Living here in Montclair, within twenty miles of the Atlantic Ocean and north of Chesapeake Bay, I\u2019m pretty much immune from the influences of Creationism<\/b>. But I\u2019ve read various reports about it. Seems as though Christian fundamentalists and biblical literalists out in the heartland have been putting a lot of cash and energy into coming up with a way to challenge the Darwinistic view that humankind (and the world in general) evolved over millions and billions of years. The anti-evolutionists didn\u2019t do too well taking science head on, so lately they\u2019ve been trying to imitate it. They\u2019re spending money to support people who come up with detailed hypotheses that favor sudden creation according to an intelligent design \u2013 i.e., by the hand of God. They\u2019re even demanding that school textbooks and teachers give their theories equal time and space. <\/p>\n
(During the 20th Century, the Roman Church was amazingly tolerant of the scientific view of natural evolution. But the Catholics have been peddling backwards for a number of decades now, so it\u2019s not surprising that they\u2019re pulling the plug on their commitment to scientific enlightenment; Cardinal Schonborn, a top theologian and close ally of pope Ratzinger, now sez that the Darwinian evolutionary paradigm just ain\u2019t true, at least not for the faithful<\/a>.)<\/p>\n To me, it seems like such a waste of effort. From what I\u2019ve heard, Creationist writings and research seem impressive at first blush. But in the end they\u2019re not real science<\/a>. Most legitimate scientists reject what they\u2019re doing. Quasi-scientific ponderings help the Creationists politically, but in the end, I believe that the truth will win out. And Creationism is not the truth \u2013 or not even the best approximation to the truth, which is all we can expect of science. I take my hat off to the people behind Creationism for their determined efforts to make faith in God easier in an educated society. But they\u2019re barking up the wrong tree. And ironically, there is a nearby tree where their money and energy might get more traction, and might even contribute to the truth-seeking process.<\/p>\n That tree is the study of human consciousness<\/b>. There\u2019s all kinds of quasi-scientific fluff and Ken Wilbur babbling going around about the mystery of human consciousness. One needs to move past that stuff and get to the hard research. But even the hard scientists are at a loss about what the mind is and how it should be looked at. Some boffins explain that there\u2019s no magic to it; our concepts of self-awareness, \u201cme-ness\u201d and individual experience (aka \u201cqualia\u201d) are all illusions, complex side effects of inherently physical processes (which act, of course, according to Darwinian paradigms).<\/p>\n However, others call these things a \u201chard problem\u201d, as they aren\u2019t definitively explained by evolution and functionality as the hand or the eye are. Some scientists go so far as to posit \u201csome other reality state\u201d that consciousness somehow interacts with, a state that represents a new frontier for our science. Others say no, we know enough right now to explain consciousness, we just need to arrange the building blocks correctly; sooner or later, someone will do that. The \u201cjust an illusion\u201d people say that we can answer the problem right now, by realizing that there is no problem (or having faith that there\u2019s no problem; their writings sound oddly like religious texts). For them, it all depends on how we look at consciousness, so if we ignore it, the problem goes away. Yes, but if so, then why do I still think there\u2019s a \u201cme\u201d, with a past and at least somewhat of a future?<\/p>\n It\u2019s eminently possible that science will soon find a perfectly mundane way of explaining human consciousness. The recent scientific interest in complex system interactions and their side-effects may well be the avenue of approach. <\/p>\n But then again, there\u2019s also a shot that further study will encounter greater mystery and eventually arrive at a boundary where science can go no further. The existence of such a place, and an admission by science that all physical phenomenon are not in fact treatable by its methods, might well be an edification to the faithful (although, interestingly enough, quantum physics have already arrived at such a place \u2013 but most religious types can\u2019t seem to envision God lurking within the extremely tiny boundaries of the quantum world, and thus ignore this fact). <\/p>\n But if that \u201cboundary of mystery\u201d were ever to be reached, it would have to be reached by true and open scientific method, not by pre-judged, quasi-scientific rumination. I would suggest that the Creationists leave behind their \u201cyoung earth\u201d postulations and \u201cdate of the flood\u201d calculations, and take on the risk of supporting an extensive and unbiased exploration of the human mind. In the struggle between the ideas and ideals of God and science, consciousness is the final frontier. If the Creationists have any real integrity and reverence for the truth, whatever that should turn out to be, then that\u2019s the vineyard where they should be toiling right now. Take the risk!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Living here in Montclair, within twenty miles of the Atlantic Ocean and north of Chesapeake Bay, I\u2019m pretty much immune from the influences of Creationism. But I\u2019ve read various reports about it. Seems as though Christian fundamentalists and biblical literalists out in the heartland have been putting a lot of cash and energy into coming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}