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12.15.09

Biocentrism Demystified

Posted in Evolution at 2:37 pm by nemo

Biocentrism Demystified: A Response to Deepak Chopra and Robert Lanza’s Notion of a Conscious Universe
by Vinod K. Wadhawan and Ajita Kamal – Nirmukta

http://nirmukta.com/2009/12/14/biocentrism-demystified-a-response-to-deepak-chopra-and-robert-lanzas-notion-of-a-conscious-universe/

from dawkins site
1. Introduction

The impulse to see human life as central to the existence of the universe is manifested in the mystical traditions of practically all cultures. It is so fundamental to the way pre-scientific people viewed reality that it may be, to a certain extent, ingrained in the way our psyche has evolved, like the need for meaning and the idea of a supernatural God. As science and reason dismantle the idea of the centrality of human life in the functioning of the objective universe, the emotional impulse has been to resort to finer and finer misinterpretations of the science involved. Mystical thinkers use these misrepresentations of science to paint over the gaps in our scientific understanding of the universe, belittling, in the process, science and its greatest heroes.

In their recent article in The Huffington Post, biologist Robert Lanza and mystic Deepak Chopra put forward their idea that the universe is itself a consciousnessproduct of our consciousness, and not the other way around as scientists have been telling us. In essence, these authors are re-inventing idealism, an ancient philosophical concept that fell out of favour with the advent of the scientific revolution. According to the idealists, the mind creates all of reality. Many ancient Eastern and Western philosophical schools subscribe to this idealistic notion of the nature of reality. In the modern context, idealism has been supplemented with a brand of quantum mysticism and relabeled as biocentrism. According to Chopra and Lanza, this idea makes Darwin’s theory of the biological evolution and diversification of life insignificant. Both these men, although they come from different backgrounds, have independently expressed these ideas before with some popular success. In the article under discussion their different styles converge to present a uniquely mystical and bizarre worldview, which we wish to debunk here.
…

11 Comments »

  1. Stephen P. Smith said,

    December 16, 2009 at 12:23 pm

    “…. that the universe is itself a consciousness product of our consciousness”

    This is a big misconception! These folks can`t debunk Chopra and Lanza if they remain unable to distingush the various flavors of idealism beyond Berkeley’s.

  2. nemo said,

    December 16, 2009 at 2:48 pm

    Good comment, and see post on this (I forgot I posted this yesterday and didn’t carry through on a critique of this critique

  3. Darwiniana » Biocentrism and idealism said,

    December 16, 2009 at 2:56 pm

    [...] Comment of Biocentrism demystified Stephen P. Smith said, December 16, 2009 at 12:23 pm · “…. that the universe is itself a consciousness product of our consciousness” [...]

  4. reece sullivan said,

    December 16, 2009 at 11:20 pm

    Interesting.

    While I was reading the article at Huffington post, I found this, which is also somewhat interesting:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-mooney/how-richard-dawkins-commu_b_312208.html

  5. reece sullivan said,

    December 17, 2009 at 12:11 am

    Stephen,

    Would you elaborate on various flavors of idealism; I’m familiar with Berkley, of course, but don’t know how he differs from others, or rather, how others differ from him. Also, what’s your take on panpsychism? I’ve found it attractive, but have just started doing some reading on it.

  6. Stephen P. Smith said,

    December 17, 2009 at 2:10 pm

    Here are some flavors of idealism

    vitalism
    panpsychism
    pantheism
    panentheism
    Hegel`s idealism
    Whitehead`s panpsychism
    Peirce`s panpsychism
    Hartshorne`s panpsychism
    Schopenhauer` world-will
    Goswami`s monistic idealism

    I believe what is being said is that consciousness pertains to something fundamental (like a boundary condition), perhaps emerging out of a proto-vitality (in the case of vitalism). Panpsychism assert that consciousness is fundamental in all materies, but because material is all part of the universe it is also the case that consiousness is fundamental to the universe. Pantheism brings the fundamental to an immanent presence. Panentheism resolves the transcendent with the immanent.

    I would note that our intuition is self-evident, and those that are most intuitive tend to be idealist. Intuition is found beyond words, even words that are said to explain everything with a materialism that ignores what is fundamental.

  7. reece sullivan said,

    December 17, 2009 at 3:02 pm

    Thanks . . .

    I ran across panpsychism in a David Ray Griffin book; I believe I’ll also be getting a book by Strawson for Christmas, and also “Process & Reality,” which I haven’t read.

    I like your last paragraph, too.

    R.

  8. nemo said,

    December 17, 2009 at 4:55 pm

    I should point out that I am not a defender, as such, of Biocentrism, and not, in any case, an idealist. However, the rejection of idealism is usually of the sillier versions set up as strawmen to reject out of hand by scientists. The alternative is said to be materialism, but that is as problematical as idealism.

    There is one especially important combination, the so-called transcendentalism idealism of Kant and Schopenhauer. In this form we confront a way to reconcile materialism/idealism in a format that is very well attuned to science.
    Much idealism was an attempt, not to challenge materialism, but to challenge Kant. It seems they failed to do this, but the merry-go-round is interesting all the way around.
    The extreme materialism that arose with Marx in reaction to Hegel was a brand of scientism, and appeared just as Hegel waned and reductionist science waxed. This materialism is so second-rate it can hardly be said to have resolved anything to do with idealism. Meanwhile Quantum Mechanics could easily fit into a Kantian framework, so I am not quite sure what the objection is of this critic of Biocentrism. To accuse him of idealism is a bit unfair. Why not put physicists in straight jackets over the QM scandal(s), which have never been resolved, as Lanza makes clear in his book.
    I will upgrade these questions and comments to post level.

  9. nemo said,

    December 17, 2009 at 5:01 pm

    I highly recommend a text called
    The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism, ed. by Karl Ameriks.
    (Amazon)
    This history shows the whole gamut of idealisms, and the Kantian brand gets a good treatment also.

    Hegel’s brand of idealism deflects attention due to his mythology of the Spirit, but restated in purely logical terms without the trappings is quite a powerful format, able to subsume materialism with ease, matter as some kind of related referent.
    This is discussed in the book above, which should be available in a good library.
    Be wary of confused crap that is not aware of the history of idealism. The struggle of ideas here requires historical grounding, and especially a look at the ‘idealism’ so-called of Kant. Kant’s brand, which arises again in a most powerful form in Schopenhauer, is not riddled with ‘god’ obsessions, as are most idealisms, to their discredit and downfall. A plain vanilla atheist idealist like Schopenhauer, even if you aren’t an atheist, will make the ideas here clear, stripped of the theistic junk that grows up around these concepts.

  10. Darwiniana » More on biocentrism and idealism said,

    December 17, 2009 at 5:58 pm

    [...] Comments on Biocentrism Demystified reece sullivan said, [...]

  11. Darwiniana » False charge of mysticism: resolving paradoxes of QM said,

    December 17, 2009 at 6:31 pm

    [...] Biocentrism Demystified [...]

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