Summary of the Faith and Science 21st Century mini meet up – 18 June 2009

Jay Lakhani opened the meeting eventually outlining his view on why Science and Religion were not two mutually exclusive spheres of human endeavour. He cited the influence of Wittgenstein, whose insistence that different models of belief could exist separately within their own universes, if they were internally self consistent with their own truths, as a key to why there has been some little integration between these two disciplines.

The resultant lack of reconciliation between Science and Religion has done untold damage both enterprises. Jay is extremely passionate about the benefits and achievements of Science which is the most enduring and widespread of all human systems. Science evolves by making hypotheses testing out theories and changing to encompass new discoveries. Scientific thought though is flawed with it’s fixation on matter. Religion though in comparison is stuck in a rut.

To understand the historical interpretation of religious experience Jay explained that the revelation of spirit or the absolute is always unchanging and transcendent in its nature yet has to be interpreted by the human experience through whatever the cultural filters and knowledge of the time. This explains the ancient tendency to create a personified aggrandised externalised God with superhuman attributes.

Today Science is struggling with the limitations of its own methodology; conceptually it is not generating notions with sufficient explanatory power to describe the phenomena that it is witnessing. As a quantum physicist Jay has been privileged to be taught by Roger Penrose and is very well acquainted with the key discoveries at the quantum level that challenge the underpinnings of scientific methodology.

Even Einstein as a physicist who was deeply committed to a rational material explanation of phenomena got himself into difficulties refuting the claims of Bohr Schrödinger and Heisenberg. Taking the group into the detail of quantum discoveries Jay demonstrated the limits of the materialist model to explain quantum entanglement and the uncertainty principle for example.

Jay drew the group’s attention to the fact that when you peered beyond the current limited scientific explanations all matter seems to be an appearance and also everything is inextricably interconnected. The deep introspection and contemplation of the mystics describe the essence of everything as non material consciousness.

Jays passionate evocation of the non material essence of reality, created a very receptive atmosphere for his claim that a new spiritual humanism was required, to embody the both the discoveries of Science and Religion.

Dr. Rupert Sheldrake: The Extended Mind, Morphic Resonance and Spiritual Experience

Notes based on a joint conference held by the Alister Hardy Trust and the London Science and Medical Network group at Kensington Unitarian Church 6th June 2009.

Rupert gave a perfectly organised and cohesive talk on this topic straying into areas that he does not frequently cover in public forums. Interestingly he talked about the use of psychedelics to catalyse religious experiences throughout the history of spirituality and also divulged the positive lasting impact of his own personal experimentation with these drugs. He included this comment within a comprehensive categorisation of the types of activity that induce or generate religious experiences.

He followed this by describing three theories of mind; the materialist view which he claims has failed to prove its case, those metaphysical theories that are in essence platonic because they claim that there are laws outside of nature that govern the mind. Finally he explained his own theories and evidence for what he terms the extended mind.

He then talked about his appreciation of religious place, ceremony and ritual observance, commenting on how acts of ceremony and liturgy repeated consistently over time provide us with a direct ancestral connection. Those identical acts performed by our forbearers have set up a sympathetic field of Morphic resonance that is so embedded in sacred spaces that they can induce spiritual experiences in people simply by entering them.Rupert also extrapolated on his recent musings on the nature of consciousness and the past as well as the realm of possibility.

In the plenary session he depicted his own views of the 'credit crunch of materialist science'. He states that conventional science has constantly offered promissory notes on it’s conviction that a complete explanation of various phenomena in scientific terms is not far off. He stated it was time to insist on an end to these promised explanations. Especially because these scientists have cornered all the available funding using just one modality of scientific research.

He proposed a Littlewoods football pools betting exchange, whereby scientists had to declare specific dates and then bet their personal finances on these predictions! Furthermore he proposed an ‘ecumenogenesis’ of western life sciences in order to properly pool information to create a more convincing explanation of the unexplained and conveniently ignored gaps in the current scientific model .

In the break I commented to Rupert that his musings on consciousness the past and possibilities had move forward since the time he had spoken on the topic, he replied by stating that it was constantly on his mind as he tried to come up with a coherent explanation for the relationship between past present and future.

Integral Parenting

My close friend Patrick Bryson recently gave a pioneering presentation at the June salon of the London Integral Circle on the topic of Integral Parenting. What follows is the post I put together on the groups Yahoo forum summarsing the flow of his talk;

An engaging evening devoted to Integral Parenting was enjoyed by the group in Hampstead last Wednesday evening

Patrick Bryson took us on a brief but intriguing journey into what integral parenting might look like. Not claiming to be an expert in integral theory, Patrick presented several examples of integral interventions he made whilst raising his fourteen-year-old daughter. These actions revealed the potential of adopting a conscious and integral approach to parenting, which he believed was allowing his daughter to find and experience an authentic identity, independent of the hypnotic pull of her peers and the prevailing materialistic culture. In relating to the topic of ‘Why parenting is already an integral issue’, Patrick put forward to the group that parenting was already an integral issue because the level of the parent’s consciousness was automatically the level of consciousness adopted by the child.

Patrick was insistent that the key factor in promoting his daughter’s welfare was his work with other students of Andrew Cohen on developing a new reference point for the self within the intersubjective, as guided and informed by his teacher Cohen. This equipped him to step back from some of his conditioned parenting impulses and be sensitive to critical moments in his daughter’s development. The focus of Cohen and Wilber and that of Spiral Dynamics on the stages of individual and cultural growth had been extremely useful in understanding and responding to his daughter’s experience.

One particularly mind-blowing event occurred when his daughter was around the age of seven and began asking profound and meaningful questions about life. They had been walking through some beautiful parkland when they spotted a deer. His daughter asked the question ‘Where did the first deer come from?’ and Patrick was able to answer her by explaining the deep time cosmological development of human consciousness in terms she understood. Furthermore, he witnessed her awaken to her own experience of the evolution of the universe within her own consciousness as they spoke! The consequences of this event are still unfolding today as she moves toward adulthood. These naturally occurring deep questions are frequently dismissed or ignored by parents, and the opportunity to develop depth is almost always wasted.

His daughter also went through a period of time during which she had become highly insecure because of intense competition among her peers. It was ‘a battlefield of best friends’. The dynamics of this competition caused her much torment. During this time both her parents did not get too drawn into the day-to-day drama of her suffering but held a larger integral context for her. Slowly, she was able to disentangle herself from these dynamics and discover within herself, a distaste for the unhealthy competition. In doing so, she had made her suffering an object and became disidentified from the causes of her suffering. This was the process, Patrick noted, through which consciousness always evolves. His daughter has now developed a level of autonomy within the peer group and is able to stand her own ground. She can question and challenge behaviours which make her unhappy. In the last few months she is starting to relate to her potential, thinking of the future, making her own plans, and shining in her studies.

Patrick also touched on the simple guidance offered to him by Andrew Cohen related to raising children by teaching them respect and demonstrating that life is positive. On the subject of respect, Patrick also spoke about the postmodern parenting context in which parents are reluctant to exercise their authority with children and, rather, seek friendship and equality with their offspring. The necessity to provide structure and guidance is frequently neglected and leads to scenes of the child-parent insanity we frequently witness in our streets and shops.

A lively back-and-forth discussion ensued. Challenges and responses to the issues raised by integral parenting were explored by the group. It was clear that such an implicating issue provoked deeper and wider engagement in the group than is usually the case!!

Scientific Revolution or Evolution?--Conquest vs. Consortium as the Future of Science

Elisabet Sahtouris gave a talk this week on the above topic at the London branch of the Scientific and Medical network

She convened the Hokkaido Symposium in summer of 2008 to create a convergence between those scientists that believe in a Living Universe and those conventional scientists that believe in a Materialist Universe.

Elisabet already got coverage for her symposium last year for in Hokkaido in the Kosmos Journal attached which kicked off the conversation above.

Quote from the article:

In a time of need to shift as quickly as possible from unsustainable lifestyles to sustainability around the globe, we ‘Hokkaido 8’—now calling ourselves an Evolution of Science Group—recognize this issue, to have key potential for facilitating that shift, especially as it concerns the relationship between consciousness and matter

So this symposium brought a number of PhD scientists including a Nobel Laureate, who believe in a Living Universe and the primacy of consciousness. Together they analysed materialist science to examine which were the key basic assumptions upon which this form of science is based.

Equally they then analysed their own belief system in a Living Universe and came up with a set of basic assumptions for this belief system. They have now are seeking
E50k to put a survey 5000 scientists throughout the world using an international surveying company in order to screen their underlying beliefs about nature of the universe. Elisabet feels this is much more useful than asking them if they believe in God!!

(article again)

In collaboration with international survey company, GlobeScan in London, a global survey of scientists’ deep-seated unproven assumptions—the foundational worldview beliefs upon which any science necessarily rests—is in the planning stages. The results of that survey, never before undertaken, are expected to reveal that the foundations of science are not as monolithic as commonly believed, and that therefore a diversity of sciences, with formally agreed upon methodological commonalities as outlined above may be not only desirable but almost mandatory in a peacefully globalized world

In the talk she stated that a lot of ancient cultures had scientific systems with specialist aspects Vedic Inca Taoist etc and envisaged a consortia of sciences balancing a materialist science worldview, with these ancient sciences but equally demanding these ancient sciences come up the mark of Western scientific methodology.

What was revealing for me was having all the basic assumptions mapped in one place, as they feel very familiar to me and yet not been fully specified articualted so accurately before in my view;

What follows below is what I remembered, and can manage to record, transcribed from my notes made during the talk.

Materialist Assumptions

Everything is constructed of matter
Darwinian Natural Selection explains evolution
Science as Practiced is the only means to understanding and knowledge
Reality is meaningless
Space and Time is the only context for reality
Psy phenomena are not real
There is no Higher Power
There is no non local causality
Life is a derivative of non life
Intuition is untrustworthy and unscientific


Living Universe Assumptions

Mind or Consciousness is of primary importance
Intelligence plays a role in biological and cosmological evolution
There are many avenues to True Knowledge
Reality lies outside of space time
Psy phenomena can be studied scientifically
A higher power exists
Non local causality is real
Life is fundamental to the Universe


The underlying assumptions are not really scientific of either position there are really just cultural beliefs

Another summary of the talk http://www.scimednet.org/localgroupscontents.php?action=Report&Control=London+Group

Integral Politics & London Integral Salon

My second offically published article was recently put online;

London Integral Salon Notes from the Field January 18, 2009

A Dialogue and Discussion on Integral Politics

With John Bunzl and Victor Anderson, Facilitated by Michael Herrick

Now Published on the Integral Leaderhsip Review website

http://www.integralleadershipreview.com/archives/2009-03/2009-03-notes-pendle.php

Rupert Sheldrake Visionary Scientist

I went a talk given by Rupert Sheldrake presented by the Gaia Foundation at Burgh House in Hampstead on Wednesday night.

The event was held in a unique and intimate setting. A buffet meal and wine is served beforehand in a flat on the ground floor of the Gaia Foundation’s office and then the talk is held for one and half hours in Burgh Hall just across the road. This is then followed by more food and wine back at the flat afterwards. The talk was titled Morphic Resonance, Collective Memory and Habits of Nature.

I arrived early to network yet ended up in the garden and was invited by Rupert to sit on the available chair next to him. So I found out what he is currently doing and thought to publish some of this on this blog.

He is currently republishing his books ‘A New Science of Life’ and the ‘Presence of the Past’ and updating them in terms of his own experiments plus the latest developments in current science. Whilst these developments stop well short of proving his theories he feels they are headed in the right general direction. I noted to him that he was lot more active giving lectures and talks recently and he said he was doing this to emphasise the importance and significance of his work on Morphic Fields and Morphic Resonance as his books of late had focused a lot more on his experiments.

The talk he gave was both beguiling and riveting and as usual he put everything into a huge philosophical context, pointing out some of the erroneous assumptions upon which most of materialist science is based. The latter part of the talk was full of the scientific examples and anomalies that point to his theory of Morphic Resonance.

There are three further points that were of most interest to me;

1) Creativity
Toward the end of his talk Rupert added a postscript about creativity, explaining that his theory of Morphic Resonance really has little to say about creativity as it describes habits which have been repeated and that which is repeatable. Science is essentially a study of habit. He felt creativity occurred in nature when the existing habits are blocked and this almost forces creativity to occur but this could not really be studied or understood by science.

I questioned him further on this as I felt happenings such as the ‘big bang of plants’ must require a fuller explanation. His response was to say some of these things were beyond the mind and therefore we lacked the capacity to know or understand them, he was aware of these ‘punctuated bursts of evolution’ and his best explanation he said drew from the realms of philosophy and theology. In actual fact he saw these occurrences as interventions from the Holy Spirit.

2) Consciousness
My recollection of this component is quite indistinct as it was a small fragment right at the end of the talk. However Rupert was answering a question about the space of emptiness and that of potentiality, when he alluded to the fact that everything that is created that is matter, which is studied by the science is arising in some sense out of the past.

Consciousness in contrast was arising out of the future and was looking backward at the past. I may not be expressing this exactly he meant and was fleeting moment in time but I thought this nano moment revealed something significant and different about his view of consciousness.

3) A Wager

Rupert is shortly about to publicise in the Economist I think, a bet he has constructed with Lewis Wolpert one his most eminent scientific detractors with whom he has conducted several public debates. In a recent debate Wolpert stated he was fully confident that within 20 years science would have discovered the totality of information that governed the development of the human organism.

Rupert challenged Wolpert’s ‘faith’ in science (he is a rabid atheist!) to produce this result and subsequently Wolpert changed his prediction to 100 years. To cut a long story short since the debate and after a lot of bargaining down by Wolpert, they have wagered a case of the finest port (which will matured to it’s peak by May 1 2029 in twenty years) that science will have discovered everything that it needs to know about the development of the nematode worm the simplest animal life form within those twenty years. Rupert is obviously betting against the likelihood of this happening. I may not have the exact terminology right here but I hope you get the sense of the wager!

Overall an inspiring mindstretching and very valuable evening.

Interesting approach to meditation by Buddhist monk

At the end of February 2009 -I am really behind with my posts!!-

I attended a meditation session at the Hub in Islington with Vajradaka, a non-sectarian Buddhist meditation teacher.Vajradaka started meditating in Kyoto, Japan in the late sixties. After practicing in various Buddhist traditions, he joined Friends of the Western Buddhist Order and until recently lived for 21 years in a meditation retreat centre in the hills of Wales where he led retreats and mentored people in meditation.

Whilst the content of the session was not highly remarkable by the standards I am used to, the style of presentation was unusual and possibly something our teachers at Enlightennext could learn from.

Key features included;

Silence was a component but not the main activity of the session
Meditation was presented within a philosophical construct and partly as a contemplative exercise
Illustrates how work with total beginners can be achieved
Highly accessible almost secular presentation
Free of all Buddhist cultural trappings and obvious Buddhist dharma
Use of Leonardo Da Vinci as an example made it very easy to for people to relate to the content
This style would be easy to adapt to business and educational sessions
The philosophical impulses utilised can easily be related to the authentic self

The session

The session started with introductions and sharing experience of meditation

Then there was a short 10mins session of silence

Vajradaka encouraged people to stay in the space and opened up to some contemplation by asking to write down whatever came into our minds through free association in answer to the question 'what is true'.

He then spoke about becoming aware of habits, becoming aware of habits created choice, choice was extremely important as choice and evaluation plus awareness offers the possibility of a different choice.

Becoming aware of the relentless nature of habits allows for disengagement from them

He drew some comparisons with Leonardo da Vinci who despite his wonderful technical abilities and achievements it was his constant drive to understand creativity. It was Da Vinci's striving to understand and his drive to learn about the source of this is what has made him unsurpassed in his achievements. He emphasised it was Da Vinci's curiosity and continuous practicising of creativity that made him excel

Vajradaka then got people to reflect on something they wanted to change and had people share this in small groups of four people.

Everyone that came back into a big group and then Vajradaka started a discussion concerning the inherent paradox of meditation practice of being relaxed and alert at same time. He got people to give their own examples of this in their own experience. The first example was of a person who considered themselves shy yet could still be quite extroverted in varying situations. The instructor talked about bringing science and art together. Also the paradox of 'No I and No will vs I will and how will I?' which gets you onto the cushion in the first place.

Vajradaka has just started his business Creative Engagement and is delivering meditation sessions to the British Library. he has a blog sit https://owa.wie.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=d7e7a6f50667441d8f05c1f638f951fd&URL=http%3a%2f%2fcommunicatingmeditation.wordpress.com