well as their non-dual teachings. Finally, Athena will discuss the relevance of Hellenic Philosophy for our times in our contemporary quest for Knowing Ourselves.
Alan Sanderson – Psychiatry and the Spirit World
Must we remain so materialist to be happy? Would we value objects and status so much if we were certain consciousness continues in a different, spiritual realm? Organized religion was the main provider of such answers. Now that we have lost our faith, many still wonder if this is indeed, our only chance to live. Sanderson argues that there is no end. He finds intriguing threads connecting all the stories he compiles, suggesting common attributes to near-death experiences, reincarnation claims and reported medium cases, suggesting through the scientific method that they are plausible.
Iain McGilchrist and Muhammed Foulds – The Wisdom Traditions
Galileo Commission adviser Iain McGilchrist talks to Muhammed Foulds, a Biologist & Human Ecologist and Historian specialising in the study of Nature Connectedness, Cosmometry and Biogeometry and its connection to Divine Order.
James Tunney – Rule of an Automaticity Loop
James Tunney, LLM, is an Irish barrister who has lectured on legal matters throughout the world. He is a poet, artist, scholar, and author. His most recent book is Plantation of the Automatons. This interview focuses on the many controlling loops in which we are embedded.
Science in the Age of Podcasts – Alex Gomez-Marin
Podcasts can spread scientific knowledge to diverse audiences but can also exacerbate echo chambers.
