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…
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Spiritual Awakenings – Marjorie Wollacott & David Lorimer (Eds)
Scholars share the experience of their own spiritual awakening and journey, including encountering challenges to their credibility in academia, if they shared these experiences. Their comments about transformation in values, beliefs, and approaches toward life are very moving, expressing a deep inner wisdom and connection, not only with humanity, but with the earth and cosmos.
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The book gives a popular description of the cosmogenesis as viewed by the modern science, but with a teleological twist putting homo sapiens into a cosmic perspective. The appearance of human species is considered as a final step in a long succession of events from the Big Bang to present times. Starting from a structureless state of the newborn Universe the cosmogenesis then goes through the succession of aeons (“days”) characterized by increased complexity of the emergent structures culminating in the appearance of the most complex physical objects presently known—human brains. Each “day” prepares a ground for the next breakthrough in complexity. It is demonstrated that appearance of ever more complex structures cannot be taken for granted, but is highly conditional on a very special structure of the laws of physics.
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The large gap between science consensus and what the public believes has come to light on a number of topics: climate change, GMOs, safety of vaccination, and so on. One of the biggest gaps may be what science says about the mind-brain connection and what the public is told science says about that through popular media...
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Dual Aspect Monism in Spinoza, James and Russell – Gerald R. Baron
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.
