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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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
Evolution and the Transcendence of Mind – Theodore Roszak
Perhaps, then, with a bit of humility and a sense of humour, computer science can help us learn something about the mind's radically transcendent nature. After all, it is the human mind that invents artificial ones (as much for the fun as for the utility of it) and then has room left over to defy the logic or grow bored with their predictable correctness. That 'room' is the evolutionary margin of life still waiting to be explored. What computers can do represents so many routinised mental functions we can now delegate and slough off as we move forward to new ground. The machines are behind us, not ahead.
Life at the Edge of Science – Book Review
She begins with considerations on the role of anomalies in science, which she regards as crucial to promoting continuous scientific innovation and breakthroughs. Instead of a state of ‘balanced openness’ recommended by the author, the reactions of orthodox scientists to anomalies are frequently hostile and defensive. This in itself is less surprising when one considers the personal costs of stepping out of the mainstream and being branded as a heretic: loss of funding, difficulty in publishing, loss of reputation, obstacles to advancement, critical backlash and even loss of employment.
Gary Schwartz on the Science of the Afterlife
In this interview, Gary Schwartz, an adviser to the Galileo Commission, discusses the most recent evidence of the afterlife. He answers questions including: What are the most convincing arguments for the existence of the afterlife? What are the most gripping experiences he's had, inside or outside of the lab? What changes has he made after he's been convinced of the afterlife? Has he had any spiritual experiences himself?
Neuroscience, Responsibility and the Law – David Lorimer
A group of fifteen neuroscientists, philosophers and lawyers met under the auspices of the Network at Drynachan Lodge near Inverness in Scotland to discuss the issue of responsibility as understood by modern neuroscience on the one hand and our legal system on the other.
The Physics of Organisms and the Naturalistic Ethic of Organic Wholeness – Mae-Wan Ho
Participatory knowledge knows no bounds nor boundaries. There is no fragmentation into disciplines, no demarcation into secular versus sacred domains: it is at once sublime and practical. It is one, and integral to life. By living our life as parent, builder, gardener, labourer, artist, scientist, all, we participate in celebrating and creating reality.
The Issue Before Us: Reassessment of the Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science – Willis Harman
The scientific and medical communities have given a rather unfriendly reception to research in psi phenomena, dissociative states, altered states of consciousness, extraordinary healings, and other areas related to consciousness in some of its non-normal forms. This has been mainly because the meaning and significance people tended to attach to these experiences seemed to clash so directly with prevailing assumptions about the nature of scientific reality. But perhaps it is our "official" concept of reality that is wrong.
