Reply To: Inhibitory neurons at play between L+R prefrontal cortex

  • Don Salmon

    Member
    May 4, 2023 at 5:22 pm

    Ah, getting close to my favorite topic of the moment.

    You write: But I find it obvious there are… things in the world which are not in consciousness (e.g. unobserved quantum fluctuations in ’empty’ space).”

    If you don’t mind a bit more on this topic

    I fully understand, given our modern assumptions, why this ‘seems” obvious.

    But just assume for the moment (this is not just Chopra and McGilchrist but virtually all contemplative traditions. You can quibble over whether Tao has any relation to “Consciousness” but I don’t think you can find any writings of Taoist contemplatives that say otherwise. Similarly with arguments about Sunyata. Meanwhile, Chit- the Sanskrit for Consciousness, is infinitely beyond what almost all modern scientists and philosopher mean by “consciousness” as some sort of brain function.

    So, assume for the moment that the contemplative traditions understand something about the universe that scientists don’t, and what we call the “universe” exists within consciousness.

    Can you conceive of ANY scientific experiment that would provide any evidence for what you think of as obvious, that would contradict the Taoist, neo-Confucian, Vedantic, etc sages?

    Please don’t immediately dismiss this as word games. I’d like you to really contemplate this deeply (using both hemispheres, if you need a neurological reference:>)).

    Think about it, and think about if there is no such experiment, what it says about our modern mentality that something so profoundly at odds with the entire world contemplative tradition seems so “obvious” (and by the way, any contemplative could tell you why it seems to obvious – this is not entirely a modern phenomenon)