The author is in essential agreement with Tallis, that when we only deploy one mode of interpretation, ie the scientific mode, we lose the fundamental realities of human experience, including the experience of free will, on which, ironically, scientific practice depends. Tallis’s philosophical stance is compared to that of Owen Barfield and his work on free will is placed within the context of his other books. A sense of wonder is common to all of them.

This thesis articulates an analytic version of the ontology of idealism, according to which universal phenomenal consciousness is all there ultimately is, everything else in nature being reducible to patterns of excitation of this consciousness. The thesis’ key challenge is to explain how the seemingly distinct conscious inner lives of different subjects—such as you and me—can arise within this fundamentally unitary phenomenal field. Along the way, a variety of other challenges are addressed, such as: how we can reconcile idealism with (...) the fact that we all inhabit a common external world; why this world unfolds independently of our personal volition or imagination; why there are such tight correlations between measured patterns of brain activity and reports of experience; etc. The core idea of this thesis can be summarized thus: we, as well as all other living organisms, are dissociated alters of universal phenomenal consciousness, analogously to how a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) manifests multiple disjoint centers of subjectivity also called ‘alters.’ We, and all other living organisms, are surrounded by the transpersonal phenomenal activity of universal consciousness, which unfolds beyond the dissociative boundary of our respective alter. The inanimate world we perceive around us is the extrinsic appearance—i.e. the phenomenal image imprinted from across our dissociative boundary—of this activity. The living organisms we share the world with are the extrinsic appearances of other alters. (shrink)

In order to perceive the world, we need more than just raw sensory input: a subliminal paradigm of thought is required to interpret raw sensory data and, thereby, create the objects and events we perceive around ourselves. As such, the world we see reflects our own unexamined, culture-bound assumptions and expectations, which explains why every generation in history has believed that it more or less understood the world. Today, we perceive a world of objects and events outside and independent of (...) mind, which merely reflects our current paradigm of thought. Anomalies that contradict this paradigm have been accumulated by physicists over the past couple of decades, which will eventually force our culture to move to a new paradigm. Under this new paradigm, a form of universal mind will be viewed as nature’s sole fundamental entity. In this paper, I offer a sketch of what the new paradigm may look like. (shrink)

When Auerbach writes in Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature that, although Homer can be analyzed, he cannot be interpreted, he puts the reader on notice that not all verbal discourse embodies the structure of interpretation. He equally shows the reader that there is discourse which, in order to be read, must be interpreted—that of the Bible and its heirs. Although Mimesis has long been celebrated, its readers have not properly remarked that what allows Auerbach to achieve his (...) penetrating reading of Western literature is precisely the critical distinction which he makes between analysis and interpretation, between that which is devoid of or lacks (is ignorant of) interpretation and that which consciously involves (wills) interpretation. Given the failure to appreciate the distinction which Auerbach systematically draws between analysis and interpretation, it is hardly surprising that philosophers and literary critics have failed to see that the distinction between analysis and interpretation presupposes a general theory of interpretation which applies no less to philosophy than to literature. (shrink)

The meaning of equality has been radically altered since the Enlightenment. In the 18th century, equality acquired political and economic meanings specifically in the contexts of democracy and capitalism. Today, the context in which equality is understood and practiced is technology as our most immediate and compelling environment. Moreover, the reality of equality contradicts the ideology of equality within this technological context: The ideology of equality as pluralism and cultural and communicative equality is contradicted by the reality of group conformity (...) and group competition on the one hand and uniformity on the other hand. (shrink)

Propaganda in all its forms is the culture of a mass society. The media transmits propaganda to form public opinion and recreate the human being. Reversing the Western ideal of a rational and free individual, the media creates a childish conformist ensconced in the peer group, who acts unconsciously.

Pragmatism has played only a small role in the half century and more of the science‐and‐religion dialogue, in part because pragmatism was at a low ebb in the 1950s. Even though Jamesean pragmatism in particular is experiencing a resurgence, owing partly to the work of Rorty and Putnam, it remains inconspicuous in the dialogue. Excepting artificial intelligence and artificial life, computer science also has not played a large role in the dialogue. Recent research into the foundations of object‐oriented programming, however, (...) shows this increasingly pervasive practice possesses an implicit pragmatist epistemology. Although science will have to become more computational, it will have to come to terms with both object‐oriented computing and its implicit pragmatism, which in turn supports the conclusion that we have fresh warrant for recasting the science‐and‐religion dialogue in Jamesean pragmatist terms. Some preliminary consequences of such a recasting of the dialogue are explored. (shrink)

Rock music, rap, and heavy metal are all forms of vulgar music. Vulgarity refers to actions and communication that are “common, noisy, and gross,” and are “untranscendent.” A technological society is a vulgar society in its base of materialism and exclusive concern with power. Its excessive rationality produces a need for escape, for ecstasy, for the release of instinctual power. Vulgar music mimics a technological society and provides compensation for its repressive impact.

If technology is the single most important factor in explaining the organization of modern societies, it is likewise the key to understanding the modern personality. The technological personality is the psychological counterpart to the technological society.Technology indirectly destroys the basis of a common morality and so leaves human relationships vague, insincere, and potentially dangerous. The technological personality possesses a façade of extroverted cheerfulness to conceal and compensate for an inner core of loneliness and fear of others. At the same time (...) the technological personality allows one to internalize technological stimuli, thus creating a shield against certain kinds of stress, it reinforces and deepens loneliness. (shrink)