Jul 4, 2022
Combining Stories To Bring People Together
With Science!
There are undiscovered physics of consciousness. The existence of these undiscovered physics of consciousness means that there is a rounding error influencing core understandings used within our shared systems of science. Science has rounded down from “there are some inconsistently observable or historically evident yet unexplainable metaphysical phenomena” to “there is no room in our understanding of reality for emergent or unacknowledged metaphysical phenomena”. We used Occam’s Razor to tell ourselves a lie about how reality works because we didn’t know how to understand how reality works.
Woopsie doodle. We done goofed real good.
This resulted in the formation of cognitive biases in our shared systems of science… which is a thing we have to keep on repeating because it’s the type of thing that looks and feels false — and yet is also, and rather inconveniently, true. These biases were developed over generations and were often refined through the robustly architected mental machinery of some of the most brilliant minds that have ever walked the face of our planet. These cognitive biases represent a foundational error that relates to myriad facets of the processes or outcomes of our scientific efforts, most notably those which interact with our minds.
There is an extremely harmful cultural component to the challenge of overcoming these biases which relate to the fact that the majority of humans believe in some kind of metaphysics — a view which is not supported by many of the disparate elites, and elite institutions, which most want to be viewed as knowledgeable about our shared scientific understanding of reality. This results in increased levels of systemic distrust between the people who Do The Science™ and the people who live in the world where the science is done.
There are undiscovered physics of consciousness which can be observed through processes relating to our behaviour towards one another but we don’t know how to measure these processes so we don’t know what sort of damage our behaviour is capable of doing. The existence of undiscovered physics of consciousness points to the existence of an ecosystem where unknown physics or energies dance between or around or within the particulate matter of the material universe. We don’t see it — partly because we don’t want to see it and partly because we don’t know how to see it because we didn’t evolve to see it. We don’t seem to see this problem until it becomes incredibly, catastrophically huge.
If that sounds like what happened with climate change that’s because this is a new manifestation of that same flaw in our collective sense making infrastructure — only now it directly relates to the activity of the organs we use to understand everything.
This narrative is incomprehensible to many even though it is fairly simple to describe it accurately. The problem is that we don’t have the right culture of science yet.
I don’t know what to do with this information.
I tried to write a paper about this. That seems like the best way to solve this problem. I think there needs to be a paper that science can cite which says “Many people are some sort of right about their beliefs in a way that conflicts with what is commonly accepted by the mainstream”.
The reason I think this is because there are already papers which say that metaphysical phenomena are as real as a bunch of other stuff we accept to be true. My hypothesis is that those papers should be enough but they’re not because they can’t be cited in a relevant way. How do you convince economics to start measuring the evident spiritual harm of late stage capitalism? How else do we get around the fact that rejecting the existence of metaphysical phenomena in countless regions and cultures throughout history leads us to treating every pre-Enlightenment culture as totally fucking insane or pathetically ignorant in their view of reality? What about the fact that there’s as much evidence for some parapsychological phenomena as there is for accepted psychological phenomena?
This isn’t Science vs God— this is Reality vs Science.
The solution will probably be to write an appropriate meta-analysis of this research in order to conclusively highlight the actual nature of our shared reality so that we can start to make the necessary adjustments to more align our shared sense making systems with a more accurate understanding of our shared environment.
Clearly some variety or combination of some elements of some spiritual or faith traditions are more correct than our shared systems of science are willing to acknowledge — this is harming us.
Edit: I’m sorry I just did that to you but not sorry enough to edit out the picture.
I started writing this paper and then I stopped. I’ve mentioned it a few times in the past. I haven’t started up again and don’t know when I will. The remainder of this article will contain the title, abstract, acknowledgements, and intro to the paper as I’ve written them so far (unedited and as they currently exist in a Google doc somewhere):
DRAFT — A multidisciplinary meta-analysis of the history and variety of anecdotal occurrences of parapsychological phenomena is sufficiently compelling to serve as evidence for undiscovered physics of consciousness which can influence the daily lives of all humans
Abstract
Many people all over the world, and in a significant variety of cultures throughout history, believe in the existence of metaphysical phenomena (e.g. something that exists within, or in the origin of, our shared reality which is not explainable through our current understanding of the laws of physics). A review of a wide variety of cultures throughout all of human history describes metaphysical events originating from, or sustained by, individuals and environments. This includes actions by supernatural, divine, or otherwise non-material lifeforms. While this isn’t evidence for the existence of metaphysical phenomena it means that most humans who have ever lived have lived under systems which contained as a core component of their operations a view that metaphysical phenomena are real events. In this paper the quantity and variety of credible-seeming descriptions of metaphysical events is explored through multiple examples and relevant data. The implications of the unwillingness of the current iteration of the scientific community to engage in good faith with the belief of most humans who have ever lived is discussed.
Keywords: paranormal belief, extra-sensory perception, intuition, consciousness, religion
Acknowledgements
This paper will reference a number of relevant papers written by a wide variety of academics from a number of scientific disciplines, all of which point to the potential existence of the physical manifestation of phenomena relating to consciousness. The full breadth of the work of these academics and those like them is often profoundly thought-provoking. Many of the individual papers on their own are enough to convince some people to be open to the existence of undiscovered physics of consciousness. Many of the individuals who have collaborated with these individuals or cited their work in their own academic papers are worthy of similar praise.
This is a very difficult space to exist in a professional and academic sense and it’s full of numerous individuals doing high quality work worthy of review and consideration. These individuals work as hard as professionals in any other discipline yet face systemic challenges to pursuing their work which result from our shared cultural environment. This field remains unexplored by the mainstream because the mainstream does not feel comfortable exploring it for reasons relating to culture, and not science.
Introduction
Structural failures cause catastrophic errors
The scientific method can be accurately described as psychological technology which has resulted in an astounding level of technological progress. Its output has improved the quality of life of virtually everyone alive at this moment in history. This progress has also resulted in the formation or exacerbation of a number of existential threats which have the ability to damage or destroy huge aspects of our shared global civilization. It is a powerful yet imperfect tool and can be misused. [research showing tech is increasing existential risks]
A recent increase in multidisciplinary approaches to science can be described as efforts to improve the quality of the tool of the scientific method. [Effectiveness of meta analysis research] These efforts are often representative of an attempt to bolster scientific findings and increase the effectiveness of science-based solutions to complex shared challenges. Many of these shared challenges, such as climate change or nuclear proliferation, originate from work based on previous scientific findings. Many previous conclusions reached by consensus through the scientific method included findings discovered through a more unidisciplinary scientific model. This shift demonstrates the true strength of the scientific method: it enables an evolution of ideas and outcomes to best serve the intended goals of the effort. At the core of this strength is the view that belief is not important to achieving specific outcomes. Science requires that belief be agile and flexible in order to ensure innovation and progression. This also highlights the great weakness of the scientific method: it can not measure belief. This means that systems derived from science can hold cognitive biases against the value and impact of belief, these would be manifested through the individual views and behaviour of individual participants.
In the current paradigm of science, belief doesn’t matter because absolutely everything is physical and information can only travel between conscious minds through the mechanism of our 5 senses. There is no proposed and accepted mechanism by which information or energy can be transferred or amplified between subjective conscious experiences purely through mental exertion. The majority of Individual members of the scientific community reject that consciousness may be a distinct aspect of reality and that information may travel through some mechanism enabled by undiscovered physics of consciousness. [Demographic data showing percentage of scientists who are atheists] Scientific consensus can be described as rejecting that anything about consciousness is connected to anything beyond our physical bodies.
There is as much evidence for the existence of parapsychological (PSI) phenomena as there is for many traditional psychological phenomena. [Cardeña, E. (2018)] If there are undiscovered physics of consciousness where belief is a functional mechanism required to engage with that aspect of reality: the systems and institutions of science can be described as containing systemic biases which prevent them from engaging with that aspect of reality.
The formation of these cognitive biases was a deliberate act in response to what was measured about reality by generations of scientists. This course of action was the right one to take if there are no real metaphysical phenomena and if everything can be measured through the current version of our understanding of how to measure everything. The letter is false–we know we aren’t able to understand everything our best theories are measuring. Science isn’t done yet and we act like it is. This manifests as cognitive biases. These cognitive biases often manifest as a dogmatic view that anecdotal evidence relating to subjective experiences must be dismissed regardless of its details or quantity of it. This results in a rounding error where all such experiences are rejected–including the ones which cannot be conclusively disproved or explained.
There have always been undiscovered physics of consciousness
This paper will share compelling examples of metaphysical phenomena which point to the transfer of information in ways which do not align with our understanding of the laws of physics. These examples will include a wide variety of unexplained examples from a wide variety of cultures throughout our history. This paper does not attempt to provide a conclusive description of how the undiscovered physics of consciousness may operate. This paper does not intend to propose a concrete theory of how the undiscovered physics of consciousness may operate, it simply seeks to establish that they exist and must be explored with rigorous scientific discipline. A recent meta-analysis of parapsychological research tells us evidence of psi is comparable to that for established phenomena in psychology and other disciplines, although there is no consensual understanding of them. [Cardeña, E. (2018)]
As the remainder of this paper will show: There is an increasing quantity of credible available evidence pointing to the need for a paradigm shift in how our civilization views reality. This evidence exists in places where our systems of science are not comfortable exploring, often on the fringe of culture. This evidence is often built on recent scientific advancements related to how we understand and explore and interact with reality.
What is reality?
Before we can provide examples of unreal things happening in real spaces so that we can demonstrate that there are undiscovered physics of consciousness: we need to understand the real spaces where these metaphysical events occur.
In order to answer “What is reality?” we must first account for the fact that no scientifically-generated answer available to us is able to answer the question in full. The remaining known-unknowns of our reality, for example dark matter and dark energy, remain unknown despite many of the most brilliant people in the history of our civilization exploring this subject in order to discover and discern the nature of the phenomena.
Without intending to discredit them it has become clear that existing theories are lacking something capable of bringing them to a more complete state of understanding of reality. Our inability to successfully test string theory has been commented on by professionals and
Thanks for reading. Do you know what to do with this? If you’d like access to the full document in order to take over writing the paper please reach out. Feel free to re-use this in whatever way you’d like.
Edit: I stopped writing that paper because every time I try to write it I run up against the fact that I have no fucking clue what the fuck I’m doing.
