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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
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What people say…
Featured book
Featured podcast
Spiritual Awakenings – Marjorie Wollacott & David Lorimer (Eds)
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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.
Recent News
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I loved meeting Jeff. What an inspiring man! In the second half of our conversation, he gives an utterly beautiful articulation of the Integral vision. - Tim Freke
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Although medically ignored, these near-universal experiences often provide comfort and meaning as well as insight into the life led and the death anticipated.
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Three necessary conditions for the existence of consciousness are identified: a) a ground of reality, envisaged as a universal field of potentiality encompassing all possible manifestations, whether material or ‘mental’; b) a transitional zone, leading to; c) a manifest world with its fundamental divisions into material, ‘informational’, and quale-endowed aspects. We explore ideas about the nature of these necessary conditions, how they may relate to one another and whether our suggestions have empirical implications.
WHAT IS LIFE? – Tim Freke and Steve Taylor
In this episode of Tim Freke’s podcast “What is life?” Tim sits down with Steve Taylor, an adviser to the Galileo Commission, to contemplate the mystery of life. They touch on a variety of topics on their intellectual journey: how compassion and creativity manifest themselves in daily lives, the nature and dynamism of time, the problem of free will, how consciousness emerges and how it relates to evolutions, what kids can teach you about being present, death and much more… Their discussion is a step in the right direction to, as Tim puts it, ‘bring in a new narrative’ in our cultural and intellectual lives that can build on top of the materialistic worldview and overcome the potentially nihilistic implications of materialism.
October 2019 Newsletter
October Newsletter
Mind, consciousness and time: an integrated overview – Chris Nunn
I suggest here that ‘mind’ can usefully be viewed as a process of integrating environmental dynamics with brain dynamics. It is probably expressed in brains in fractal patterns of ionic fluxes, especially calcium ion fluxes. Consciousness may be founded in a neutral monism at the basis of reality. As manifest in us however, it could prove to be a translation, mediated by implications of Heisenberg time/energy uncertainty, of spatio-temporal aspects of ‘mind’ into a tempero-spatial format. Differences between qualia might conceivably have a basis in knot theory. Potentially useful research directions are then briefly described.