Cosmic Mind?

This article explores the remote scientific possibility of something like “cosmic mind” or “cosmic minds.” Descartes proposed his famous dualism, res cogitans (mental reality) plus res extensa (physical reality). With Isaac Newton and classical physics, res extensa won in Western science and with it, we lost our minds; we lost our subjective pole. Quantum mechanics has seemed to many, since its formulation in the Schrödinger equation in 1926, to hint beyond physics to a role for the human conscious observer in quantum measurement. At least two interpretations of quantum mechanics, or its extension—the latter by Penrose and Hameroff, and the former by myself—suggest a new panpsychism where conscious awareness and possibly free will occur at quantum measurements anywhere in the universe. If so, then we live in a vastly participatory universe. More: entangled quantum variables may conceivably share some form of consciousness and free will, whether embodied in us, or living forms elsewhere in the universe, or disembodied; hence, something like cosmic mind or minds are not ruled out. If true, life anywhere in the universe will have evolved with mind and free will. Souls are not impossible.     

Synchrnoic consciousness from a neurological point of view: the philosophical foundations for neuroethics

Daniel Kolak’s theory of synchronic consciousness according to which the entire range of dissociative phenomena, from pathologies such as MPD and schizophrenia to normal dream states, are best explained in terms of consciousness becoming simultaneously identified as many selves, has revolutionary therapeutic implications for neurology and psychiatry. All these selves, according to Kolak—even the purely imaginary ones that exist as such only in our dreams—are not just conscious but also self-conscious, with beliefs, intentions, living lives informed by memories (confabulatory, in the case of the fictional ones) and personal histories. Kolak’s derivation of psychiatrically relevant aspects of his theory—a neurological rendition of a Kantian transcendental argument—can be given a straightforward neurological, and therefore open to scientific scrutiny, interpretation that would then more easily lend itself to the clinical setting in which these perplexing phenomena, along with their purveyors, must live and cope. This will be the main focus of this paper.     

Proposing an ontological shift from intervention to intravention in sport and exercise psychology

Intervention research entails the measurement of change in a situation or individual after a modification has been imposed. In sport and exercise psychology, interventions have been implemented in a variety of situations (e.g., performance, doping, physical activity, mental health) for a variety of individuals (e.g., athletes, coaches, sedentary people). Despite their widespread use, accruing evidence indicates that interventions in sport and exercise psychology have had less than anticipated success in instigating change. While some scholars have pointed to the need to confront the methodological challenges of intervention implementation, others have called for the creation of viable alternative forms of inquiry that can complement intervention research. The purpose of the present article is to propose an ontological shift from intervention to intravention in sport and exercise psychology. This shift is undertaken through the deployment of Barad’s (2007) agential realist ontology. The paper is divided into six sections. First, the concept of interaction is situated as it forms the basis for how interventions are conducted. Second, the Baradian ontology of agential realism is explained, along with key concepts. Third, intravention is positioned in relation to five guiding principles that delineate the progression for conducting intravention inquiries. Fourth, alternate meanings are proposed for behaviour, change, and knowledge. Fifth, examples are provided as to how intravention inquiries can be deployed in sport and exercise psychology. Sixth, concluding thoughts are offered. As an ontological becoming of interventions, intraventions are situated as open-ended approaches to inquiry that can help researchers derive alternate understandings of existence and can take the psychology of sport and exercise in exciting and affirmative directions.     

Response to Stuart Kauffman: The Paradox of Divine Action and Scientific Truth

We three authors compare and contrast Stuart Kauffman's concept of the “cosmic mind” with similar ideas developed in our recent book, The Unity of Truth: Solving the Paradox of Science and Religion (IUniverse, 2012). Albert Einstein was known to have said: “Science without religion is lame, religion with science is blind.” We authors make use of the “paradox resolution” methods of physics to find a non-conflicting method by which God's actions communicate with human beings without violating any of the laws of science. The “communications paradox” is resolved by hypothesizing non-causal quantum-mechanical measurements as the way God communicates. the quantum-mechanical resolution of the “communications paradox” is completely consistent with both theist belief and the laws of science, whereas Kauffman's “cosmic mind” concept is seen to be consistent with pantheism.