Is matter conscious?

I was recently alerted by Graham Hancock to this excellent article from a Norwegian philosopher maintaining that matter itself is conscious, a conclusion she came to through logical thought process.

If you have read my book, Sun of gOd, you will know that I reached this same conclusion, as one of the inevitable consequences of recognizing consciousness in our Sun and other stars. The chapter was titled: Inanimate intelligence   –   perhaps stuff is smarter than we think.

As I put it  “For all we know, the tree might be tickled by the ripple of a breeze; the volcano excited by its own eruption; the thundercloud proud of its lightning; the mountain sublime in its majesty.”

Seneca put it like this 2000 years ago…

“Life is the fire that burns and the sun that gives light. Life is the wind and the rain and the thunder in the sky. Life is matter and is earth, what is and what is not, and what beyond is in Eternity.”

This is Hedda Hassel Mørch’s approach to the classic hard problem of consciousness.

The nature of consciousness seems to be unique among scientific puzzles. Not only do neuroscientists have no fundamental explanation for how it arises from physical states of the brain, we are not even sure whether we ever will. Astronomers wonder what dark matter is, geologists seek the origins of life, and biologists try to understand cancer—all difficult problems, of course, yet at least we have some idea of how to go about investigating them and rough conceptions of what their solutions could look like. Our first-person experience, on the other hand, lies beyond the traditional methods of science. Following the philosopher David Chalmers, we call it the hard problem of consciousness.

But perhaps consciousness is not uniquely troublesome. Going back to Gottfried Leibniz and Immanuel Kant, philosophers of science have struggled with a lesser known, but equally hard, problem of matter. What is physical matter in and of itself, behind the mathematical structure described by physics? This problem, too, seems to lie beyond the traditional methods of science, because all we can observe is what matter does, not what it is in itself—the “software” of the universe but not its ultimate “hardware.” On the surface, these problems seem entirely separate. But a closer look reveals that they might be deeply connected.   Continue reading

http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/is-matter-conscious

The Oracle at Delphi – was it, perhaps, oracular?

Watched a fascinating programme recently on the Oracle at Delphi – Ancient Worlds presented by Dr Michael Scott. The Oracle pulled in visitors from across the Mediterranean world for over a thousand years, finally falling silent with the spread of the new Roman Church during the fourth century.

Considering the lack of trains, planes and automobiles in the ancient world, we must be impressed by the pull of Delphi for ten centuries. Go that far back in British history and William the Conqueror was still known as William the Bastard. Can you think of any facility in Britain that has enjoyed uninterrupted public support for such a period? I can’t.I have one underlying complaint to make about Michael Scott’s presentation, however. Though he has clearly studied the amazing history of the Oracle in great depth, never at any point during this programme does he even consider that perhaps, just perhaps, there was  something genuinely oracular about the place. Could a thousand years of patronage by the good and the great indicate that valid advice and prediction was dispensed at Delhpi?

Today we just dismiss all this as stuff and nonsense and superstition…we know so much better now. Or so the Church and science tell us. Are we being arrogant in our dismissal? The ancients, after all, were not a bunch of stupid dunces living in caves. They had great civilizations, even twin water conduits, with one for drinking and one for washing (no bottled water for the Romans or Aztecs). They built pyramids and temples; developed mathematics and astronomy; fostered agriculture and commerce. Perhaps, just perhaps, they knew some things that we do not.

In the course of writing my last book, Sun of gOd, it became apparent to me that the so-called “ancients” were in many areas advanced to us today. Whilst they lacked our level of technology, they understood more of the vibrational world of spirit, understanding the nature of metals and other fields of knowledge that have simply disappeared from our cultural heritage.

The pyramid-builders did not only have the ability to build monumental precision devices and align them to the heavens, they also recognized that the stones, the stars, and themselves were all part of the same interconnected system. It was a different way of looking at things and a different way of connecting with them.

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See the world in a whole new light:

Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are!

Spare a thought for Sun at Samhain

As we respect this ancient tradition marking the waning of the Sun god’s power spare a thought for the Sun itself. Once the most widespread most loved deity on the planet, and the actual source of the light of life, Sun has virtually disappeared from the pantheon of gods. Who convinced us it was not a living divine being? Not science, but the early Roman Church who saw solar religions as prime competition, systematically destroying them from the 4th century onwards.

Our body may process and express the energy of life, but the life itself is energy, not matter. The life itself is energy, not matter…think on that. The body of our local star creates organized and 
complex energy fields that appear to manage many solar features. One of them holds the entire solar system in its protective embrace.  A dead ball of gas? I think not.

The idea of stellar consciousness is explored, together with its far-reaching implications in my book Sun of gOd,  exploring the spirit of substance and the substance of spirit. And do forgive this shameless self-promotion of the book at this appropriate time and place. And, of course, if you haven’t done so yet, lay your hands on a copy and enjoy a whole new outlook on the world.

get to know the star in your life’s movie