Modern science’s understanding of life is built upon the belief that all features
of life—including of course consciousness—are completely describable in
terms of molecules and their activities. From this perspective, living beings can
be viewed as simply constituting a particular subset of the material universe,
and as such are ultimately defined by the same laws of physics and chemistry.
This material-only hypothesis is usually referred to as scientific materialism or
materialism, and it is essentially a modern intellectual fixture. If true, this hypothesis
has profound implications for life, and in particular eliminates the
possibility of deeper and/or religious aspects (and of course free will too).
Sample Chapter(s)
Contents (74 KB)
Components of the Book:
- Preface. An Overview
- Chapter 1. Science’s Big Problem—The Missing Heritability
- Introduction
- “Dudes, Get Back to Us If and When You Have Something to Report”
- Some Additional Context and Two Possible Explanations
- A Little Perspective from Physics and Psychiatry
- Chapter 2. Extraordinary Behaviors—Prodigies, Taboo,Terminal Lucidity, and Mediums
- Prodigies
- Initial Taboo Phenomena
- More Taboo, Mostly from Elizabeth Mayer’s Accounts
- Additional Taboo from Mark Gober’s Upside Down Book
- Terminal Lucidity
- Medium-Based Potential Insights
- Chapter 3. Evolutionary Context
- Introduction
- Primate Color Vision
- Wasps versus Cockroaches and Other Instinctive Behaviors
- Kin Selection
- Our Innate Religious Perspective
- Chapter 4. Transcendental Basics
- Introduction
- Monozygotic Twins and Animal Personalities
- Transgender Children
- Adoption and the Draw to Future Parents
- Recapitulation
- Chapter 5. Reincarnation and Exceptional Cognitive Capacities
- Introduction
- The Einstein Syndrome
- Savants
- The Flynn Effect
- Discussion
- Chapter 6. Evolution and a Transcendental Dynamic
- Religious Instincts from a Reincarnation Perspective
- Kin Selection and a Possible Reincarnation Explanation
- Evolutionary Mysteries
- Domestication Observations—Making Dogs Out of Foxes
- Culture and Sister Species
- Discussion
- Chapter 7. Self Realization or self/Ego Transcendence as an
Introduction to Religions
- And There Was Light
- Buddhism, Enlightenment, and Sam Harris’ Waking Up
- Some Conclusions about Meditation
- Chapter 8. Religion versus Science Context
- Science
- Religions
- Winding Down
- Chapter 9. Final Discussions
- References
Readership:
Students, academics, teachers and other people attending or interested in questioning Science's vision of life, and in so doing finding traction for religious and/or more meaningful visions.
Ted Christopher
Ted Christopher lives in Rochester, New York. He has held a variety of jobs
including some academic-based, biomedical ultrasound efforts. Post-high
school, his formal education has been mostly technical and included a PhD in
Electrical Engineering. Concurrent with these efforts he has tried to make
sense of some basic aspects of life, perhaps influenced by his involvement with
Buddhist practices and more generally his religious instincts.