Dawkins & Pinker

The readings for the second class presented the familiar picture of scientists quelling concerns that Darwinism and genetics make life less valid/genuine. My stance on the whole argument is that it is largely a moot point. For instance, that scientists argue that everything is physical and not ethereal is a moot point because there are kinds of matter that are very ethereal like electromagnetic force and light. Also, since they admitted that they know jack about what constitutes consciousness itself, the point stands that consciousness is ethereal. Now once science starts to grasp consciousness better, (I am optimistic that it will) they will probably identify some very subtle and invisible forces and functions, and claim to have proved consciousness is a physical entity. But what's the difference? Electromagnetic force is just one aspect of our energy field that we have conscious control over, and its invisible, and what we can do with it has been largely untested. This leads me into my main qualm with this sort of science. The evidence is not at all in conflict with a lot of beliefs about souls, for instance, Rick Strassman's study on the pineal glands secretions of dimethyltriptamine in the brain points strongly to a chanelling-center model of consciousness. But more to the point, observation from the outside, looking at genes and brains separated by a microscope or a functional MRI, we are separated from the reality of these things in active service of ourselves. We are always experiencing the brain, genetic encouragement to procreate, instinctual aversion to harm, etc. But the experiential element is so much more valid to human existance! I believe that we can alter our body chemistry in all sorts of ways not recognized by science. It doesn't mean that there isn't a scientific explanation out there somewhere, but they are way behind the active practice and experience of what we are capable of. We don't need to wait for a scientist to proove that we can consciously control bodty temperature, heart rate, and electrical currents in our bodies before it is true. People have been altering these things for thousands of years. I guess my point comes down to this. We don't need to start from scratch, we don't need to doubt the capabilities of consciousness to manifest miracles and transcendent experiences, because once science figures out that all these things are possible, we'll probably all be dead. Science is good and all, but too slow for me. Everything I experience is empirically true as experience, which is all we get in this world anyway, and the scientific practice of doubling back and dissecting with a scalple the verifyable and doubtful efficacy of experiential truth in their terms definitely "clips the wings of an angel" in the sense that you're missing the continuing flux of beauty going on at all times. I once had the thought that some image of a deity was observing humans with their obsessive need for certainty, which it did not share, and, being thoroughly perplexed by our ridiculous subatomic observations and mathematical scrutuiny, devised a hilarious trick, known as the uncertainty principle in quantum physics, which basically said, "you'll find whatever you want to find, but you're not pinning me down. Now go outside and look at a tree or something. My creation is really quite simple!"