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Full Version: Does consciousness defeat materialism? (Dean Radin interview)
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https://youtu.be/n2jUyrJsgeM

(video excerpt) DEAN RADIN: It's because as you look through history about the nature of matter, it has changed historically. It is becoming more and more ephemeral, and I imagine it will continue to become more ephemeral [abstract?].

So your view is in essence that there is one kind of thing, that's material. But it is much richer and deeper and more complicated than maybe some would believe today. And therefore as it becomes enlarged, that one thing will encompass all of the things that are necessary to explain consciousness

Yes, but it may not explain gods and angels and demons. Maybe it'll explain things that are sort of at the edge, that seem to have something to do with information or energy. But I can still see it as a form of material, just that we expand our notion of what we meant by that term.

So you would then say that consciousness helps expand our sense of the material world.

Yeah, in fact consciousness could also be seen as a type of material. It's a substance -- I mean, we don't use the word "mind stuff" without thinking that it's a kind of a stuff.

So how do we do that? How do you get mind stuff that is a real stuff in some way that is not dualistic?

Well if you imagine that matter in a more refined state is energy and energy, in a more refined state it's consciousness.

So what you have to do then, if you want to be a monist --only one kind of thing -- you want that monism to be materialist. It has to dramatically expand materialism, so that it at its core, or at the most fundamental level it's consciousness.

Is that so radical?

Well, yeah, I'd say I'd say it's certainly against the traditional worldview of science today.

Perhaps.

I mean maybe we move in different circles here.

Yeah, I don't know, in my circles it's basically a panpsychist view. Which I find to be the one that makes the most sense to me.

Panpsychic meaning that consciousness is in everything -- in some proto form or something.

Right, and the emerging properties from consciousness gives rise to energy and matter, essentially. I know it's a little bit different than what is ordinarily thought of as panpsychism. I'm actually imagining that it is a substrate, a kind of substance from which other things emerge and we call those energy and matter.

Now that is not classical idealism. Classical idealism says that at its basics, everything is consciousness, and matter is the illusion.

Right.

And that's not what you're saying, you say matter is real.

Right. It's all real. It's just different levels of refinement of reality. And it's partially because I have a physical science background. So I find it easier to imagine it's all really one substance. I don't generally go towards dualistic arguments, because why stop there? Maybe three, maybe four, maybe ten -- that's why so one is simpler.

Closer To Truth: "Does consciousness defeat materialism?" (Dean Radin)
Quote:DEAN RADIN: It's because as you look through history about the nature of matter, it has changed historically. It is becoming more and more ephemeral, and I imagine it will continue to become more ephemeral [abstract?]

Even Einstein knew matter to be an outdated concept:

"Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is really energy, whose vibration has been lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter. There is only light and sound."
(Aug 8, 2023 07:45 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]
Quote:DEAN RADIN: It's because as you look through history about the nature of matter, it has changed historically. It is becoming more and more ephemeral, and I imagine it will continue to become more ephemeral [abstract?]

Even Einstein knew matter to be an outdated concept:

  "Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is really energy, whose vibration has been lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter. There is only light and sound."

No offense, MR, but I don't think that Einstein said that.

There's differences between matter and mass.
(Aug 8, 2023 09:16 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]
(Aug 8, 2023 07:45 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]
Quote:DEAN RADIN: It's because as you look through history about the nature of matter, it has changed historically. It is becoming more and more ephemeral, and I imagine it will continue to become more ephemeral [abstract?]

Even Einstein knew matter to be an outdated concept:

  "Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is really energy, whose vibration has been lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter. There is only light and sound."

No offense, MR, but I don't think that Einstein said that.

There's differences between matter and mass.

I concede this misattribution. One poster said it was from Einstein. Others said it wasn't. I'm goin with the majority. Tks..

https://www.quora.com/Did-Albert-Einstei...-no-matter
Quote:It's all real. It's just different levels of refinement of reality. And it's partially because I have a physical science background. So I find it easier to imagine it's all really one substance. I don't generally go towards dualistic arguments, because why stop there? Maybe three, maybe four, maybe ten -- that's why so one is simpler.

There's a thin line between a dualism of mind/matter and a monism of some mystical substrate of Being. I find myself often drifting from one to the other.
The substrate would be the state of mind and matter in which interaction of mind/matter occur. An in between zone of consciousness/reality that enables the coexistence of both in one unifying state.

“The new discipline will be the study of the psychophysical nature of reality, that mysterious, interstitial space shimmering between mind and matter.”
― Dean Radin, Real Magic: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science, and a Guide to the Secret Power of the Universe