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<\/a><\/p>\nI present this not because I believe it but just to show you that secularist materialism is starting to fade.<\/p>\n
I came across a curious conversation at the British \u201cfree thinker\u201d site Unherd<\/a> entitled Modern Science Has Lost Its Mind<\/a>.\u00a0 I think the editors were trying to express in a clever way a theme of the article, that modern science remains unable to account for \u201cmind\u201d or \u201cconsciousness,\u201d which has given rise to this new theory.<\/p>\n The article is a conversation between neuro-scientist\u00a0Iain McGilchrist and philosophy professor Philip Goff on the topic of panpsychism<\/a>, the view that all things possess some level of consciousness and that \u201cthe mind is a fundamental feature of the world which exists throughout the universe.\u201d\u00a0 This view actually has a long history, as the Wikipedia article<\/a> from which I took that quotation shows.<\/p>\n Here is how the article introduces the topic:<\/p>\n Goff<\/strong>: Very roughly, panpsychism is the view that consciousness goes all the way down to the fundamental building blocks of the physical universe. So it\u2019s a question for physics \u2014 what the fundamental building blocks are \u2014 but for the sake of argument let\u2019s say they\u2019re particles like electrons and quarks. Panpsychists think those fundamental particles have very rudimentary forms of conscious experience, and that the very complex consciousness of the human or animal brain is somehow built up from these simpler forms right at the base of reality.<\/p>\n For decades, we\u2019ve been trying to explain consciousness in terms of physical processes in the brain \u2014 and that has gone precisely nowhere. It\u2019s not just that we don\u2019t have the full story yet, we haven\u2019t managed to explain a single experience in terms of patterns of neural firings.<\/p>\n I like to give the analogy of Copernicus. For centuries, people started from the assumption that the Earth was in the centre of the universe, and tried to understand astronomical observations on that basis. But it couldn\u2019t be done. Then Copernicus sweeps all that away: by showing that the sun, not the Earth, is the centre of the universe. I feel that way about consciousness. If you turn our assumptions upside down, if you start from consciousness being foundational, then try to make sense of physical reality emerging from that, it suddenly all makes sense.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n They explain that they are not saying that everything\u2013stones, atoms, quarks\u2013are conscious in the same sense that human beings are conscious, with feelings, beliefs, desires, and self-reflection.\u00a0 But they contend that these inanimate objects do have some level of very simple consciousness.<\/p>\n McGilchrist<\/strong>: . . . I think, indeed, that the whole universe is conscious, and that consciousness is an ontological primitive. You can\u2019t get behind it and find something that causes it, and that is in keeping with the traditions of many cultures, particularly in the east, that consciousness is something primary.<\/p>\n It\u2019s very difficult for us to imagine that something like a stone is conscious. But what would you say to the idea that it is part of a bigger conscious system? In other words, panpsychism can mean two things: either that psyche is in everything, or everything is in psyche. My way of thinking of it is that everything is in psyche and partakes of its nature.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It sounds to me that just as materialists think everything is composed of fundamental bits of matter that come together into complex systems, the panpsychists think everything is composed of bits of mind that come together into complex systems.\u00a0 But then Goff gets to a bigger question:<\/p>\n Goff<\/strong>: It\u2019s the job of physicists to tell us what the \u201cfundamental things\u201d are, and we tend to think of them as particles, little billiard balls. But actually, many theoretical physicists are inclined to think that universe-wide fields are those fundamental things. And if you combine that with panpsychism, we reach what\u2019s sometimes called cosmo-psychism. Meaning? The fundamental thing is the conscious universe.<\/p>\n This gets us on to the other thing I wanted to ask you about: God. If the universe is in some sense conscious, would that be God? Is there any connection to God? Or are these just entirely different?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n McGilchrist says that they aren\u2019t different at all.\u00a0 Goff agrees, saying that the notion of a divine consciousness underlying all things is a staple of eastern religions, including, he says, Eastern Christianity.\u00a0 Both say they believe in God.\u00a0 McGilchrist says he is a panentheist<\/a>.\u00a0 Not a pantheist, who believes that God is<\/em> all things, but a panentheist, who believes that God is in<\/em> all things.<\/p>\n Both men get cagey at this point, not wanting to say too much about religion or their personal religious beliefs.\u00a0 McGilchrist says that \u201cI happen to think that the mythos of Christianity is the deepest and richest of any religion in the world,\u201d but that he doesn\u2019t want to proselytize for a particular religion or view of God.<\/p>\n Goff says that he himself was drawn \u201cback to religion\u201d by discovering the \u201cdiscovering the mystical traditions that are found in all the Abrahamic faiths.\u201d\u00a0 Sounding Eastern Orthodox, he says that the Eastern Orthodox don\u2019t put all that much emphasis on sin, though I don\u2019t see what that has to do with the question at hand.<\/p>\n He says,\u00a0\u201cGod isn\u2019t interested in finding someone to punish for our sins. That was invented by the Protestant reformers 500 years ago.\u201d\u00a0 That would be news for St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Anselm, and the Catholic Church in general.\u00a0 Also the Eastern Orthodox Church, which does have a theology of Christ\u2019s atonement and forgiveness of sins, though it downplays original sin and stresses theosis rather than justification.<\/p>\n This tip-toeing away from sin demonstrates what I have often said, that the real issue in today\u2019s unbelief is not so much the existence of God, but the existence of sin. People today are so desperate to evade the fact of their sinfulness that they will deny the existence of God in an attempt to convince themselves that they will not be judged for their sinfulness.\u00a0 They deny their need for redemption and so shut out the grace and forgiveness God gives in Christ.<\/p>\n I digress, as Goff and McGilchrist do.\u00a0 I would like to ask them, though, if mind underlies matter, as they say, wouldn\u2019t that be accounted for just as well by the classical doctrine of God as the Creator of all things?\u00a0 He created and upholds the universe by and in accord with His mind and consciousness, His Logos<\/em>, who became flesh in Christ (John 1:1-18) and who does indeed fill all things (Ephesians 4:10).\u00a0 Is it really necessary to posit the consciousness of quarks and stones if we accept the orthodox, Biblical doctrine of creation?<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think it is, but it is surely significant that contemporary thinkers in secular publications are thinking along these lines and are giving up on the \u201cbilliard ball\u201d assumptions of naturalistic materialism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image by\u00a0Brian Jones<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0Pixabay<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Secularist materialism is starting to fade. This is evident in the vogue of panpsychism, the view of some contemporary thinkers that all things possess some level of consciousness and that “the mind is a fundamental feature of the world which exists throughout the universe.”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":83306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,33,35,40],"tags":[3618,7223,2916,1465,16574,10998],"class_list":["post-83288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-nature","category-philosophy-2","category-science","tag-consciousness","tag-doctrine-of-creation","tag-logos","tag-mind","tag-panentheism","tag-panpsychism"],"yoast_head":"\n