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Free will, culture and responsibility

There is a consistent stream in our culture that everything is determined by circumstance: genes, conditioning, wealth… But most aside from genes, all those are the product of people acting on each other. The free will debate can also be framed as a responsibility debate. Who is responsible? If there is no free will, does [...]

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Upward, downward and pluralistic causation

Going on with my exploration of Creative Evolution by Amit Goswami. This time I’m going to explore the basic metaphysics of his theory a bit, specifically causation. Does consciousness cause everything (Goswami)? Or matter (classic scientism)? Or something else? Let’s start with a history of science lesson: old Newtonian physics relied on what is called [...]

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Tangled hierarchies and the creative evolution of consciousness

The core of Amit Goswami’s argument in his ‘Creative Evolution’ is that consciousness is an active force in ‘creation’. And at the heart of that argument is the argument of tangled hierarchies. I had to reread what he says about it to be able to halfway understand, so I’ll just quote him here for easier [...]

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Creating the universe: consciousness choosing to observe

I’ve been postponing seriously taking on Amit Goswami’s book about Evolution for a while, but it cannot be postponed any longer. The long and short of it is: I have mixed feelings about it. I admire the effort, but the way it’s done isn’t entirely to my taste. Since the author is a quantum physicist, [...]

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What makes us human – about evolution and religion

Let’s get back to basics Since I’ve been digging into the theory of Evolution with the help of Amit Goswami, I’ve decided to take a look at precisely what that theory is. The Scientific American issue May 2009 is partly devoted to evolution. It has a column by a scientist visiting a creationist conference for [...]

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Limits to quantum mechanics and spiritual freedom

I’ve been reading Creative Evolution: A Physicist’s Resolution Between Darwinism and Intelligent Design, by Amit Goswami. I’m impressed, the chemist in me (I was taught some quantum physics in college) doesn’t find fault. Nor does the biologist or the philosopher (I took biology and philosophy of religion classes in college too). But I do have [...]

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Ghosts, Magnetism and Infrasound

When I read an article in a Dutch newspaper (NRC, May 3rd) about Ghosts, I knew I had to write about it. But this topic has had me finding online material that is challenging to say the least. So instead of coming to conclusions, for now I’m just summarizing my understanding of the topic, and [...]

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Big Bang or Cyclical Universe? Why not both!

My blog has mostly been about spiritual growth & stuff. But as a theosophist part of my interest is in science and cosmology as well. So when one of my theosophical friends shared this article from Edge about a cyclical universe – I  thought I had to break my recent pattern. This is an interview [...]

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The science of gossip – some moral consequences…

Gossip has a bad name, but we all do it. I mean really – when an authority figure messes up regularly, people will talk. I have done that, I expect I will do that in future. It may be annoying to that authority figure, but what they do and say has tremendous impact on other [...]

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