In this essay I intend to demonstrate how cognitive science, which stands at the crossroads of the natural sciences and the human sciences, has adopted an “objectivist” perspective on cognition that unnecessarily limits our understanding of the human mind; and I shall conclude with a prolegomenon to understanding the nature of consciousness and its causal efficacy.
Cynthia Sue Larson Interviews Seán Ó Nualláin
For the first time, an author with peer-reviewed published work in neuroscience, comparative religion, theoretical biology and many facets of cognitive science takes on the Big Issues of science and religion, as well as the current paralysis in real innovation. Seán Ó Nualláin’s latest book, One Magisterium, is here reviewed by the eminent scientist and thinker, Stuart Kauffman.
Does self-organisation pose a threat to theology? Or is God the facilitator of a complex world? And is there a role for thought experiments in religion? Niels Henrik Gregerson, Professor of Systematic Theology at University of Copenhagen, discusses religion’s place in a scientific world and how both science and religion could benefit from a combined approach.
Biological information is not only instructional but also has to do with ‘valued’ and ‘significant’ information, which puts the receiver in the centre of interest. Bernd-Olaf Küppers, Professor of Natural Sciences, offers a distinct naturalistic view about how crucial semantic levels of information might emerge via evolutionary processes.
B. Alan Wallace, lecturer, scholar, writer, translator and the president and founder of The Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies, discusses how the contemplative methods of Buddhism and the scientific methods of enquiry need to come together in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the mind and consciousness.
Creationism and Scientism appear to disagree on almost everything but, as B Alan Wallace examines, they share much more in common than either group would like to admit.
On a bright, still December day author, artist and poet, John Moat, meditates on the connection sea, streams and fountain have with the Imagination and the Sacred… and much more.