Continuing in the book "Consciousness" by Eva Herr, we come across a reality check: after one physicist, Amit Goswami, makes some incredible statements, another, Henry Stapp has (so far as I have read) poured cold water on just about everything, to such an extent that one wonders why he is in the book. But then again, it is essential to have a reality check. The problem with the New Age is its facile wish-fulfillment. As much as I like the idea that I can make my dreams come true by positive thought, rise into some evolved ether like Elijah, or make all my troubles go away with a wish or a charm, it is often not so.
And Stapp lets us know it. As a world-class physicist and consciousness investigator, we see why Herr would want to interview him. However, so far he has simply refused to swallow her leading questions - rather, he is a strick scientist who refuses to make conjectures. Yes, reality is not just physical but psycho-physical; yes, choice is fundamental in forming reality. But as far as Stapp knows, no information is coming to us from a vacuum or zero-point field or whatever. He claims that our choices are made from a collaboration of all thought throughout time and space - yes - but in this he stays well within standard bounds. We are the sum of all others because all others affect the world by their thoughts and actions. Action, reaction - all standard stuff. Stapp is smart enough to not call Herr's ideas crazy - what is reality for her is reality for her, and maybe for many others. But he refuses to go out on any limb to please.
We will see what happens by the end of the interview - what, for instance, will he say about original intent - that is, the formation of what we are from nothing? And what, I ask from recent personal experience, will he say about coincidence?
Going to the cabin last weekend, I was preoccupied with the lack of response to prayer and wishes, however heartfelt - of bad things happening to good people and yes, of my own not-very-tragic disappointments. Does anything we do, no matter with what passion or reverence, affect our reality? Stapp, I think, would say probably not - at least not in the miraculous manner that we often tend to believe or wish for. However, once at the cabin and settled in, with my thought still clouded with this disillusioning thought, we played several hands of cards. Getting a bad hand, I bet big (chips only, after all) on getting one single card that I needed - a near impossibility. I got the card and won. Then it happened again and again. There was a loss following that third time, and then more astounding luck. I ran the table. And however much all might have happened through improbable but mundane chance, it did strike me as an answer to my disillusionment. Yes, something is listening. We do not understand, but things are happening for greater reasons than we can know.
As a corollary, and maybe another wake-up reality check, as I was walking upstairs to write this, I caught the toe of my slippers and fell face forward into the boiling hot tea that I was carrying. I yelled, swore, and generally disrupted the house and everything in it. Who knows where we will find the cat. Accident or warning? Or do we walk in a planned world whose plans we cannot see? Are things indeed ordered, but so far beyond our reasoning that it is a fallacy to try to guess at the reasons why? Should we, in other words, go only by faith? But how, by this very reasoning, could we ever verify anything by faith?
We muddle on, small miracles mixed with disappointment. It is not this, but not that - not cold materialistic science, but not New Age magic. It is something else. I will always seek, but faith is what ultimately underlies reality, and because it takes away our direct agency, it is the most difficult thing to accept - even as acceptance might be our greatest willful contribution. FK
And Stapp lets us know it. As a world-class physicist and consciousness investigator, we see why Herr would want to interview him. However, so far he has simply refused to swallow her leading questions - rather, he is a strick scientist who refuses to make conjectures. Yes, reality is not just physical but psycho-physical; yes, choice is fundamental in forming reality. But as far as Stapp knows, no information is coming to us from a vacuum or zero-point field or whatever. He claims that our choices are made from a collaboration of all thought throughout time and space - yes - but in this he stays well within standard bounds. We are the sum of all others because all others affect the world by their thoughts and actions. Action, reaction - all standard stuff. Stapp is smart enough to not call Herr's ideas crazy - what is reality for her is reality for her, and maybe for many others. But he refuses to go out on any limb to please.
We will see what happens by the end of the interview - what, for instance, will he say about original intent - that is, the formation of what we are from nothing? And what, I ask from recent personal experience, will he say about coincidence?
Going to the cabin last weekend, I was preoccupied with the lack of response to prayer and wishes, however heartfelt - of bad things happening to good people and yes, of my own not-very-tragic disappointments. Does anything we do, no matter with what passion or reverence, affect our reality? Stapp, I think, would say probably not - at least not in the miraculous manner that we often tend to believe or wish for. However, once at the cabin and settled in, with my thought still clouded with this disillusioning thought, we played several hands of cards. Getting a bad hand, I bet big (chips only, after all) on getting one single card that I needed - a near impossibility. I got the card and won. Then it happened again and again. There was a loss following that third time, and then more astounding luck. I ran the table. And however much all might have happened through improbable but mundane chance, it did strike me as an answer to my disillusionment. Yes, something is listening. We do not understand, but things are happening for greater reasons than we can know.
As a corollary, and maybe another wake-up reality check, as I was walking upstairs to write this, I caught the toe of my slippers and fell face forward into the boiling hot tea that I was carrying. I yelled, swore, and generally disrupted the house and everything in it. Who knows where we will find the cat. Accident or warning? Or do we walk in a planned world whose plans we cannot see? Are things indeed ordered, but so far beyond our reasoning that it is a fallacy to try to guess at the reasons why? Should we, in other words, go only by faith? But how, by this very reasoning, could we ever verify anything by faith?
We muddle on, small miracles mixed with disappointment. It is not this, but not that - not cold materialistic science, but not New Age magic. It is something else. I will always seek, but faith is what ultimately underlies reality, and because it takes away our direct agency, it is the most difficult thing to accept - even as acceptance might be our greatest willful contribution. FK
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