Is there More to Life than What Meets the Eye?

     "Materialism ... holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental states & consciousness, are results of material interactions. (Therefore) mind & consciousness are by-products or epi-phenomena of material processes (such as the biochemistry of the human brain & nervous system), without which they cannot exist." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism

     To what extent do you agree with this worldview?

      Most of us readily agree with the evolving scientific theories that reasonably explain & accurately predict the behavior of physical objects - incredibly useful for advancements in technological matters.
     Consciousness & mind are of a completely different order of complexity than physical objects. And yet, though there is no scientific data to support physicalist theories, materialists fervently believe that they will eventually prove ("promissory materialism") that the brain generates everything we experience in accordance with materialist beliefs that everything is purely physical / mechanical, happens by chance, in a dead universe.

“The assumption that spiritual experiences are generated by certain types of brain activity is highly dubious. For a start, the assumption that the brain is the source of any of our conscious experience is problematic. In the language of the philosophy of consciousness, this is the ‘hard problem’ of explaining how the soggy lump of matter that we call the brain can give rise to the amazing richness and variety of our subjective experience."
    Steve Taylor. “The Leap. The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening.” New World Library, 2017.

 
But there are far more plausible theories based on the direct experience of countless people, including meditators, mystics & saints of all traditions throughout the ages & throughout the world, and the direct experience of increasing numbers of scholars & scientists.

     A. J. Ayer, prominent British atheist, “saw clearly that no belief from the history of religions or from modern science fiction can quite compete with the outrageous claims of the physicists and cosmologists. Just go read Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, Ayer suggested. The book is a best-seller, but ‘perhaps the reading public has not clearly understood what his speculations imply. We are told, for example, that there may be a reversal in the direction of the arrow of time. This would provide for much stranger possibilities than that of a rebirth following one’s death. It would entail that in any given person’s life a person’s death preceded his birth. That would indeed be a shock to common sense.’”

     Jeffrey J. Kripal. “The Flip. Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge.” Bellevue Literary Press, 2019.

"A person is not a thing or a process,
but an opening through which the absolute manifests."
Martin Heidegger, widely regarded as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century

"The first sip from the cup of natural science makes one an atheist,
but at the bottom of the cup, God awaits."
Werner Heisenberg, Nobel prize in physics "for the creation of quantum mechanics"

 “I regard consciousness as fundamental,
matter is derivative from consciousness.
We cannot get behind consciousness.
Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness. There is no matter as such;
it exists only by virtue of a force bringing the particle to vibration and holding it together in a minute solar system;
we must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. The mind is the matrix of all matter.”
Max Planck, originator of quantum theory, Nobel laureate in physics

Steve Taylor - psychologist, researcher & author:
      “My view is that the fundamental reality of the universe is not matter but consciousness or maybe you could call it spirit. I sometimes call it ‘fundamental consciousness.’ So I think that the basic reality of the universe is a fundamental consciousness which means that consciousness is kind of embedded into the fabric of the universe. Consciousness is a fundamental quality which is always there, just like gravity or mass or other physical forces. Consciousness is similar to that in that it’s everywhere and it’s always there in the universe. Or maybe consciousness is more fundamental than the universe. Maybe fundamental consciousness in some way gives rise to the physical universe. It’s kind of the source of the universe. Once you posit the idea that there’s this fundamental consciousness, and many philosophers, many cultures throughout history have accepted that idea. Many indigenous cultures – the Native Americans call it the Great Spirit, or the Great Mystery. Many indigenous cultures of the world have the sense that the basic reality of the universe is a Spirit which can express itself in all of nature and also within human beings. And once you posit that idea, many things are easier to explain, like our own consciousness for example, things like altruism, spiritual experiences, near death experiences. All of these things become easier to explain.

      Some people have tried to explain spiritual experiences in terms of unusual brain activity. There’s quite a popular theory that it’s related to activity in the temporal lobes of the brain. Some people make a comparison to temporal lobe seizures in epilepsy – allegedly they sometimes have mystical experiences. But there’s really no evidence of this. In fact there’s a lot of evidence against it. Many epileptic people do not have any spiritual experiences. There’s really no strong connection between temporal lobe activity and spiritual experiences. In fact nobody has any idea of what the brain correlates of spiritual experiences are. There don’t seem to be any clear correlates. So my feeling is that these experiences are not brain-based experiences. {This valuable book is filled with details: Bruce Greyson. “After. A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond.” St. Martin’s, 2021}
     Going back to the idea of fundamental consciousness, I think that rather than believing that consciousness is produced by brain activity, consciousness is kind of a shadow of brain activity. I think another way of looking at it – a lot of psychologists and philosophers would now consider this to be a viable alternative way of looking at consciousness – one way of looking at it is to suggest that consciousness is some kind of fundamental feature of the universe and that the function of our brains is not to produce consciousness, but to kind of canalize consciousness into our own individual being. So universal consciousness is all around us, as a kind of fundamental quality, and the purpose of a brain is to allow that fundamental force to express itself individually within us, so that we become individually conscious. {Many further propose that the mind acts as a 'reducing valve' to prevent us from being overwhelmed by: 1) immense amounts of sensory data; 2) data irrelevant to our survival & procreation; 3) data that contradicts our current self-concept & worldview.}

     Consciousness is kind of transmitted through the brain into our individual beings. And that’s why in many spiritual experiences there’s a strong sense of connection and oneness. Especially in very deep awakening experiences, there’s a sense that our own identity kind of dissolves into the universe as a whole – a bit like a drop of rain falling into the ocean and disappearing in the ocean – there’s a sense that we dissolve into a universal consciousness. Our own individual consciousness dissolves into a universal consciousness. And that is exactly what is happening. We are experiencing our own fundamental oneness. {THIS often completely & permanently eliminates fear of death} In a deep state of meditation for example, when we make contact with the purest essence of our being, which is fundamental consciousness, that purest essence, we are literally one with the whole universe. We reach a point where we experience our fundamental oneness with the whole universe.”
     “The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening - Dr Steve Taylor” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FaWYnTY4Yc

“Self is everywhere, shining forth from all beings,
vaster than the vast, subtler than the most subtle,
unreachable, yet nearer than breath, than heartbeat.
Eye cannot see it, ear cannot hear it nor tongue utter it;
only in deep absorption can the mind, grown pure and silent merge with the formless truth. As soon as you find it, you are free; you have found yourself; you have solved the great riddle; your heart forever is at peace. Whole, you enter the Whole. Your personal self returns to its radiant, intimate, deathless source.” 

Mundaka Upanishad

 

 
“All beings are primarily Buddhas.
Like water and ice,
There is no ice apart from water;
There are no Buddhas apart from beings.
Not knowing how close the Truth is to them,
Beings seek for it afar - what a pity!"

Zen Master Hakuin Zenji

 

     There are intriguing overlaps between “sudden savant syndrome” or “sudden genius” originally reported July 25, 2018 in Scientific American by (the late) psychiatrist, Darold A. Treffert MD, reprinted here: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/brain-gain-a-person-can-instantly-blossom-into-a-savant-and-no-one-knows-why?utm_source=pocket-newtab and more common, well-documented “awakenings” below:
     Steve Taylor. “The Leap. The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening.” New World Library, 2017.
     Jeffrey J. Kripal. “The Flip. Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge.” Bellevue Literary Press, 2019.
     Bruce Greyson. “After. A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond.” St. Martin’s, 2021.

"There are two ways to live:
One is as though nothing is a miracle, 

the other is as though everything is a miracle."

Albert Einstein, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest physicists of all time