[MD] Philosophy and Philosophology

[MarshaV]

Greetings Ham,

Maybe the name Robert Lanza was familiar from reading the essay that you
posted.  I'd also be interested in book recommendation.   I am concerned,
though, that bouncing the power from physics to biology might end up being
just a cosmetic change.


Marsha




-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Ham Priday
Sent: Monday, August 10, 2009 1:49 AM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Philosophy and Philosophology


Hi John --


> You commented to Andre,
>
>> The "world of appearances", to use Hegel's phrase, is experiential
>> Existence.  It is man's experience of "otherness" as a dynamic
>> cause-and-effect system that is ordered in space, evolutionary in time,
>> and relative to the observer.  I maintain that physical existence is not
>> ultimate Reality but, rather, the valuistic construction of the 
>> subjective
>> mind.
>
> Which newly  interests me for its proximity to what I'm reading of
> biocentrism . . .

I recall your mentioning Robert Lanza, whom I cited on this forum in 2007 
after republishing his essay "A New Theory of the Universe" on my Values 
page.  Dr. Lanza is an executive at Advanced Cell Technology and teaches at 
Wake Forest School of Medicine.  He has supposedly written some 20 books. 
Do you know if any of them lay out the theory of Biocentrism?

> According to biocentrism, space and time are not hard, cold physical
> objects, but rather forms of animal sense perception. When we speak
> of time, we inevitably describe it in terms of change. But change is not
> the same thing as time. Consider Heisenberg's famous 'uncertainty
> principle.'  If there was really a world out there with particles just
> bouncing around, then you should be able to measure all their properties.
> But it turns out you can't - for instance, a particle's exact location and
> momentum cannot be known at the same time. They're like the man
> and the women in the cuckoo-clock - when one goes in the other
> comes out. This uncertainty is built in the fabric of the universe, but
> no one has a clue why. It only makes sense if we accept the fact that
> the universe is biocentric.

In his essay, Lanza says "Without perception, there is in effect no reality.

...Space and time, not proteins and neurons, hold the answer to the problem 
of consciousness."  Yet, here is a biologist claiming that "space and time 
fall into the province of biology."  He quotes David Chalmers as saying that

"The tools of neuroscience cannot provide a full account of conscious 
experience ...Consciousness might be explained by a new kind of theory."

This is the aspect of 'biocentrism' I don't understand.  If consciousness is

not the function of the brain and nervous system, how can the precept of 
space and time be considered biological?

> By treating space and time as fundamental and independent things,
> we pick a completely wrong starting point for understanding the world.
> In fact, new experiments are starting to confirm that quantum effects
> apply to the everyday world of human-scale objects.
>
> Biocentrism unlocks the cage we have unwittingly confined ourselves.
> A new paradigm is usually considered nonsense from within the
> existing paradigm. But allowing the observer into the equation opens
> new approaches to understanding everything from the tiny world of
> the atom to our views of life and death.  Above all, biocentrism offers
> a more promising way to bring together all of science as scientists
> have been attempting to do ever since Einstein.

I agree with the epistemology; I just don't see how it centers on biology. 
If you can explain the conscious precepts-to-biology connection, I might 
join in your exploration of Biocentrism.

Thanks, John,

--Ham


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