I transcripted this video while adding my own thoughts as my next blog piece ‘Transhumanism’ is taking too long to produce. Enjoy.

On January 12, 2013, Rupert Sheldrake gave the following talk at TEDxWhitechapel. The theme of the night was Visions for Transition: Challenging existing paradigms & redefining values. On March 14, 2013, TED removed Rupert’s talk & released a brief statement: “We feel a responsibility not to provide a platform for talks which appear to have crossed the line into pseudoscience”.

Dogma defined: a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.

The belief that science already understands the nature of reality, leaving details to be filled in. It is a belief system for those who say “I do not believe in god, I believe in science”. This is now a worldwide belief like never before as technology rises. This worldview of science has grown to inhibit and constrict the free inquiry of thought needed for the lifeblood of scientific endeavor. Oh, what a tangled web we weave.

“To say that a stone falls to Earth because it is obeying a law makes it a man and even a citizen.”  -C. S. Lewis

One man’s idea to fix this stigma is to turn a list of ten scientific dogmas into questions. Below is the list of these 10 default world views:

  1. Nature is mechanical or machine-like. Ie; Brains with genetically programmed computers.
  2. Matter is unconscious.
  3. Laws of nature are fixed.
  4. The total amount of matter and energy is always the same.
  5. Nature is purposeless
  6. Anything biological is inherent.
  7. Memories are stored inside your brain in material traces.
  8. Your mind is inside your head. All your consciousness is the activity inside your brain.
  9. Psychic phenomena like telepathy are impossible. Ex: Your thoughts and intentions could not have any effect on anything from a distance. Anything else is illusionary, deceived by coincidence or wishful thinking.
  10. Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that works. These concepts define the basis of biomedical science including conventional medicine. Mechanistic medicine identifies disease and its accompanying signs and symptoms as simply the result of a disruption in chemical or physical functions.

All of this is the basis of our whole education system. We are governed by strict mathematical laws. When the Big Bang came in the assumption of these laws continued even though the Big Bang showed signs of radical evolution. A man named Terrence McKenna said this about modern science “Give us one free miracle and we’ll explain the rest”.

This one free miracle was of all matter of energy in the universe and all the laws that govern it came from nothing in a single instant.

In an evolutionary universe, why shouldn’t the laws evolve? Human laws evolve and the laws of nature are based on a metaphor for human laws. Something we all tend to forget. C.S Lewis once said, “To say that a stone falls to Earth because it is obeying a law makes it a man and even a citizen.”  

Many philosophers have entertained the idea of Morphic Resonance

Everything in nature has a collective memory, resonance based on similarity. Humans have a collective memory example: when teaching rats a new trick in say London rats all over the world will pick up on this trick somehow. So we see evolving habits instead of fixed laws. A dogmatic assumption actually inhibits inquiry. We are left to ask “is our scientific community paid off”?

END

Look for ‘Transhumanists as Inorganic Ones’ soon