As long as man has been on Earth the main questions throughout time were:” who are we? “, “where come we from?”, from these two questions on, there are a uncountable stuff to be questioned .To start with, we can say that from the religious point of view there are as many answers as religions there are. From the scientific spot we can say that the answers varied with time and paradigm valid at that moment. The following question is why we have these two different positions if we are talking about the same man since the very beginning; we have not a pious man and a scientific one; man is a whole. However, it could be said that from religious stand we get dogmatic answers and from the scientific stand we get paradigmatic answers. Nevertheless human beings need a position where the two extreme positions can melt one in the other. Humankind needs harmony. To illustrate this point Loren Eiseley1 said…”To those who have submitted authoritarian science for authoritarian religion, individual thoughts is worthless…. such men adhere to a dogma as men of fanatical religion”, this knowledgeable words are as a prelude to a shift in human thinking. Now there is another question, and with a very important impact for the future development of this reasoning: “Are human beings free spirits or are we those tame gregarious individuals?” Is there, between these two positions, a certain degree of consciousness? Are human beings gregarious by nature o by need? Are humans behaviours learnt? Have human beings learnt any kind of pattern or do human beings react on the spur of the moment and totally free? Which is the role of consciousness? There is –here- another player for this game, and by the way, is there any other team to play against? Can one team be religious and the other scientific? If it were so; consciousness, where has to play? At first sight there are too many questions to be answered just now, but we can unwind this hank, step by step, and while we do this work we will realised how the same question can get a different answer and be true in both cases, depending only on what attitude we will abide (“colour of glasses”). There is also another point to bear in mind while we are unwinding this hank; have we ever stopped to think that writers have been always foreseen events in the evolution of humankind ideas? Throughout this paper I will introduce some references to some writers who had foreseen the future or used a paradigm to develop a plot or they had dramatised a philosophical point of view. In fact what we need are answers, to get any of them the proposal can be the change of paradigm and the way in which literature can give us a path to go through. Actually, Humankind needs a new paradigm able to last a long time according the necessities of this globalize world, though, if humans get stuck to a paradigm the result that will turn out will be that nothing has changed. The requirement nowadays is dynamism so we have to collect a lot of ideas and build something mobile in order to be upgraded every day and to be flexible enough to suit everyone. As a very brief introduction to the core of this work, a short story2, written by Loren Eiseley; …a man lived in a mountain place which shared with a crow. Both pay each other a respectful treatment. However, one foggy day, when the limits of ground and sky were not defined, the man was walking among the subtle gauzy clouds, when the crow flew very near of the man and aiming his beak to the face of the man, who was so scared that screamed so loud that he felt oddly. Every now and then he recalled the 1
Loren Corey Eiseley (September 3/1907-July 9/1977) was highly respected anthropologist, science writer, ecologist and poet. He published books of essays, biography and general science in the 1950s and ´60s and'70s.
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The Night Country - Loren Eiseley wrote some classic popular texts on evolution, including his most famous book, The Immense Journey
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moment. Neither the crow nor the man dares to get near of either. What had happened? The man had never seen a crow flying so near the ground, and the crow had never seen a man walking in the realm of them. The moral: how can change the view only changing the standpoint. To begin, it could be said that what has been happening during these last decades around a new paradigm has happened centuries ago as it is the case of Sir Thomas Hobbes, (1588-1679), who really contributed to a change. He was a brilliant young student; it was foreseeable to become a notable personality, by time a philosopher. One day being in a library he took -by chance- a geometry book which was about the Euclidean Geometry; he realised the precision in the concepts and the way to get a proper scientific reasoning, so he adopted the axioms, postulates and premises as the ideal to demonstrate certainty. So big was his interest in mathematic that he released a second book which title was “A Short Treatise on First Principles” which presented a mechanical interpretation of sensation. To follow with the issue of paradigms there is also Sir Isaac Newton (16341727), who -practically- was contemporary of Hobbes, an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist and theologist, he laid the ground for classical mechanics. Everybody approved his “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica” (1687) as the greatest work in history of science. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the foundation for future researches; with this contribution Newton put the basis for modern engineering. Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he strongly warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done”. There have been some cases where a person of middle age- forties- get the touch with something important in their lives , maybe middle age bring some kind of epiphany about the universe and achieve amazing thoughts; here we have three examples and they related, Hobbes came across the Euclidean Geometry at his 38, Amit Goswami 3 -also around forties-the theoretical nuclear physicist who had been teaching physics during 32 years had a period of distress in his private and professional life, so he started researching in quantum cosmology, theory and application of the quantum mechanics to the mid-body problems, as a consequence of this research is that he appears in the film of What the Bleep do we Know. And the third person involved in this investigation of the universe was Albert Einstein4 who got the famous equation that contributed in the change of paradigm. To get to the point it will be useful to define some words that will be used frequently during the development of this paper; for instance; what is understood by paradigm. Basically is considered a model, so if the concept is applied to daily life, it is the idea that rules all the actions connected with science and beliefs, it is important to make a distinction because in the early times the word was only connected with science. 3
Amit Goswami, Ph. D. is professor emeritus in the physics department of the University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon where he has served since 1968. He is a pioneer of the new paradigm of science called science within consciousness.
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Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) was born in Germany. theoretical physicist. He is best known for his theory of relativity and specifically mass–energy equivalence, E = mc2. Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect
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T.S. Kuhn5 (1962) used the term “paradigm” to refer to the conceptual frameworks/or worldviews of various scientific communities, for him, a scientific paradigm includes models, theories, concepts, knowledge, assumptions and values. Kuhn declared that to give way to revolutionary concepts, science should change the model valid at that moment. Following Kuhn’s thought; it could be assumed that Copernicus’6s thought gave way to a revolution. The previous model was the one that had the Earth at the centre of God’s creation, since the on, the new model was that the Earth was orbiting around the Sun with other planets; the circular orbits (the ones which symbolised the perfection of God’s design) were reluctantly replaced by elliptical ones. Then Galileo7 found some other’s imperfections in Heaven as the crates in the Moon. In Kuhn’s words, scientific revolution exists when to paradigms co-exist. He called the movement from the old paradigm to the new one ”paradigm shift”. Since Kuhn coined the phrase was applied indistinctly to the realm of human experiences as to science, however, in his own opinion the term has to be used in the restricted science environment. Nonetheless since the 60´s the term was suitable also for non-scientific contexts. Another assertion done by Kuhn was the fact that when a paradigm shift took place the new one has to be always better than the previous and not only different. Besides it is valuable to mention, that in 1900 Lord Kelvin8 said that “in physics everything has been discovered, the only that remains is a more accurate measurement “. Five years later Einstein published a paper on special relativity, where the set of rules laid by Newton were challenged, and here occurred the paradigm shift. Returning to the introduction there was the word consciousness, very relevant throughout human evolution. This is one of those concepts that people have to deal with throughout life especially that this term is the core of the new philosophical concept and the place where the shift will take place. First of all it is necessary to know the origin of the word; the etymology. Primarily in Latin was connected with the moral conscientia and the word appeared in juridical texts written by Cicero9. In Christian theology the word stands for the knowledge and awareness that the individual had from the events and which were fully known by God. Thomas Aquinas10 describe,” conscientia the act by which we apply practical and moral knowledge to our actions”. However Descartes11 5
Thomas Samuel Kuhn July 18,1922-June 17-1996 was an American intellectual who wrote extensively on the History of Science and developed several important notions in the Philosophy of Science 6 Nicolaus Copernicus (February 19, 1473-May 24-1543) was the first astronomer to formulate a scientifically based heliocentric cosmology that displaced the Earth from the center of the universe. His epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) 7 Galileo Galilei (15 February,1564-8 January 1642) was a Tuscan (Italian) physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the scientific revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism 8 William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, (June 26, 1824-December 17, 1907) was an Irish mathematical physicist and engineer. At Glasgow University he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging discipline of physics in its modern form. He is widely known for developing the Kelvin scale of absolute temperature measurement. 9 Marcus Tullius Cicero (January 3,106BC-December 7,43BC) was a Roman Statesman, lawyer, political theorist and philosopher. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. 10 Saint Thomas Aquinas,(1225-March 7,1274) was an Italian catholic priest in the Dominican Order, a philosopher and theologian in the scholastic tradition, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Universalis and Doctor Communis. He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology, and the father of the Thomistic School of philosophy and theology. 11 René Descartes (March 31, 1596-February11, 1650) (also known as Renatus Cartesius) was a highly influential .French philosopher and mathematician, scientist, and writer. He has been dubbed the "Father of Modern Philosophy," and much of subsequent Western
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disagreed in this traditional meaning of conscientia and when he was translated to other languages like English or French coined new words to denote merely psychological consciousness. A homemade definition of consciousness could be that is an abstract pattern achieved by the brain to be aware of what is going on around the individual, and all that, is printed in our mind-brain-memory, this achievement will affect the future of the individual’s and society’s behaviour. It is not an isolated experience. We have to distinguish two types of consciousness, the first one, that was previously mentioned, is individual and the second one is collective. Not only does Thomas Nagel attribute to consciousness brain but also an organism. So consciousness spans in the range of mindbody. It could be infer that it is necessary a reference, an environment, that in this case is provided by the body. As the paradigm shift concerns it would be essential to mention the Quantum Mind Theories which are based on the necessity of the quantum mechanics to reach a fully understand of mind, brain and consciousness . In science this approach is considered by a minority, however, it counts on the support of Roger Penrose12 who has propose a quantum mind theory sharing this theory with Stuart Hameroff13, Karl Pribram14, Henry Stapp15.The idea that upholds this theory is the fact that classical mechanics -to which applied Newton and Galileo- was unable to explain consciousness Locke, Hobbes and Descartes agreed with reality that secondary qualities16were excluded. Some lines from Frijtof Capra´s will elucidate the point …” To make it possible for scientists to describe nature mathematically, Galileo postulated philosophy is a response to his writings, which continue to be studied closely. His influence in mathematics is also apparent, the Cartesian coordinate system that is used in plane geometry and algebra being named for him, and he was one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution. 12 Sir Roger Penrose, (born August 8, 1931) is an English mathematical physicist and Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute University of Oxford, and Emeritus Fellow of Waltham College. He is renowned for his work in mathematical physics, in particular his contributions to general relativity and cosmology. He is also a recreational mathematician and philosopher. Roger Penrose is the son of scientist Lionel Penrose and Margaret Leathes, and the brother of mathematician Oliver Penrose and correspondence chess grandmaster Jonathan Penrose. He was born in Colchester, Essex, England 13 Stuart Hameroff, MD, (Born in 1947 Buffalo, New York) is an anestheologist and professor at the University of Arizona known for his promotion of the scientific study of consciousness, and his speculative theories of the mechanisms of consciousness. 14 Karl H. Pribram (born February 25, 1919 in Vienna, Austria is a professor at Georgetown University Georgetown University, and George Mason University, and an emeritus professor of psychology and psychiatry at Stanford University and Radford University Board-certified as a neurosurgeon, Pribram did pioneering work on the definition of the limbic system, the relationship of the frontal cortex to the limbic system, the sensory-specific "association" cortex of the parietal and temporal lobes, and the classical motor cortex of the human brain. To the general public, Pribram is best known for his development of the holonomic brain model of cognitive function and his contribution to ongoing neurological research into memory, emotion, motivation and consciousness 15 Henry Stapp is an American physicist, well-known for his work in quantum mechanics Stapp is perhaps most well known for his ongoing work in the foundations of quantum mechanics, with particular focus on explicating the role and nature of consciousness 16 The primary/secondary quality distinction is a conceptual distinction in epistemology and metaphysics, concerning the nature of reality. It is most explicitly articulated by John Locke in his Essay concerning Human Understanding, but earlier thinkers such as Galileo and Descartes made similar distinctions. Primary qualities are properties that objects have independent of any observer, such as shape, extension, number, solidity and volume. Secondary qualities are properties that produce sensations in observers, such as colour, taste, smell and sound. Primary qualities are measurable aspects of physical reality. Secondary qualities are subjective.
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that they should restrict themselves to studying the essential properties of material bodies - shapes, numbers, and movement - which could be measured and quantified. Other properties, like color, sound, taste, or smell, were merely subjective mental projections which should be excluded from the domain of science”. At the same time unwinding this hank it comes across the concept of reality connected with consciousness, while the person seizes totally reality; this state of awareness is consciousness. Above all, it is possible to check that all the concepts are intertwined, reality-consciousness–perception. Of course there will appear other point to highlight about this matter, it is probable that there exists two types of consciousness; there is a kind of consciousness that is the one which arouses like a sparkle and lasted the same time, this one in which we are fully aware of the present moment, and sometimes we feel that, that moment has been lived and as soon this feeling appears it disappears leaving - deep inside us - a comfortable impression to have treasured a great moment. Opposed to this is during the everyday life that we are awake but no conscious; it looks like the same to be awake and conscious but the difference is in what we get from the moment. When all our senses are there and we feel that magical moment is consciousness the other is to be awake-aware acting mechanically during daily life. To get this great moment it is necessary to line mind-reality-matter-brainbelief and perception. There is another philosopher, that is necessary to mention and he is George Berkley17 (1710 Empiricist philosopher) when he wrote the famous “Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge” was to develop a thought opposite to John Lock. Both agreed in the fact that exist an external world from where all was gathered by human mind and from that knowledge, ideas were possible. Berkley said “To Be” means “To Be Perceived”; he asserted that existence is the state of being perceived, granted that it is necessary a perceiver and a perceived. This idea was known by the name of Immaterialism. Whilst John Locke18 proponed a doctrine based on the fact that any newborn lacks ideas, and these are developed by experience, this thought was opposed to “Nativism” or the doctrine of Innate Ideas, which stated that human beings have ideas since they are in their mother’s womb. Locke’s essay was a source for the future Empiricist philosopher as David Hume19 and George Berkley. Hume had the idea that experience and observation should be the foundation of all human knowledge; he was the first great philosopher who rejected the “prevalent conception” was related to the theological idea that human beings were created at the God’s image. He started the naturalistic way of thinking which applies to the scientific method where it is necessary hypothesize, predict, test and repeat. Through this new way of thinking Hume had to be very cautious because who preceded this change Thomas Aikenhead20 was hung with the charge of being blasphemous, at those times it was not advisable to think opposite to religion, and here again the divorce between religion and 17
George Berkeley March, 12, 1685-January 12,1685, also known as Bishop Berkeley, was an Irish philosopher. His primary philosophical achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "Immaterialism" (later referred to as "subjective idealism" by others). This theory, summed up in his dictum, "Esse est percipi" ("to be is to be perceived A Treatease Concerning the Priciples of Huna knowledge (1710) and Three Dialogues between Hylas an Philonous (1713), in which the characters Philonous and Hylas represent Berkeley himself and his contemporary John Locke 18 John Locke August 29, 1632- October 28, 1704 was an English philosopher. Locke is considered the first of the British Empiricist,. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers and contributors to liberal theory. Locke was the first philosopher to define the self through a continuity of "consciousness." He also postulated that the mind was a "blank slate" or "tabula rasa"; that is, contrary to Cartesian or Christian philosophy, Locke maintained that people are born without innate ideas 19 David Hume April 26, 1711-August 25, 1776 was an 18th century Scottish philosopher, economist and historian, considered among the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment.
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science. Insofar there is the monistic idealism that rejects any notion of “consciousness” being an “accident”, what is more from this point of view it has to be accepted that consciousness is the previous state to any act, is the source of any event in the universe. From this philosophy is that Amit Gowani starts his view on the subject. Against the previous paradigm, now what it is accepted is that everything starts with consciousness. In order with this idea Amit Goswani wrote a book whose title is “The Self Aware Universe” in which it could be find a way to understand quantum physics and consciousness. Throughout his work it could be assumed that there is no reality independent of our consciousness as observer. In India this current of thought is known as Vedanta and Amit Goswami refers to it as “monistic idealism” this idea reaffirms the fact that many mystics throughout history have been stating in the essence of perennial spiritual teaching that consciousness prevails over matter. The concept of the author of “The Self-Aware Universe “ to assign the word “idealism” is to show the real importance of consciousness and the opposition to the philosophy of “material-realism”, which holds only matter as real. The present worldview states that everything can be reduced to elementary particles of matter, the basic constituent –building blocks- of matter. This statement leads to the fact that the union of any of these blocks will build atoms, molecules, cells and then all the cells organized will be a brain. Following in this direction the theory will be called “upward causation”, as a consequence of that concept free will won’t exist, it is only a epiphenomenon or secondary phenomenon, secondary to the causal power of matter; so that “any causal power that seems to be able to exert on matter is just an illusion” this is the current paradigm. Nonetheless, the new idea is opposite to this statement so it has to be considered that everything starts with consciousness, is the ground of “being”, in this way consciousness imposes a “downward causation” and here free will exists and has sense. write about free will Quantum physics starts in 1900 by 1925 the equations of quantum physic were full-fledged and materialist physicists* saw in quantum physic some potential in order to change paradigm. In 1982 there was an event that changed the story dramatically; that was the experiment done by Alain Aspect and his collaborators. This experiment conclusively established the veracity of the spiritual notion and specifically the concept of transcendence. Amit Goswani said that “quantum physic applies to any object, whether it is sub microscopic or macroscopic because is the physic we handle, although our belief is that all reality, all manifest reality and all matter, is govern by the same laws, and if it is so, then this experiment is telling us that we have to change because we are quantum objects, too”. There is another author -a fine philosopher of science- who wrote in 1975 “The Tao of the Physic”, his name: Fritjof Capra. He was exploring the connections between modern physic (quantum physic) and Eastern mysticism (philosophy). The purpose of this writer was to show how the dynamic of was the Universe works, applying the Indian philosophy which sees the Universe as a vast web exchanging vibrations what leads to think that this web is alive , it moves, changes and grows constantly. The dynamic aspect of the matter shows the relationship with the quantum theory and the properties of the subatomic particles can only be understood by relative theory. The border which divides East from West is the fact that West handles space and time, while East manages them through mysticism. In fact Brahman caused and connected everything, and their knowledge is found in intuition. Newton taught that 20
Thomas Aikenhead 1678-1697 was a Scottish student from Edinburgh, who was prosecuted and executed on a charge of blasphemy. He further predicted that Christianity would be "utterly extirpated" by 1800. Aikenhead was in fact the last person hanged for blasphemy in Britain.
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objects are definite things; they can be seen all the time in definite trajectories; whilst quantum physic does not depict in such way an object. For quantum physic objects are seen as possibilities, possibility wave. Therefore in the quantum physic exists a paradox, a point where the theory and the practice bear a contradiction, however, in the new view as consciousness is the ground of being, so that who converts possibility into reality, is consciousness because consciousness obeys quantum physic. It is consciousness, through the conversion of possibility that creates what we see as manifest. To sum up this paragraph it could be said that consciousness creates the manifest world and with it reality. It is hard to explain what reality is, however, an approach may be that is all what surrounds us but also reality is what is intangible, as to say, love is reality, exists but is perceived as a reality, people symbolises love through heart but the question is more cultural than real, as love is an emotion and it is aroused chemically it is logical that the heart will throb quicker as a physical manifestation ( but , a heart as an organ alone detached from an alive body won’t feel the throbbing and less love, separated from the organism in possession of a consciousness a heart is a mass of muscles anyway) . At this point it could be state that realty is all what our perception and consciousness can record. For instance, and going back to literature again; if La Hojarasca21 is analyzed to understand reality it is possible be aware of that there exist as many reality as people live. The book tells a story of a tiny town, a doctor committed suicide and the narration unwinds a coil where the three main characters attend the mourning. The funeral procession was: an old woman, a young woman and a child. It is impossible to mistake or misunderstand reality from one standpoint, nevertheless, the view given by any of the three is very different, because any of them captured that moment applying what they had lived, known or maybe what can they comprehend. It is a very simple plot but the valuable thing is this chance to be an outsider and feel what is understand by the village people. As a consequence it can be sustain that the world basically handles two types of reality, the objective and the subjective one. The objective is plausible to any human being all varies in a range that perhaps it could be appreciated as standard. The other one, the subjective, is the one that is plausible and real for the person and who will affect that reality with the intervention of his/her mind, emotions, consciousness, perception and why not magic. Here comes a word that is necessary to stop and analyse, magic, and connected with literature, magic realism22 what will help the reader to infer conception of reality. This also brings about the fact of consciousness because without it, it is impossible to be full aware of the Universe. One conception toward life could be the sense of magic as it is important to have a standard reality also is important the 21
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez , March 6, 1927 is a Colombian novelist and short stories writer, screenwriter and journalist and. In 1982 was awarded the Nobel Prize of Literature. He has achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing a literary style labelled as magical realism in which he uses certain magical elements and events in order to explain real experiences. Some of his works take place in a fictional village called Macondo, and most of them express the theme of solitude.
A daily used term which was coined by Franz Roh in order to describe painting, in which reality was altered, later in Latin American literature was applied in order to convey something weird but at the observer this quality does not seem odd. Alejo Carpentier (Cuban writer) used to say”lo real maravilloso” (roughly “marvelous reality”) 22
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touch of magic which could be translated as attitude and in the book define as the colour of the glasses. This last notion is what gives life a sense. If life is taken as an automatic fact to wake up every day and build a monotonous task of breathing and throbbing the “glasses” the person is wearing are wrong; this is the reason why attitude will construct a magic lapse if the attitude is the correct one. As human race is built on the basis of language -as an approach to reality- comes up the need of names for every single thing, those concepts are universal so that a huge part of reality is grasp through language and perception. Then is possible to the observer get more information, sieve the content through mind and initiate a most elaborated process as is perception and consciousness. Reality includes two concepts “being” and “nothingness”. Everything that is “observable” and “comprehensible” exists. As a consequence of this, reality is a philosophical concept where the “nothingness” can be perceived by consciousness. Literature could give an example of reality conveyed through meanings in the book “Travellers in the Scriptorium”23is worth to illustrate an approach to reality. The book starts with a man, sitting in a room, surrounded by labelled objects, the reader is oblivion if the man is in hospital, in prison or maybe at home, why not at the three at the same time. Location is vague. If the man is free or prisoner is not unveiled. The point here is that the labels are moved –magically- so the man is incapable to realised if the chair is labelled chair o maybe door, the observer is always the same, the objects are always the same too, but with the labels changed . The important thing is the attitude of this enclosed man, his state of mind is weakened by this constant change of labels, if his attitude is negative he won’t survive, he has to be stacked to few stuff that he trust on but he lives with “cold feet”. What demonstrate this event is that to build reality there have be a collective standard of meanings so the attitude could be tuned properly On the other hand there are the glasses (attitude) of the observer which can alter the object; however, the essence of the object did not change. What is more, there exist an objective and a subjective reality the subjective one is altered by the attitude (colour glasses) and turns into subjective reality. To illustrate this concept, it is possible to bring in mind of two different persons, an apple, there is one objective reality that is a roundshaped fruit, mostly red or green, at this point each person could have brought the red one or the green one just because a question of taste, or aesthetic or maybe because his/her first approach was to one of them in particular; same reality; two different perception/consciousnesses. In the perception of reality there is a big influence of culture. This ingredient make people decide which colour of glasses will wear affecting generally a group of people which has a common denominator a race, West or East, traditions, environment and the paradigms are valid at the moment. All these elements will play a very important role at the moment the person will choose the glasses, and the consequences that this option will have throughout the life of the individual. To illustrate this point it would be interesting to bring Kafka´s24 work, “Metamorphosis”. There the author’s aim is to show how attitude can modify a person, from the moment that Gregor Samsa (main character, the one who will suffer the transformations) decides that he will turn into an 23
Paul Benjamin Auster February 3,1947 –Newark new Jerseyis a Brookliyn-based author known for works blending absurdism and crime fiction, such as The New York Trilogy (1987), Moon Palace (1989) and The Brooklyn Follies (2005). 24
Franz Kafka (July 3, 1883-June 3, 1924); was one of the major German-language fiction writers of the 20th century. He was born to a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, AustriaHungary (now Czech Republic). His unique body of writing—much of which is incomplete and was published posthumously—is among the most influential in Western Literature
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insect (I will name as an insect,-following some critics because many controversies exist around the fact if he turned into an cockroaches, a vermin or a beetle or a dung beetle or only a parasite- this last possibility is regarding the fact that other people feed Gregor while he remains closed inside his room). So from this book the conclusion is that determination of a person (attitude) is the one which can build the environment and the destiny of the person involved. However, it is impossible omit a very important fact in “reality-colour glasses” and is perception. The concept goes further than what implies sight, and as sight is mention it will be helpful define it as the body function made by eyes and brain through which reality is perceived, in comparison with the others components may sound the simplest one, this does not mean less important. What about blinds? They have a perception that is not based on the pair “eyes-brain”, they develop others senses in order to supply the one they lack and so with other handicaps. Sight mechanism starts in the eyes but images are printed in the brain so when the person has not the object physically, it can be brought by the brain process called “memory” and in some way is also sight because the object will be materialized in such way so that the person is conscious of the object in spite of being impossible to touch. It is necessary to mention Aldous Huxley “The Doors of Perception”, where the writer makes a detailed account how he can perceive the world after taken mescaline (a drug which alters perception). In this way perception y totally distorted, colours, size, shape, bright, sounds and so on a large list of changes in reality. But the question is; does the person really need drugs to perceive reality in a different way? Any individual has a different perception. For example the well known painter Modigliani, who was famous for the women portraits and each of those women, had a very long neck, and a thing face, (never a round one) and this was not a question of style, he had a visual problem that made him see a face very large and the neck very long. Notwithstanding, he hit the painters of that period. On the other hand is Descartes and his questioning about perception. The deep question of perception aroused in Descartes when he first started with his “Meditations. He worked hard with prejudices and the heavy burden that humans bring with them just because tradition or knowledge handed down by parents in the very early years. An illustration of his thought and his zeal to reach a clear idea, he started from scratch, about what reality is and the real perception of the worldUniverse. Descartes’ doubts had began when he realised how easy the person could be deceived, the example throughout it is possible to follow Descartes´ idea is about the stick in the water, the person sees the stick bent but the stick is not bent; it is what the person “perceives”, from that point on, his uncertainty about every single thought rooted in his mind. If it is possible to apply this example to another point because this looks like perception works, reality is one thing but after getting into perception the reality changes (subjective reality), so it has to be born in mind the fact that the colour of the glasses (attitude) interfere reality. Therefore it is valuable to combine attitude and memory. When events are brought back it is necessary to add memory, and the latter will bring back the emotion that provoke this link so that a component in this chain is attitude. In others words, good attitude store good memories and when they are calling back the person, he/she feels good. It is a very easy rule: good leads to good, on the other hand what about sad, bad, miserable and so on the long list of negative emotions? The response of the memory will be a sad situation .What is printed in the brain is very difficult to change in the future life. These connections between one neuron and the other are called here in this book “neuronets”, and these nets could bring happiness and positive feelings-emotions and the negatives one also, the smart attitude is to be able to break this linkers in order to handle emotions and perception. Memory is a very tricky component, it could be
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possible store there many facts while the person is unaware and these details/images/perceptions could arouse when the person is not prepare to receive such shock, reaction like this happens while the person is not conscious and suddenly by the connection of those “neuronets” stir up a behaviour that was inserted in the brain by that unconscious grasp of information. Going back to Auster´s book “Travellers in the Scriptorium” the closed man received periodically some pills, could they be peptides? which altered his perception, farther than the story written by the author, and applying things got from the book-film, it is possible the use of the narration as a metaphor. As was said above, there is a person (observed), then objects (lifeless) and others persons who interacted with the observed (the main character); there is a reality seen by the observers (people that interact and the reader), each of the observers has a perception and an attitude toward the fact observed. In addition memory has emotions that are related with the fact to be recalled. To put forward an example, this leads again to the apple; imaging the first time a person comes across an apple, it was an object of irregular shape with vivid colour, maybe red maybe green, the first bite gave the flavour and the surprise that had juice and why not the person who handed the apple was the mother of that person or better the grandmother; for that person in his/her brain would be printed the image of the apple with affection , related with his/her grandmother, here it starts to play emotion, the object begins to have colour, flavour and feeling, unconsciously throughout his/her life, apples for this person will engulf an emotion. The person will evoke apple-grandmother, as here the facts entangled are positive, the other way round could be negative in the vast range, from a bad memory to an addition or any other behaviour. Why does it not use this metaphor, “emotions are ink and the brain paper” What about this print? Can the person erase bad memories or, is this ink indelible? How could it be turned from indelible to removable this ink? The secret are the formation of new neuronets, as it was shown above, using peptides people can build chains of reactions. If the person uses always de same the “ink” is indelible, but when the person wears the glasses of attitude and changes the patterns of behaviour there are the new neuronets. The new combination of peptides will enable the brain to react towards behaviour. Up to this moment, it would be useful to have a kind of definition to deal with the big word “emotions”; chemical components-peptides- that the body provides the brain in order to elicit reactions, those reactions will have knowledge, reality and also consciousness. Every time that some behaviour is nearly to bump into the person lots of ingredients start to run to build up a response. It could be fresh or learnt so that always arouses the same question: are people acting at free will? This old and extremely delicate topic is hard to decide, culture and tradition have tamed the free will. Again it is necessary to unwind a question very much connected with philosophy, free will. If free will is analysed by the sight of religion would mean that the Omnipotent is unable to assert on individual will and choice, while ethically means that the individual will be held morally accountable for his/her actions and scientifically it may imply that the actions of the body including brain and mind are not determined by physical causality. After seeing these three positions the question still remains without an answer, the problem is that the individual is the three things at the same split second, is a unity and a whole. It is impossible to think as a moral individual without considering the scientific one, and what is more the religious aspect is very important because man is melt in Universe and the person could define Universe as God or a huge energy but always the individual is subordinated to this great possibility of Energy-God-Universe. Man is not an isolated phenomenon all around is mind and further soul and beliefs, so to handle a concept as free will it has to be born in mind all these factors and also the influence of
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collective consciousness, culture and traditions. Should it be thought as a mandate of the consciousness? Or free will is something totally different from consciousness? When the person decides an action; where is the decision taken? Is it in mind? Is it by the brain? Is free will a combination of consciousness, culture and traditions? Is the will subordinated to education? In those cases; is truly free will? Clearly, when free will is subordinated to any other concept, then the idea of free is absent, it could be an election, an option but never free will. To make clear these lines Nietzsche’s25 idea will be helpful, if there is a person who decides no to steal because of the Ten Commandments there is not working free will, because following the Ten Commandments was his/her election, nevertheless, the same person decides by himself/herself not to steal here is working free will. As concerned to reality and dreams, connected with perception, it is also possibly to build a new theory. Are dreams in the realm of reality? Or, is it another reality? How does consciousness play in this match? Could it be possibly for human beings live two realities in life? Might be possible that the realm of dreams is a reality which lack prejudices, where the only valid knowledge is the one of mind-brain and attitude; a realm where the sovereign is free will. This “Dreamland” is a place without borders and is the inner sight the one suitable. Is perception distorted while the person is dreaming or is reality distorted by perception while the person is awake and perhaps not conscious? I dare state that dreams are realities, what changes is perception and what lacks is consciousness. This free realm where everything is possible allows people to find solution to problems, new hope because in this territory the brain is naked and allows any new “neuronet” to find the truth. Furthermore this is an issue that every person in his/her life has stopped and thought about. All of us at least once in our lives have felt the impression of having seen or lived the moment that slipped a second before and while the brain is trying hard to regain control over that slipped second the Universe has changed, what had happened ? Has anybody any theory? Others lives, parallel worlds that he/she is living at the same time because time is relative and while the person is in another dimension the time abided in a different way and maybe consciousness is the one that smugglers specks of reality from other Universe. Connected with writers it is possible to read a play about Pedro Calderon de la Barca “La vida es sueño”. The conception of this play is around the idea that man is in darkness until the moment he starts to know himself and drift towards Light, when light descents on him, man will be able to deal with his freedom, -this is also connected with the myth of the carven (Plato) - Here the main themes are freedom and destiny. In this play it is possible to come across an apparent drama but really is a philosophical work. In this fluctuating reality it is possible to bump into the idea of quantic physic; that people are living in many overlapped Universes. Going again to literature, is worth to mention Vaclav Havel26 , who got a Nobel Prize. In one of his plays, “The Increased 25
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October15, 1844-August 25, 1900) was a nineteenth century German philosopher and philologist. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy, and science, using a distinctive German language style and displaying a fondness for aphorism. Nietzsche's influence remains substantial within and beyond philosopher, notably in existentialism and postmodernism. 26
Václav Havel, (born October 5, 1936) is a Czech writer and dramatist. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia (1989-1992) and the first President of the Czech Republic (1993-2003). He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, some of which have received international acclaim He has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, and the Ambassador of Conscience Award. Beginning in the 1960s, his work turned to focus on the politics of Czechoslovakia. After the Prague Spring, he became increasingly active. In 1977, his involvement with the human rights manifesto Carter 77 brought him international fame as the leader of the opposition in
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Difficulty of Concentration” he introduces the fact that the main character let in the concept of overlapping worlds. Dr Edward Hulm -a social scientist- is on stage with his wife and in some moments he is “living” near his mistress. The context of the play is on a stage where the spectator-observer can watch three rooms at the same moment and while this scientist is ”performing” one scene he is also performing -in a different level of consciousness- events with his mistress. There is also a parallel between his fragmentised life and the wrong functioning of a form of artificial intelligence; the whole play builds a metaphor of the human dilemma and the new paradigm. Connected with dreams it is important to highlight that, Amit Goswami, the scientist who appears also in the book and film, is in favour of lucid dreaming, which simultaneously allows adopting the same force of being awake in a dreaming state and this process precipitate creation. It has been checked scientifically the fact of the lucid dreaming are not only possible but also very useful, Allan Hobson27 with his neurophysiological approach to dream research have helped to push the understanding of lucid dreaming into a less speculative realm. Humankind is so young in Universe, as Universe like we know, that in the film, is my personal view, the main character is a handicap person, what leads to think that our perception (as Humankind) and knowledge- of the Universe- and the quantity of events and realities that succeed one after the other or all at the same time, that our brain, as marvellous as it is, is incapable to soak up the information going around and process it. The brain could be capable, the problem stands in the person itself, because consciousness and perception are not working at full. Human awareness is not always focused in what it really matters, there are some functions of the brain that usually work in “automatic” so to say, example of this is the breath and throbs. So that, sometimes happens that other functions-like perception- are not employed as they should be. To illustrate it could be show the difference between seeing and looking, the person can look at the mountains but maybe does no see what type of tree compose the forest on them. Again, the person can hear but not listen. As the result of these examples it is that I think in the metaphor built by the filmmakers choosing the actress. To back up this opinion Joachim E. Wolf28 in his papers postulates the multidimensional model of the Universe, based on recent developments in physic and biology. Humans are not able to grasp multidimensional reality because their senses are limited to three dimensions. This limitation refers to the fact that the three dimensions are a subset (a set contained by a larger set) of the multidimensional system. The author is not suggesting challenge the facts that science has checked throughout centuries and are irrefutable, however, the new approach should be stressed in interpretation. The attempt aims specifically to the new relevant information that concerns quantum physic, and a holistic worldview. To a better understanding it is important to state that the three dimensional space the human beings have “three degrees of freedom”; time is felt as a stream of sequential events, where only one is real present. Einstein´s relativity theory is focused to macro world while the quantum theory works with the micro worlds of the atoms and subatomic particles. Both theories assume a four-dimensional space in which our three dimensional
Czechoslovakia; it also led to his imprisonment. 27
James Allan Hobson, M.D. (born June 3, 1933) is an American psychiatrist and dream researcher. He is known for his research on the Rapid eye movement sleep. 28
“Understanding the Grand Design: Spiritual Reality’s ,Inner Logic”, I this book the author explain how the man evolve in , he starts in the famous Plato’s Cave to end with the existence of other dimension - 12 -
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space and time are blended together. Professor Stephen W Hawking29 states “We must accept that time is not completely separate from and independent of space, but is combined with it to form an object called space-time”; also:” In reality, there is no real difference any two space coordinates”. Another contribution of Fritjob Capra30, -he tried to join the Easter mysticism with the knowledge of the quantum physic- describes the difficulty faced by people to form an intuitive picture of the four-dimensionalspacetimes. A piece of evidence that is important to know is the existence of the Indigo Children who are thought to be the nexus between the known dimensions (three) and the announced fourth. These children started being known by the New Age 31, the social movement that promoted a change in the daily view. This new standpoint came with the announcement of the Age32of Aquarius. The mission of these children is to elevate the energy of the planet, for that purpose they have to work on the change of consciousness of the human beings who are still living under old decayed precepts. This movement must involve changes in many systems as family, education, government, values and roles and all the rotting things that bother the new evolvement of the human race. Returning to literature there are some lines in the chapter corresponding Proteus from Ulysses33, by James Joyce34, that seems as if Joyce wanted to say something about this relation space-time ;”A very short space of time through very short times of space”. 29
Stephen William Hawking, (born 8 January 8, 1942) is a British theoretical physicist. Hawking is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes, and his popular works in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general. 30
Fritjof Capra (born February 1, 1939) Born in Vienna, Austria, Capra earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University o Vienna in 1966. He has done research on particle physics and system theory, and has written popular books on the implications of science, notably The Tao of Physics, subtitled An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism. The Tao of Physics makes an assertion that physics and metaphysics are both inexorably leading to the same knowledge. 31
New Age (sometimes called the New Age Movement), refers to both a decentralized social phenomenon and a western socio-religious movement that developed in the 1970–80s. It combines aspects of spirituality, esoterism, complementary and alternative medicine and includes religious practices from many sources across the world, as well as environmentalism. It is characterized by an eclectic and individual approach to spirituality, and a general rejection of mainstream dogma . Other terms used to describe the movement include Self-spirituality, New spirituality, and Mind-body-spirit. 32
An astrological age is a time period in astrology which is believed by some to parallel major changes in the Earth’s inhabitants' development, particularly relating to culture, society and politics 33
Ulysses is a novel by James Joyce. It is considered one of the most important works of Moddernist literature. Ulysses chronicles the passage through Dublin by its main character, Leopold Bloom, during an ordinary day, June 16, 1904. The title alludes to the hero of Homer’s Odyssey, and there are many parallels, both implicit and explicit, between the two works (e.g., the correspondences between Leopld Bloom and Odysseus,Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus). June 16 is now celebrated by Joyce's fans worldwide as Bloomsday 34
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (February 2, 1882- January 13, 1941) was an Irish expatriate writer, widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. He is best known for his landmark novel Ulysses (1922) and its highly controversial successor Finnegans Wake (1939), as well as the short story collection Dubliners (1914) and the semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916).
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For common sense such a superspace seems impossible to visualize. There will be useful bring here Gary Zukav35, he is questioning the Western model of the soul, alleging that Humankind is in the mist of a great transformation, evolving from species that chase the power of the senses (external power) to one that pursues power based on the perceptions of the soul (authentic power). Gary Zukav strongly believes that humans are immortal souls first, physical beings, second, and when human beings become conscious of this transformation, once the personality is aligned with the soul there starts the process of the person to become daily a better human being. This is the synthesis of the modern psychology and New Age principles described as the “physics of the soul”. These words belong to a man who suffered a process from anger without regard for life to a new state of joy, now he is in harmony with the Universe because he understood a holistic thought joining East and West; science and mysticism. At the same period there was a writer James Redfield36 who started with the introduction of the new ideas through novels that were bestsellers. It is no worth decide if the level of those book was good or not or if they were great pieces of writing that by time can become classical, the fact is that ordinary people came across to a new point of view, and captured by the plot of the novel they looked into something that was not very common. The book is a first –person narration and the narrator is going through a spiritual awaking as he goes to a transitional period of his life. People find themselves applying to new concepts and trying to live with others values. Moreover when humanity was at the doorstep of a new century, and the many things that people used to imagine, one of those things was the end of the world. In the book the Third Insight it is possible to understand in very simple words what had been trying out Alain Aspect in his influential experiment. In the book, Redfield uses these words more o less, ” existent things are a field of sacred energy that is able to sense and intuit, what is more, human beings can project their own energy in any direction desired by them, so energy flows influencing other energy systems and increasing the pace of conscience. Energy envelopes any living thing (also this is readable as aura). What was demonstrated by Einstein was the fact that two objects can never affect each other instantly in space and time because everything must travel with maximum speed limit, and that limit was the light speed. So any influence must travel, if it travels through space, taking a finite time- this is called “locality”. On the other hand, Alain Aspect37 experiment (early 1980´s),following tests in the line of what has 35
Gary Zukav is a Harvard Graduate and a Special Forces (Green Beret) Vietnam Veteran a recovered person and spiritual wayfarer. He is author of valuables books connected with quantum physic and the Eastern interpretation of spiritual life, the books he wrote was “The Dancing Wu Li Masters” and “The Seat of the Soul”. For years has conveyed the most complex insights in language all can understand. Over and over, he challenges us to see the depth of our potential in the world…and act on that awareness. He is the author of four consecutive New York Times Bestsellers. In 1979, The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics, plumbed the depths of quantum physics and relativity, winning The American Book Award for Science. In 1989, The Seat of the Soul led the way to seeing the alignment of the personality and the soul as the fulfilment of life and captured the imagination of millions. Soul Stories (2000), as well as The Heart of the Soul: Emotional Awareness (2002) and The Mind of the Soul: Responsible Choice (2003), both co-authored with Linda Francis, also became New York Times bestsellers. 36
James Redfield, born March 1950, is an American author, lecturer, screenwriter and film producer. He is notable for his novel The Celestine Prophesy which was a novel of the New Age movement. In 1996, the sequel, The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision (Warner Books) also became a bestseller. 37 Alain Aspect (born June 15, 1947 in Agen) is a French physicist and alumnus of the École Normale de Cachan in France. In the early 1980s, with collaborators in France, he performed the crucial "Bell test experiments" that showed that Albert Einstein, Boris Podovsky and Nathan Rosen´s reductio ad absurdum of quantum mechanics, namely that it implied 'ghostly
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been researched previously by others scientist, found that photons emitted by the atoms influence one another at a distance without exchanging signals because they were doing instantaneously- they were doing faster than the speed of the light. Therefore it followed that the influence could not have travelled by space. So that influence must belong to a domain of reality that we must recognize as the transcendental domain of reality. To understand widely the Universe where we are living, there has been written so many scientific and religious books, holding any paradigm or dogma that Humankind has undergone. There is one that suits perfectly to this point, and gathers both position; The Urantia Book. It holds the knowledge of two thousands years. Inside of it there are more than 2000 individual contributions in the fields of philosophy, religion, sociology, history and theology. The text provides a comprehensive prospective of human origins history and destiny of human race. This book is supposed to be written between 1928 and 1935. Each paper has the name of the person-personality who wrote it. It is not clearly known how these papers got together, nonetheless the book is available. This important fact, that now the book is in market, could be a sign for human beings, to consider the possibility to tear down the many barriers that has been built between science and religion, politics and economy and so on , the large list of “wars” hold by people against people. This fact perhaps is a warning that the Universe needs gather millions of consciousness for living in a better world, to understand that humanity was walking the wrong path. It will be worth to scan through the pages of the book. It has four parts. Part one: is devoted to Universe; a purposeful Universe evolving in time and space towards a transcendent destiny. The Nature of God. His relationship to the emerging creation. Part two: the local Universe; a plan to go forward the social structure, the free will in our personal relationship with God. Part three: the history of the planet –Urantia- a geophysical and cultural history of the planet; growth, traditions, civilizations, social organization. The meaning of the values and how they will affect the future of our world. Humankind and its destiny. The worlds we will inhabit after death. Part four: The life an teachings of Jesus. This book joins the greatness of Jesus the Son of God who lived among people. Trough the papers that compose the book it is reasonable to open the mind, looking farther than any human being can imagine. At the threshold of the end of the first decade of the 21 century; a book with this content comes out. It is amazing to see when the world needs a change, a paradigm shift and a reconsideration of the values followed by Humankind that a book with such knowledge comes to fill the gap. No religious entity claims as it author. The wisdom poured throughout the pages calls to any reader to stop a moment and think consciously about the future of the Universe; there is not any likeness to think that humans are the unique inhabitants of the Universe so that the main work to do every day is to build a peaceful planet, no wars, no more pollution, no more destruction.
action at a distance', did in fact appear to be realized when two particles were separated by an arbitrarily large distance. A correlation between their wave function remained, as they were once part of the same wave-function that was not disturbed before one of the child particles was measured.
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Why not a world, as John Lennon38 proposes in his Imagine39? The Urantia Book is drawing the attention of those persons who are living with consciousness, it reassures faith because it does not matter the religion of the reader to receive the same warm feeling, the need to improve the world now, based in all religions, all philosophies. A healthy way to understand the important task that everyone has come to perform. The important message of the book is that science and religion must work together, man is a unit. There are no reasons to consider man divided in many pieces, a holistic vision must be applied as mankind concerns. Hence, it has to be thought that is crucial the shift of paradigm, from the reductionism, objectivist and positivist base of the 19 th and 20th century science to the holistic transcendental metaphysical foundation. The core of the challenge for the scientific worldview is to accept consciousness; including conscious awareness or subjectivity intentionality, selective attention, intuition, creativeness, the relationship body –mind and the spiritual sensibility. From this viewpoint people should think that thoughts are more than a reflection; but are also a movement toward reality. The result of this thought goes again to consciousness that creates the manifest world. Western science entails to the following metaphysical assumptions: • Realism40: ontological41-leads to epistemological conclusion • Positivism42: physical measurable • Objectivism43: epistemological44 and ontological (the branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of existence or being as such.) • Reductionism45: epistemological (The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity.) A step propitious to solve the gap between science and religion could be that of the American philosopher Ken Wilber46 (1996) ,based on an earlier work of Arthur 38
John Ono Lennon, (born John Winston Lennon; October 9, 1940-December 8, 1980) was an English rock musician, singer, songwriter, artist, and peace activist who gained worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles 39 Imagine there's no heaven/It's easy if you try/No hell below us/Above us only sky/Imagine all the people/Living for today... You may say I'm a dreamer/But I'm not the only one/I hope someday you'll join us/And the world will be as one
39 40
Philosophy.
a.The doctrine that universals have a real objective existence. Compare conceptualism, nominalism. b.The doctrine that objects of sense perception have an existence independent of the act of perception. Compare idealism 41
ontology
1.the branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of existence or being as such. 2.(loosely) metaphysics. 42
a philosophical system founded by Auguste Comte, concerned with positive facts and phenomena, and excluding speculation upon ultimate causes or origins. 43
Philosophy: One of several doctrines holding that all reality is objective and external to the mind and that knowledge is reliably based on observed objects and events.
44
a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge. 45
A procedure or theory that reduces complex data or phenomena to simple terms
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Koestler47, that considers reality as composed by “holons48” each of which is a whole and simultaneously a part of some other whole- “holons” within holons “. These “holons” are capable at the same time, to display agency, the capacity of maintain their own wholeness, other property of the “holons” is to come together with other “holons” and create a “novel holon”. Considering also psychology to get another approach to the “whole man” it is important the Gestalt psychology as another source of wholeness. This is the theory where it is proponed the operational principle of the brain is holistic at the same time with self-organizing tendencies or that the whole is different than the sum of parts. The founder of this school of psychology was Max Wertheimer49.The idea of Gestalt rooted in theories preached by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Immanuel Kant and Ernst March. The unique contribution done by Wertheimer was to insist that the Gestalt is connected with the primary concept of perception, defining the parts of which it was composed rather than being an “additional” element over and above the components. Early in the
46
Kenneth Earl "Ken" Wilber Jr. (January 31, 1949, Oklahoma City, U.S.), is an American author who writes on psychology, philosophy, mysticism, ecology, and spiritual evolution. He has been described as New Age although his writings are critical of much of the New Age movement. His work formulates what he calls an "integral theory of consciousness." He is a leading proponent of the integral movement and founded the Integral Institute in 1998. 47
Arthur Koestler (September 5, 1905; Budapest –March 3, 1983; London) was a Jewish – Hungarian polymath author who became a naturalized British subject. In 1931, he joined the Communist Party, but left the party seven years later, after emigrating to the United Kingdom. By the late 1940s, he was one of the most recognized and outspoken British anticommunists. He wrote numerous books, of which the most famous is the novel Darkness at Noon about the Great Purge in the Soviet Union, an indictment of Satanism. At 14 he had a "mystical experience", which perhaps gave rise to his later interest in the paranormal. Koestler studied science and psychology at the University of Vienna. He wrote a trilogy culminating with The Ghost in the Machine and later Janus: A Summing Up, bridges concepts of reductionism and holism with his systemic theory of Open Hierarchical Systems. Holons in a Holarchy have the dual tendency of integration and development and out of balance they tend to pathology. 48
A holon is something that is simultaneously a whole and a part. The word was coined by Arthur Koestler in his book The Ghost Machine (1967, p. 48). A holon is a system (or phenomenon) that is a whole in itself as well as a part of a larger system. It can be conceived as systems nested within each other. Every system can be considered a holon, from a subatomic particle to the universe as a whole. On a non-physical level, words, ideas, sounds, emotions—everything that can be identified—is simultaneously part of something, and can be viewed as having parts of its own, similar to sign in regard of semiotics (is the study of sign processes (semiosis), or signification and communication.
49
Max Wertheimer was born in Prague, Bohemia. In 1901, he formally switched his curricular plan from law to philosophy (of which psychology was a branch). Continuing his studies at the University of Berlin, then at the University of Wurzburg, he was granted a Ph.D from Wurzburg in 1904, for a dissertation that pertained to certain psychological aspects of law. While at the University of Prague, Wertheimer became interested in the lectures of Christian von Ehrenfels, an Austrian philosopher who, in 1890, published what is often said to be the first paper on holistic form qualities or (as Ehrenfels called them) Gestalt qualities. By more than twenty years, this paper anticipated some of the findings of Wertheimer, Koffka and Kohler, in what is now commonly known as Gestalt psychology (or Gestalt theory, to imply that it also pertains to disciplines outside of psychology).
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20th century theorists, such as Kurt Koffka50, Wolfgang Kohler 51and Max Weltheimer (students of Karl Stumpf52, creator of the theory of the state affairs53) saw objects as perceived within an environment according to all of their elements taken together as global construct. The Gestalt or “whole form” was an approach to define the principles of perception, this approach works as the innate procedure of the mental laws which determines the way the objects will be perceived. It has to be mention the fact that the Gestalt psychology is no the same as the Gestalt therapy developed by Fritz Perls54 which is peripherally linked to Gestalt psychology Now that many facts have been established the last point to bear in mind is the divorce that exists between religion and church. To have a brief account of how could that happen it could be write down more or less in this simplistic way: it had start when the shamans or the druids left the leading of the tribe; the reason was that they gatheredat that time- the sacred knowledge and the scientific one, it was possible as a consequence of the lack of information. It was very easy at that moment to blame the gods for everything that they were not able to explain or any misfortune, so that, they built power around the ignorance of the people; they do not need to elucidate mystery, it was enough the fact that they were in touch with any god that the tribe worship. This situation was bearable up to the moment that somebody got some new enlightenment and was in charge to illuminate other people to follow some different way of thinking. This sparkle of light put Humankind on a new road, “the scientific thought”. Every new achievement should be demonstrated nothing happened just because, and in that point, a big crevice runs between science and God. Furthermore, there is a question that scientists are unable to reply because the only answer leads directly to God. Wherever man knocks, the answer, probably, will be God so why science has to mistrust God? Since the very beginnings of times Humankind trusts all its fears to God and all its 50
Kurt Koffka (Berlin; March 18 ,1886-Nothampton ,November 22, 1941) was born and educated in Berlin and earned his PhD there in 1909 as a student of Carl Stumpf. In addition to his studies in Berlin, Koffka also spent one year at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland where he developed his strong fluency in English, a skill that later served him well in his efforts to spread Gestalt psychology beyond German borders. Koffka was already working at the University of Frankfurt when Max Werterheimer arrived in 1910 and invited Koffka to participate as a subject in his research on the philosopher phenomenon. 51
Wolfgang Köhler (January 21, 1887-June 11, 1967) was a German psychologist who, with Max Wertheimer and Kurt Koffka, founded Gestalt theory. 52
Carl Stumpf (April 21, 1848- December 25, 1936) was a German philosopher and psychologist. Stumpf is also credited with the introduction in current philosophy of the concept of state of affairs (Sachverhalt), which was later popularized through Husserl's works. 53
The state of affairs is that combination of circumstances applying within a society or group at a particular time. The current state of affairs may be considered acceptable by many observers, but not necessarily by all. The state of affairs may present a challenge, or be complicated, or contain a conflict of interest. The status quo represents the existing state of affairs. Unresolved difficulties or disagreements concerning the state of affairs can provoke a crisis. Dispute resolution is naturally desired, and naturally provided, by forms of inclusive social interaction, such as consensus decision-making, which adapt, but not conveniently, from a family or tribal model to encompass a global scope. Current knowledge and discussion about the state of affairs is communicated through the media. 54
Friedrich (Frederick) Salomon Perls (July 8, 1893; Berlin –March 14, 1970 Chicago), better known as Fritz Perls. He coined the term 'Gestalt therapy' for the approach to therapy he developed with his wife Laura Perls from the 1940s, and he became associated with the Esalen Institute in California in 1964. At Gestalt Therapy's core is the promotion of awareness, the awareness of the unity of all present feelings and behaviours, and the contact between the self and its environment.
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hopes to Him too. There has to be a balance where mankind can reckon its future. There is not good in being opposite forces. It has come the moment of applying to tolerance, as well in politics, religions and races. Humankind has walked a long way, however, today, when science has made a big leap man feels miserable because is not conscious of the great value that God brings to any human being. In fact, God is not necessarily to be religion, it could be thought as a big respect to Universe as to alive beings, to that vast energy that keeps the balance among planets, the flow of rivers, the ocean tides, the seasons…..Today, when it is possible to conceive a Universe with overlapping Universes is the moment to open all human minds and grasp the new paradigm, the one which is so dynamic that constantly changes to give men the possibility to grapple and cherish the immense fortune to be alive. What is more, science is giving facts that show the existence of a Superior force able to influence things without any contact and faster than the light speed (Aspect experiment). To sum up; Humankind is at the door of the new paradigm, it has been hatched by scientist and philosophers55 born by the end of the last century and brought up by a large quantity of people who believe in a new world, West near East, both together in the vast Universe and a mankind able to evolve far from loath, pollution, hunger and misery.
55
some of them mention throughout this paper
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