Re: Fw: My chapter on you
Thanks Michael
I'm teaching a course but will address it ASAP
Do you have a deadline?
Love and thanks
2013 Costa Del Mar Road
Carlsbad, CA 92009
The Chopra Foundation
Hi Deepak,
For my next book, Heavens on Earth, I have expanded that Scientific America column into a full-length chapter. Could you do me a big favor and read it and let me know if I have fairly represented your position and that of the Eastern Wisdom Traditions? Please feel free to turn on the track changes and change the wording of how you would say something, if you prefer. I used many sources: your emails, articles, blogs, talks, debates, books, etc. Or even my own words if I have misdescribed what you believe or that of the Eastern Wisdom Traditions.
No rush at all. My manuscript is not due for many months.
Michael
Michael Shermer
Skeptic Magazine
Scientific American
P.O. Box 338
Altadena, CA 91001
Dear Michael,
Your chapter reads well and is certainly more than fair about me, given=the general unfairness I've experienced from militant atheists and har=-boiled skeptics. Thanks for being so open-minded.
My only comments have to do with making a difficult subject more access=ble to your readers.
I'd slow down at the passage about "redness" and spell=out that the brain is dark but we see light' the brain is silent, but =e hear' the brain contains no pictures, but we see full-blown three-dimensional images. Then open up how a neuron works, firing the same=chemical signals as any other cell with small modifications. So how =oes a brain cell, born of the same strand of DNA as a stomach o liver cell= think? It seems to me that a brain cell cannot think.
On a basic chemical level, the sugar in a sugar cube or the gl=cose in the bloodstream has no special properties; the molecules do not pa=ticipate in mental activity until they enter the brain. You might want to point out this mystery and also note that mat=rial monists must show the exact point when molecules exhibit mind-like be=avior.
Freeman Dyson, among other physicists, cites the mind-like behavior =f subatomic particles as they "choose" and "decide" wh=t state in the wave-particle duality to exist in. Here's a nice quote from Dyson:
"It would not be surprising that the =rigin and destiny of the energy in the universe cannot be completel= understood in isolation from the phenomena of life and consciousness--It is=conceivable---that life may have a larger role to play than we have imagined.=quot;
"Life may have succeeded against all=C24>odds in molding a universe to its purposes. And the design of the ina=imate universe may not be as detached from the potentialities of life=and intelligence as scientists of the 20th century have ten=ed to suppose"
You say that choosing between materiali=t monism and consciousness monism isn't the point, but it is. Consciou=ness monism or "mind first" must show how mind turns into matter= Materialistic monism or "matter first" must do the opposite, demonstrating how matter can produce mind. Even though the &=uot;matter first" crowd are far ahead in scientific acceptance, in fa=t we see mind produce matter every time a synaptic gap is crossed by neuro=ransmitters or hormones are triggered by experience. A person who is phobic sees a spider and reacts violently at t=e level of stress hormones, elevated heart rate, elevated blood pressure, =tc. This physical state is entirely produced by a mental interpretation th=t a harmless insect is cause for panic.
I'm not sure about how you introduc= monism. There are famous Western monists among idealistic philosoph=rs who are a) not materialists and b) not" Eastern". Since "=monad" as a philosophical term is associated with Leibnitz, you'll see that it refers to an indivisible "substance," whi=h may seem materialistic, until you discover that one order of this substa=ce is the soul.
easier to quote einstein, E = me 2. 40=A0. or its inverse, matter is equal to energy divided by the =peed of light squared, . M = E / c2 =C2* einstein proved matter was the same as energy, the=e is an equal sign. no need to reinvent the idea.