Dear Richard,

You have asked a very interesting question where you have attached an article about your view…

The problem is that from your article you did not mention the philosophical view about the discussed problem… In philosophy, the mystical is explained metaphysically… You did not mention the Lao Cee teaching, Daoism, which elegantly gives an explanation to discuss the problem… The question is discussed the same in Hegel ideology, my ideology (AZ ESZME, 1995)

https://moly.hu/konyvek/horvath-laszlo-attila-az-eszme

You have forgotten to mention that we cannot trust in actual theoretical science:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334131717_The_phenomenon_of_subduction_is_incompatible_with_Earth's_surface_geometry_and_geomorphology

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327201504_Gravity_a_paradym_shift_in_reasoning

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321641934_A_2017_Fizikai_Nobel-dij_gravitacios_hullamai

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313632704_AZ_ELMELETI_TUDOMANY_KENYES_JELENSEGE

Everything is mystical if it does not have an objective explanation!… I do not use scientific explanation, because the ‘scientific', not always is scientific. The mainstream science lot of time is same mystical (if behind it exist some human group personal interest)

Regards,

Laszlo

No

Please give your reasons.

Hello Michael, Thanks for the references to science and mysticism.

For the believer, the mystical experience is taken as a priori evident and incontrovertible. Mystical interpretations do not progress or change as do scientific theories; this alone suggests fundamental differences.

Hello Bhrigu,

This may only mean that scientific theories are changing because they are getting closer and closer to the truth. And I'm not sure that mystical interpretations do not progress or change. Can you give evidence for this? Mystical interpretations are cognitive expressions about mystical experiences of human beings, and human beings change and evolve so I expect that their mystical interpretations would change also. A mystical interpretation by a neanderthal would not be the same as that of a homo sapien.

Hello Michael, Sergio and Bhrigu,

There are different definitions of mysticism. According to one mystic teacher, Shrii Shrii Anandamurti, “Mysticism is a never-ending endeavor to find out the link between finite and infinite. What is infinite in macrocosm is finite in microcosm, but the potentialities are the same. What is required is to develop one’s finite attributions into infinite ones through the process of mystic approach.”

For an individual, this mystic endeavor is described as culminating in merger with infinite consciousness. But can this achievement by individual human beings be justified scientifically by those who have not reached this state? One approach is to learn about the experiences of people who have achieved this state temporarily, the experience called nirvakalpa samadhi in yoga philosophy.

Answer (short)-

• The claim that we do not see any mysticism today is based on very incomplete knowledge.
• Three examples of various people from modern times that are well documented and scientifically proven have been discussed.
• One mystical experience we all can experience – chanting the holy names of God. If done attentively and regularly mantra meditation can mystically not only free us from our bad habits but can also make us calmer, peaceful, joyful, productive, etc.

Answer (long)-  The claim that we do not see any mysticism today is based on very incomplete knowledge.

One of the most well-known and well-proven recent claims of mystical powers was that of a yogi Prahalad Jani who claimed to live for 70 years without food and water. Living without food is known as Inedia. Living without food and water is known as Breatharianism. Both of these are considered impossible for more than a few days, especially Breatharianism. Prahalad Jani’s case was studied in 2003 and again in 2010 by doctors in Sterling Hospital in Ahmedabad, Gujarat under the supervision of the DIPAS (Defense Institute of Physiology and Applied Sciences) backed by prestigious organization DRDO (Defense Research and Development Organization) who were interested in this study because if in war situations soldiers could live without food it would be extremely helpful.

Prahalad Jani was observed under strict and thorough monitoring for two full weeks when he neither took any water nor any food nor he passed any urine nor any stool nor any need for dialysis. He was declared at the end of the study as a medical miracle. How does Prahalad Jani explain that he can live without food and water? He says this is because of benediction by Devi (Goddess) to him. This is a living example of what is unexplainable by science happening right in front of our eyes.

Similar other examples are there from all over the world.

One well known field of scientific study is known as psycho-kinesis, abbreviated as PK. It means the ability by the mind (psycho) to make effect on matter (kinesis).  One of the most celebrated cases in America was that of Uri Geller who mesmerized audiences on Television in the 1980s with his spoon bending ability. His ability was researched and verified by Stanford Research Institute’s scientists and also certified by pre-eminent scientists like Wernher von Braun.

Similarly, in the erstwhile Soviet Union the case of Wolf Mesing, who also did psycho-kinesis, is also very well known. He was able to effortlessly penetrate through all of Stalin’s elaborate security and enter into his private personal chambers. This case is well documented and was published after thorough research in the prestigious Russian Journal of Science and Religion, Volume 7 and 8 in 1965.

There are dozens and dozens, indeed hundreds and scores of similar cases which are verified. You can read the book- Searching for Vedic India – by  Devamrita Swami for this purpose.

What is more important and relevant for us is that these mystical abilities are possible for some people even today. But there is one mystical experience and mystical power that is available to all of us. That power is the power of transforming our heart and lives by remembering God, Krishna, by chanting His holy names, via the Hare Krishna mahamantra. All over the world today people recognize excessive smoking, drinking, drug addiction etc. as severe bad habits. Rehabilitation centers and de-addition centers spend millions of dollars for freeing people from these bad habits and still achieve very little results. But simply by chanting of the holy names attentively and regularly one can achieve what most powerful, resourceful and well-funded research centers find it difficult to achieve. The mantra meditation frees people from all kind of bad habits and this has happened to not just one or two but hundreds and hundreds people all over the world who have adopted the chanting of the holy names. Not only people can become free from bad habits but those people who do not have bad habits can become more peaceful, joyful, focused, productive etc. by practicing mantra meditation.

As a scientifically minded person, I urge you to personally experience this mystical power of the holy names. By chanting these names, you will realize its effect through your own experience and transformation of your life.  Then for sure you will understand that the mystical abilities that are talked about in the Vedic literature are not mythological but actually are real.

Read more https://www.thespiritualscientist.com/2011/10/are-the-vedas-mythological-because-they-talk-about-mysticism/

It depends on what you mean by "scientific". Deep question.

Dear Richard,

You have asked a very interesting question where you have attached an article about your view…

The problem is that from your article you did not mention the philosophical view about the discussed problem… In philosophy, the mystical is explained metaphysically… You did not mention the Lao Cee teaching, Daoism, which elegantly gives an explanation to discuss the problem… The question is discussed the same in Hegel ideology, my ideology (AZ ESZME, 1995)

https://moly.hu/konyvek/horvath-laszlo-attila-az-eszme

You have forgotten to mention that we cannot trust in actual theoretical science:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334131717_The_phenomenon_of_subduction_is_incompatible_with_Earth's_surface_geometry_and_geomorphology

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327201504_Gravity_a_paradym_shift_in_reasoning

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321641934_A_2017_Fizikai_Nobel-dij_gravitacios_hullamai

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313632704_AZ_ELMELETI_TUDOMANY_KENYES_JELENSEGE

Everything is mystical if it does not have an objective explanation!… I do not use scientific explanation, because the ‘scientific', not always is scientific. The mainstream science lot of time is same mystical (if behind it exist some human group personal interest)

Regards,

Laszlo

Hello Laszlo,

Thanks you for your comments. The goal of my article is not to explain mysticism extensively and philosophically since this is a huge topic. It is rather to suggest the relationship between mysticism and natural science to the proposed cosmic cycle of creation. Mysticism is a practical aspect of this relationship. If mysticism is understood to be a rational and experiential approach to bridging the gap between the finite and the infinite, then scientists, skeptics and spiritually-inclined and other truth-seeking individuals can understand that mysticism is a natural and constructive approach to life and has no relationship to religious dogmas and divisive sentiments.

Richard Gauthier this book might be useful-

"The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal Is Bringing Science and Spirit Together"

https://www.amazon.com/End-Materialism-Evidence-Paranormal-Bringing/dp/1572246456

Hello Aman,

Thanks very much. "The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal Is Bringing Science and Spirit Together" looks really excellent and is highly recommended, and relevant to our topic. Used as well as new copies are available at Amazon and I've ordered a used copy. You can read the first part of the book online at Amazon.

Richard, that a mystical interpretation of a Neanderthal is not the same as that of a homo sapiens is evident. They are two different species of hominid. It is not comparable. Yes it would be if the mystical conceptions of a Magdalenian sapiens were different from a modern sapiens.

Aman's examples interested me until Geller. Since mysticism is not everyday but science and its results (miracles?) surround us continuously, although not against mysticism I prefer science.

I had once a Christian friend who repeatedly witnessed miracles: clouds changing shape to represent divine beings, often angels with wings. I asked him if anyone had been with him when these miracles occurred. Apparently, not! He saw them as Geller makes rarely verified claims. Many of the other miracles claimed here seem experimentally unrepeatable and verifiably unknown. There is nonetheless a connection here with scientific methodologies that are often no more provable second time around indicating that perception and belief function in both mysticism and science.

Hello Josep,

I think that a mystical interpretation would depend on the level of a person's conceptual development. Would a child have the same mystical interpretation of a mystical experience as an adult? Both are the same species.

Hello Stanley,

I don't regard ESP, telepathy, spoon bending by the mind, etc, even if they exist, as mystical, although if they exist experimentally as empirical facts they will still be mysterious until they are explained by natural laws of the mind and the physical world (which may also be part of a Cosmic Mind). Just as producing a colored liquid by mixing two clear colorless liquids is mysterious until it is explained (or at least predicted) by chemical laws. To me what is mystical is the nature of the infinite supreme self (if such a self exists) in relation to our individual apparently limited selves, and making the effort to bridge this apparent gap in order to experience or realize and become one with that infinite supreme self.

Of course, not!

Mysticism doesn't have scientific "basis" in a sense that you could derive mystical conclusions from scientific evidence. Mystical appreciation of, or angle of experiencing, reality is a different kind of appreciation and perception of reality than the scientific method of investigation and understanding of reality/the world. But of course, many aspects of mystical experiencing can be scientifically studied (by neuroscience, psychology, sociology, linguistics,...), which doesn't constitute scientific "basis" of mysticism.

Hello Gorazd,

Yes, the best that scientific evidence can do is to support, or refute, a mathematical or logical model of some process, whether physical, mental or spiritual. But the model is not the same as the process being described. The experience of blue is not the same as the mathematical description of what neurons are firing in the brain when a blue color is experienced. A mystical experience will never be the same as its scientific correlates.

Yes, mysticism have a scientific basis.

No. The kinds of questions that mystical experiences address (is everything really one?; is the universe loving?; Is there a God?) are not the kinds of questions science can address in one way or another because they are not intersubjectively testable. Neuroscientists can imagine neuropsychological models that "explain" mystical experiences (cognitive neuroscience philosopher Thomas Metzinger, for example, has recently proposed one), but often they are used to "explain away" mystical experiences rather than explain them. Every true thought, for example, has neurological correlates, but those correlates don't tell us whether the thought corresponds to reality or not. Finally, all mystical experiences may not be the same. Christian mystics, for example, often have experiences of an I-Thou dualistic relationship with or a merging with God, for example, while Buddhists and Vedantists have experiences of a more impersonal oneness. There are some who argue that these diverse experiences are really the same only expressed differently through the medium of different religious languages, and others who insist they are really quite different. There is no way to scientifically address this question either.

My work in this field suggests that there is a scientific explanation for one of the most highly-valued mystical experiences---seeing the vision of a bright, flashing light that's accompanied by an ecstatic aura--and I have several articles explaining my findings posted at ResearchGate. But the people who see this vision have to tell a story about what they saw and why they saw it, and that story is definitely not scientific in nature. The book that I'm working on now examines the issues that become involved in the production of those stories.

Hi all,

Thanks for your very useful and interesting comments and suggestions so far. Human minds are different and so our experiences I think are also different, even though the source of these experiences may be the same. Neuro-physiological correlates of experience cannot explain an experience. Even two physical experiences are never exactly the same (if examined minutely), but science grows out of shared, agreed upon and repeated (but never exactly) experiences. Experiences, even spiritual experiences, can be categorized to some extent and so a science of spiritual experiences should be possible.

HI Amy, Are you referring to the experience of temporal lobe epilepsy in relation to the correlated neurological events as to which causes the other?

HI Amy,

Philip K. Dick's huge edited volume "The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick" looks much more like a download to Dick's mind from some higher dimension than the result of random firing of neurons in his temporal lobe. It shows how much the human mind is capable of receiving and trying to make sense of.

Hi Amy,

PKD's characteristics may be associated with what is called the Geschwind syndrome. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschwind_syndrome :

Geschwind syndrome, also known as Gastaut-Geschwind, is a group of behavioral phenomena evident in some people with temporal lobe epilepsy. It is named for one of the first individuals to categorize the symptoms, Norman Geschwind, who published prolifically on the topic from 1973 to 1984.[1] There is controversy surrounding whether it is a true neuropsychiatric disorder.[2] Temporal lobe epilepsy causes chronic, mild, interictal (i.e. between seizures) changes in personality, which slowly intensify over time.[1] Geschwind syndrome includes five primary changes; hypergraphia, hyperreligiosity, atypical (usually reduced) sexuality, circumstantiality, and intensified mental life.[3] Not all symptoms must be present for a diagnosis.[2] Only some people with epilepsy or temporal lobe epilepsy show features of Geschwind syndrome.[4]

Mysticism and science were combined in VI century and the first scientific work was made by Dionysius the Areopagite, holy father made several works and gave the scientific explanation of some dogmatic issues. his works are available and in case of interest, I can share some of them. Here is the one

I do not give much of a damn about no matter who has expressed any idea on this subject. Mysticism is exactly of the same nature as science because they both come from the same mental stage that Homo Sapiens crossed many hundred thousand years ago that led them from only seeing the world, to naming and classifying what they saw to conceptualizing what they saw and tried to understand. They can obviously see that the scientific approach and the mental approach are only a choice between objective rationality and subjective spirituality. Who has the gull and power to say objective rationality or subjective spirituality is better than the other? Vanity of vanity, all is nothing but vanity. They sure do not have the same target nor objective, but both are equal in the attempt to conceptualize the universe in human terms that are in no way cosmic terms because man is not the cosmos.

yes and no. It depends on the reader. Scientific basis of mysticism is the matter of belief and not the questions.

The reader is not the stake here. Homo Sapiens in his phylogeny was not working for a reader, since anyway his language was not written, but for the species, the community, himself: how could he (the individual, the community, the species,) explain the universe, what he/they saw. We are dealing here with humanity 300,000 years ago. That should make present human beings a lot more humble.

Thank your Bela for this link. Please send more related links or a website which has them. Jacques, could you please elaborate your ideas a bit more about humanity 300,000 years ago (and related ideas). Of course, present human beings should be humble about their current fragmented knowledge.

Richard

It does not, but those who do not think critically follow what ever an academic heroes say (a groupthink):

No matter what happened in the MM experiment the axial Doppler shift exists in most cases where the velocity of the observed relative to the observer is relativistic. Therefore relativity has to be changed to have it. The arguments by Lorentz not to consider the axial Doppler shift due how he assumed the axial aether winds where in MM experiment are void. Because the idea of aether winds have been abandoned by most of the physics world and all the mirrors in MM experiment were attached to the Earth (hence at most one Doppler shift and no Lorentz assumed cancellations). Also there is worlds outside the MM experiment without mirrors at all. Two strong but simple proofs that the axial and gravitational Doppler shifts affect all things the transverse does:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iV-R1huQTOU1zcpFGzdjF_995WeJpRu8?usp=sharing

More impacts

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iV-R1huQTOU1zcpFGzdjF_995WeJpRu8?usp=sharing

Thank you for your time and welcome comments and academic proposals. Samuel Lewis Reich slrch53 @gmail.com

Hi Amy,

I've read it and I highly recommend it.

Dear Sir,

I published two papers

(1)"Action Of Mind Over Matter-an IITian View Published On Academia.edu

(2)"Mystic Power Generated By Prophets in history Could Be Explained By The Concept Of Quantum Collapse-an IITian Conjucture, Published On Academia.edu

In the first Paper,I wanted to Explain Nookkumarmam, Choodumarmam And Oothumarmam Practiced by Dr.AK Prakasan Gurukkall,a well known Martial Artist in Kalaripattu Which is age Old Martial art of Kerala.

Just by looking at the Opponents,Dr.AL Prakasan Gurukkall waves his hand in thin air.The opponents will be thrown away without touching them

Jacques Coulardeau, can we consider a humanity from Homo Sapiens 300,000 years ago? Very interesting is Jaynes's contribution to the processes learned in the last 3,000 years, which I understand do not differ much from those in social psychology which has long been understood as the intersubjectivity of the group from which you grow and which determines the your mental information. What I personally understand is that the mechanisms of the mental processes that produce their varieties, at least in terms of mysticism, we see it present from the beginnings of Homo Sapiens and that is what most differentiates it from other hominids. As an example among many the venus of the Gravetian.

Concerning the Christianity, I feel that it by itself about the miracles rejects any scientific basis; it is a matter of faith. It is clear.

Concerning other aspects, the mixture mysticism and any scientific basis does not serve and help at anything. It is unclear.

Beloved Friends,

There Exists Life After the So Called DeathI."Instincts and gifts by birth are directly linked with memory related to the Past So death'is not the End Of EVERYTHING.(Ref:(1)"The Complete Works Of Swami Vivekananda.(2)"An Integrated Science Of The Absolute"by Nataraja Guru.

If you define groupthink in physics as mysticism this is whale:

For a hundred years in how special relativity is written, leaves out the axial Doppler shift which would change most of the equations and add the observation angle as a dimension. Also Minkowski's 4 D space time is then killed by that. Also it is at odds with world anyway because, time is different in that we can only observe a point of time (the present except at relativistic velocity) in the 3 space dimensions we can a line of values at once. Motion in time is limited by the conservation laws to one direction in time and in space.

For details:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16FczUSF7WkiVgnKuJX7U2h-bVcEjpQZH/view?usp=sharing

A mistake not in relativity but how it used in beams:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19VPHijZut-NX9i3ac8c3swd4CJ_w7Pcw/view?usp=sharing

Thank you for your time:

Samuel Lewis Reich

[email protected]

Hello Gopalan,

The idea that death is not the end of everything is consistent with the quantitative law of karma, as explained in Preprint The Law of Karma in the Cosmic Cycle of Creation

Theodore and all,

The mysticism described by Shrii Shrii Anandamurti in the cosmic cycle of creation assumes that all of creation is from an infinite unexpressed Supreme Consciousness and is based on the natural laws of the Creative Power of that Supreme Consciousness. There are no supernatural miracles that violate these natural laws. When dogmas that block the progress and expansion of the mind are removed from Christianity, and from all other dogma-based religions, what will remain will be valid, rational and universal mysticism, the efforts (designed by the Supreme Consciousness to be successful in the end for each unit consciousness) to close the apparent gap between the finite mind and personality and the Supreme Consciousness. Anandamurti describes this clearly and systematically in his first book "Ananda Marga Elementary Philosophy", dictated and published in 1955.

So far, philosophy has not been able to present a reductionist model of consciousness, which is identified by many researchers with the immaterial soul. It was convenient to give a mystical or dualistic explanation at best. We now introduce such a physicalist model in our book, "The Reductive Model of the Conscious Mind".

https://www.igi-global.com/book/reductive-model-conscious-mind/250763

Will this not undermine belief in the existence of an immortal soul? Could this cause a crisis of faith in the world's great religions and in theology?

By the way, in our book "Swiadomosc? Alez to bardzo proste! " (Consciousness? But it is very simple!) published in Polish, you can find a chapter entitled "The Study of the Soul". Based on physicalism, of course.

Mysticism Does Have A Scientific Basis.

"Mystic Power Generated By Prophets in history Could Be Explained By The Concept Of Quantum Collapse-an IITian Conjucture"Published On Academia.edu

Hello Wieslaw,

Can your reductive model of the mind explain how two minds with the two people's different mother languages and memories can be transferred by a third person between the two people's bodies, with each person speaking with their own memories and language from the switched body, and then the minds are transferred back to the original bodies and both people are alright. This has been demonstrated in front of witnesses by my spiritual teacher Shrii Shrii Anandamurti to show that memories are not mainly stored in the brain but are mostly stored in the mind as extracerebral memories, and can be transferred with a mind to a second body, and then back to the first body, and the same for a second person in reverse.

Richard

Dear Friend,

Mind may be considered to be A Pure

QUANTUM PHENOMENON.

IT Does Have Countably as well as Uncountably INFINITE number of QUANTUM States.

For sake of Simplicity Consider Only Countably Infinite number of QUANTUM States.

Set of QUANTUM States={|psi)j} with j belonging to the set of natural numbers.

Here|psi)j =the jih Eigen ket

Hello Wieslaw and all,

The demonstration of interchanging minds is described in the article below from the book "Shri Shri Anandamurti: Advent of a Mystery" by Pranavatmakananda, Prabhat Library, Kolkata, p.264-268, available on Amazon.com .

Richard

Dear Richard,

Yes, our reductionist model of the mind proves that this is impossible. There is no secret of the mind longer. It remains for you to look at the demonstration you describe to discover how your spiritual teacher is deceiving people.

Dear Amy, You can easily find the definition of mind on Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind

As science develops, it redefines all objects, phenomena, and concepts (such as electron, mass, field, freedom, solidarity, or justice). Also our explanation of how the mind works sets a new definition of mind. It is worth getting acquainted with it.

see: https://www.igi-global.com/book/reductive-model-conscious-mind/250763

Wieslaw,

You wrote :"Yes, our reductionist model of the mind proves that this is impossible. There is no secret of the mind longer. It remains for you to look at the demonstration you describe to discover how your spiritual teacher is deceiving people."

Your comment is actually quite amusing. Have you considered that your reductionist model of the mind could be wrong? If course, the possibility of deception should always be considered also. The "interchange of minds" article would be considered by scientists to be anecdotal and that is correct. More research is required.

Richard

This link talk about:

Scientific Mysticism

https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/scientific-mysticism

Hello Abdelkader,

Thank you for this link about J.H.M. Whiteman and his ideas and mystical experiences.

Dear Rechard I have partially discussed this issue in this article

https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/597384

Dear Richard,

You wrote:

"Your comment is actually quite amusing. Have you considered that your reductionist model of the mind could be wrong? "

W.: Of course, we discuss our model with specialists in this field. Of course, it contains some hypotheses that need to be verified. Science is advancing in such a way that the models are constantly improved. However, they are usually not completely wrong. Especially logical reasoning usually remains valid.

It may turn out in the future that 2 + 2 = 3.9 or 4.1, but the correct result will not be much different from 4.

More research is needed on mind-swapping and on the reductionist model of the mind.

According to the mental development theory of Jean Piaget, mysticism corresponds to 4-7 age human intelligence.

Wieslaw,

You wrote about your reductionist model of the mind: "Of course, it contains some hypotheses that need to be verified. Science is advancing in such a way that the models are constantly improved. However, they are usually not completely wrong."

It would be better to check your model's unverified hypotheses before making claims of fraud without evidence except that some published report contradicts your unverified model.

Your unverified model can be wrong without being completely wrong. It can also be, in the immortal words of Wolfgang Pauli "Not even wrong".

What are the hypotheses in your reductionist model of the mind that still need to be verified? Perhaps your reductionist model of the mind can be improved in the future if with further scientific investigation "interchanging of minds" holds up observationally and theoretically.

By the way, 2+2=4 is not an empirical statement but a mathematical one, so it should remain mathematically correct in the forseeable future, assuming that the mathematical postulates upon which 2+2=4 is built are also unchanged.

Hello Hakan,

Thank you very much for this link to your article. The article looks very thoughtful. I'm forwarding it to a Turkish colleague for his possible comments.

Dear Richard,

I will try to give an example of the difficulties and the hopes to overcome them. People who do not follow the progress of neuroscience and biophysics do not realize the complexity of the synaptic processes that determine the transmission of information between successive layers of neural fields in the brain. Despite tens of thousands of working researchers and published papers, we still do not know the details of this process. Without knowing these details, it seems we won't be able to explain how the brain generates consciousness. However, it is enough to understand how the brain must work to steer research in the right direction. That is why we proposed a departure from the paradigm of pulses of the action potential as carriers of neural excitations in favor of Aur and Jog Neuro-Electro-Dynamics ( https://books.google.pl/books/about/Neuroelectrodynamics.html?id=8t9Y_IO8ck0C&redir_esc=y). This theory still requires a mathematical description, but it can already be seen that it allows us to explain the categorization and generalization processes in the natural brain.

It's like understanding biological evolution, even though we don't know which individual has mutated enough to be the first bacteria, the first earthworm, or the first human.

Don't be boring, Amy.

In Wikipedia you will find 79 references on the subject.

I recommend Max Bertolero and Danielle S. Bassett, "How Matter Becomes Mind: The new discipline of network neuroscience yields a picture of how mental activity arises from carefully orchestrated interactions among different brain areas", Scientific American, vol. 321, no. 1 (July 2019), pp. 26-33.

Wieslaw and all,

The question is not only how organized matter in brains or protoplasm becomes minds (assuming that protozoa and plankton and neurons already have primitive minds), but how Cosmic Mind, if it exists, became matter in the first place. Possibly, matter has the potentiality to become mind because it is ALREADY crudified Cosmic Mind. As matter becomes more organized to create subtle bio-physical and biochemical structures, its latent potentiality to express mental characteristics start to reemerge as actual mindstuff.

Matter probably didn't always exist as matter before it evolved into individual minds. It came from SOMETHING ELSE about 3.8 billion years ago that cosmologists don't yet understand, and transformed in an extremely short time afterwards into the Big Bang expansion in a very apparently very fine-tuned (in its fundamental physical constants) way so that matter, life and mind were able to evolve in the universe to our present stage. Why are the physical constants in our universe so apparently fine-tuned for the origin of stable galaxies, life and mind? Nobody knows. The reductionist approach is that you could hypothetically have zillions (around 10^500) of failed non-fine-tuned universes in a multiverse, according to string theory landscape models, in order to get a few apparently fine-tuned universes like ours, OR a fine-tuned universe could have been created as a fine-tuned quantum fluctuation from the quantum field of a Cosmic Mind. There could also be other possibilities. Please see Conference Paper Superluminal Primordial Information Quanta (Sprinqs) Created...

Richard

Wieslaw and Amy (thank you for insightful comments and suggestions) and all,

Here is a critique of Bertolero and Bassett's SciAm article "How matter becomes mind" at https://futureandcosmos.blogspot.com/2019/10/there-was-no-how-in-sciams-how-matter.html . It starts out:

"There Was No "How" in SciAm's "How Matter Becomes Mind"

"The July 2019 cover of Scientific American was dominated by a big headline stating, "How the Mind Arises." Inside we had a long article entitled "How Matter Becomes Mind."  The article did nothing to actually explain how a mind could ever arise from a brain. The article by Max Bertolero and Danielle S. Bassett tried to sell us on something called "network neuroscience,"  a term that hasn't been around for many years. The article is behind a paywall, but in other articles that you can freely read online, we can read about the claims of people who are adherents of this academic discipline.  For example, in the article here ("Inside the Network Neuroscience Theory of Human Intelligence") and the article here ("Network Neuroscience Theory of Human Intelligence" by Aron K. Barbey) we can read theorizing similar to that in the Scientific American article."

The point is there is a lot of theorizing about neural modeling approaches to understanding brains, but only correlations and no proof that brains cause awareness, mind or consciousness. The field is progressing though which is a good thing, and there are applications such as in pattern recognition. But neuroscientists are far from understanding the causal relations of matter to mind and consciousness, and new approaches should be welcome.

Richard

Dear Richard & Amy,

Dear All,

I have cited this article not as an explanation of how mind arises from matter, but as an explanation of what we are talking about, what mind is. How the mind can arise in a material brain was not understood until the publication of our model presented in the book "Reductive Model of the Conscious Mind": https://www.igi-global.com/book/reductive-model-conscious-mind/250763#table-of-contents

Wieslaw, I wish you much success developing your model of brain and mind processes. But if your reductive brain-mind model cannot explain how two minds may be interchanged between two people's brains, and such interchanging of languages, memories and self identity is proved scientifically, then your model will have to be modified if it is to be a satisfactory explanation of the relationship of brains to minds.

Nope. But there's perfect illogic to it. For example, science does not study any aspect of spirit. It's probably an attempt to seperate science from religious beliefs, but it leaves scientific theory impoverished in many ways.

Science has a simple excuse rule about this. If it is studied and found to have a scientific basis, then: it's not mysticism. If it is unexplained or unexplainable, then non-scientists can call it mysticism. Serious scientists simply and deftly avoid the concept. If it can't be explained scientifically, it's not scientific.

Hello Tracy,

I would take partial issue with your final comment "If it can't be explained scientifically, it's not scientific." Many things that have not yet been explained by science, like the detailed composition of the center of the earth, or black holes, still lie in the range of future scientific explanation, and are therefore assumed to be scientific i.e. potentially scientifically explainable, until proved otherwise. And an established fact is still a fact even though it lacks a scientific explanation. Facts don't generally evolve to fit scientific theories--scientific theories evolve to fit facts. I'm proposing that natural laws created by the Supreme Consciousness bring everything except the proposed infinite unexpressed Supreme Consciousness itself, with its unexpressed infinite creative power, into the range of scientific laws and scientific explanation.

Hello all,

My article related to this session's question was just published in the Indian press:

https://www.pninews.com/natural-laws-and-mysticism-in-the-cosmic-cycle-of-creation/. Maybe the report of switching of minds between two bodies will be next.

Richard

Best easily accessible explanation was given in Oliver Sacks book "Hallucinations" https://www.oliversacks.com/books-by-oliver-sacks/hallucinations/ ( World Science Festival video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T_XimPe4xU )

Humans are hardwired for it.

Hello Michael,

Are you suggesting that mysticism is a hallucination? Of course, visions of saints etc may be hallucinations, but mysticism as the effort of individuals to connect the finite mind with the infinite is definitely a real effort. And the results of different repeatable highly blissful states of consciousness called samadhi that sometimes result from these efforts cannot easily be dismissed as hallucinations.

Richard

No, I'm not suggesting all mysticism is hallucinations, nor that all hallucinations are mysticism. Sack's entire book is about spectrum of the phenomena, and how like most mental apparatus, it is dysfunctional in deficit, functional within a range determined by various cultures, and dysfunctional when in excess. whether awake, or not, or somewhere in transition. And there are as many flavors as there are sensory and emotional pathways and interfaces in our brains. Also that the negative connotation the word has makes it very unreported, some types are extremely common.

Far from dismissive, whatever the label or the means, involuntary or voluntary, congenital or by discipline, these mental states are very important and real, manifesting in the material world as art, math, music, organizations but also pathologies. It's all running on the same hardware, though, and similar chemistries, whatever words we put on it. John Nash ( "A Beautiful Mind") is probably an archetype of this - it's fascinating to read accounts of his praxis by his colleagues at Princeton.

Initially, in my opinion, there is a scientific base, which during the elaboration starts to become unsettled.

Hello Theodore,

Can you be more specific? Thanks!

Richard

Hello Richard!

Your question is a bit strange at first. "At the border to knowledge, faith begins." said Einstein at this point.

Well if we make unespected observations and gain the same experimental results then we first try to bring light into the darkness with quick and speculative explanations.

You can be sure that we have more mystical explantions in the so called exact science than one might suppose. I remaind first of all the 'quarks'. As the experiment has proven this invented mystical particles do not exist.

Mysticism has unfortunately a firm place also in the exact sciences.

Best whishes! Hans

Initially, the scientific base dominates, giving the outlines to be moved forward the research; then, depending on the form of mysticism, it reaches to its limits.

The "borders of knowledge" keep shifting and advancing due to scientific discoveries and scientific progress. But science, by its nature, can never experience the infinite. That is the domain of mysticism.

" I'm proposing that natural laws created by the Supreme Consciousness bring everything except the proposed infinite unexpressed Supreme Consciousness itself, with its unexpressed infinite creative power, into the range of scientific laws and scientific explanation. "

Given, a broad assertion, 'It isn't science unless it can be expressed in math ( and 'math' covers a LOT of ground )....

That statement of yours has an ontological resemblance to Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems ( https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel-incompleteness ) section 1.2.2 Theories not Formulated in the Language of Arithmetic ... and https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel-incompleteness/#MysExiGod

and especially https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel/#GodRat ...

"... (there) is a fourteen item list Gödel drew up in about 1960, entitled “My Philosophical Viewpoint.” Two items on the list are relevant here:

Hello Michael,

Godel's points of his philosophical viewpoint are more articles of faith than proven truths. If unexpressed Supreme Consciousness is infinite, then the number of problems generated by Supreme Consciousness when it expresses is likely to be infinite also. The concept of "problem" is itself vague.

Philosophies that deal with highest abstractness can be very fruitful, even if they cannot be proved by finite minds. The efforts to attain the highest truth can be fruitful even if the highest truth cannot itself be experienced.

There is just one a nagging question: Why do I "see" the world?

If we are no more than a bag of subatomic particles, (elctrons, quarks, etc, - like a rock or a lump of metal), why?

The scientific method fails at this level.

Hello Zoltan and all,

One possible answer (from yoga philosophy) to why I "see" the world is that our individual minds basically consist of a) a feeling of existence, b) feelings of doership (such as seeing), and c) feelings of the objective world ( such as the mental image of an apple) mentally constructed by and within the individual mind from waves coming from a physical apple to the mind by way of the sense organs such as the eyes. The mental apple image is seen by the mental doer or seer who has a mental sense of existence. Beyond the mind is the knower or self of the mind ("I know and witness my mind but I am not my mind"). Why the mind may be structured like this is a deeper question, related to why the universe and we exist at all.

El misticismo es una apofenia, un error en el razonamiento quizá involuntario y permanente. En la cual existe algún grado de razonamiento de acuerdo a los términos que el individuo haya considerado o su mente haya "descubierto". En sus propios términos existe patrones que siguen un proceso mental "replicable", "demostrable" y "comprensible", aunque en realidad sean conclusiones incoherente o sinsentidos para el mundo científico.

My work focuses on why religious mystics see visions of light. What I've found is that there are scientific explanations for why certain kinds of meditation or prayer activate the brain mechanisms that generate those visions. And that is a prerequisite for seeing, for example, flashes of bright light like those seen by the founders of most religions. And for an ecstatic rapture to accompany the vision, there has to be abnormal stimulation of the limbic system. So the brain science involves universal principles, but the stories that the seers make up about what they've just experiences are highly "particular," which is to say, they vary wildly from one individual to the next and from one culture to the next. So to understand mysticism, you need both science and creativity.

Can irrational religious dogmas be removed so that the rational essence of mysticism remains? It should be possible.

It is possible and many scientists have been doing that. Recent examples include linking cosmology and Kabbalah. There are also many examples in psychology, Karl Gustav Jung's work, for example. However, not all scientists can do this. It requires an open mind, the ability to study mysticism (which is not easy), the ability to translate the findings into the language that the domain scientists are willing to accept, and finally, good judgment; that is, being able to decide when and where you can disclose your real "references".