Iain, by working together, we can prove that these three premises can be refuted, or that they can be revised.
.
Consciousness is primary, and humans are endowed at birth, with the capacity of self-reflective awareness, which gives us access to the unified field that Rumi speaks of, and which a 'rational' mature human would call the Unified Field of Consciousness.
.
Quantum physicists have reached an impasse in their efforts to explain the human organisms. . Yet that impasse is not real. . Any 'fully' integrated human being has access to magical and mythical awareness. . 'Animism' gives us access to different yet ontologically true aspects of that Unified Field, which provide the refinements that I am suggesting here.
How do we know that consciousness persists outside of the body?
I've been out of body and tested a couple of times, writing down what I saw in rooms that I haven't been into. It was not accurate at all. What says it wasn't a dream state with lucidity and memory of reality?
I've asked more experienced people if they could meet out of body and have a secret word to tell the other to check if it really happened later. Nope, but they kept saying it's real.
The reason why we cannot truly understand why we are conscious is because it's not just the brain. The brain is there to serve the body, to help survival and cooperation with nature/reality.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” - Arthur C Clarke
Magic indeed because we do not have the ability to really understand how the body and brain works. We can't even cure cancer...
And no, I don't subscribe to the intelligent design theory. It ends up with the next logical question: who created the creator?
It also ignores the fact that we change when conditions change, whether it be by consciousness learning new things and/or physical evolution.
Watching how nature solved problems of survival with amazing engineering makes me understand that creation is not done, it's a process.
Here's a great one about how vision is used in nature.
You're spot on about your views. It's shocking to see people dismiss this and believe the dreams of geniuses with the head in the clouds over intelligent people who are "on the ground" of reality.
My earlier comment may be expanded on, but not in a public essay. . Peter Kingsley correctly states that all true ancient wisdom traditions acknowledged the divine imperative that some gnowledge must be made available to initiated persons only.
.
If we adopt a scientific and animist perspective, then we can understand that divine imperative, and honour its intent, while also always honouring the divine imperative that is Life.
Linear simplistic thinking that obsesses over details forgets the big picture. Geniuses with heads in the clouds know less of reality than those "on the ground" in reality.
Rob, OOB experiences generally reveal only what you've previously experienced + your expectations which actually come from others.
.
Please don't expect me to subscribe to any of your work, unless you've read and understood both Peter Kingsley's 'Reality' and 'Catafalque'. . You'll have to say something useful about PK to change my mind. . I'm very busy working with Aboriginal people here - nothing else really matters now - at least in terms of a human future.
.
Iain may be the only exception, so I'm seeking dialogue with him here in Substack or wherever he suggests (I'm in Australia)
Thank you for this post! Life is truly a beautiful mystery and I am so fortunate to be alive and aware. I was pulling up a weed in my garden and there was literally an entire ecosystem living amongst the roots. It’s just wonderful.
Always remember that your inherent heart-disposition wants and needs infinite, absolute, true, Eternal Happiness.
Eternal and total freedom, wisdom, and happiness are the primary needs and ideas of Man (both male and female)
The fundamental human urge and need is not gross in its nature. Nor is it the need for food, sex, power, things, or even physical survival.
The fundamental human urge and need is happiness, but not in the mere satisfaction-of-self sense.
The fundamental human urge and need is ECSTASY, or the free exercise of the intrinsic ability to step outside, or to effectively transcend ones mortal physical self-identity.
Whenever the intrinsic human capability for ecstasy is retarded and suppressed, human beings become helplessly bound and psycho-physically dark, and thus bound to illusions, to manipulation by external powers, and to enslavement by fruitless self-destructive exercises of bodily self-indulgence.
The root meaning of science is to separate. Once the act of separation occurs the separative principle spontaneously multiplies itself in all directions. We thus become trapped in a never-ending checker board flatland
Are you by any chance familiar with Frederico Faggin? I'm currently reading his book Irreducible and there is quite a lot of overlap with with what you say here (and elsewhere)...
I cannot thank you ENOUGH for sharing these extracts. I am totally absorbed. The reading is just magical to me and aligns with, and opens up so much that I have thought and think about. I watch you refer to your books in interviews with ease and am so inspired. I am saving up to buy the two books. Maybe by Christmas!
Hi Iain and anyone who may be reading, I've written a short essay playing devil's advocate against the first reason ("On-Off"). Hopefully this isn't taken as dismissing the idea, because that's the opposite of what I'm interested in doing (having said that, I confess to only having read fragments of TMWT). I'd like to get around to each of the reasons, because I'm trying to resolve certain philosophical confusions I have, and feel that this exercise might help.
The result here was that I ended up entertaining the possibility that machines are more alive than perhaps we might think. A little spooky but maybe someone will find it interesting? Would be great to hear any thoughts, corrections, disputations, etc, that anyone might have – I'm certainly no expert in philosophy, biology, or any of this stuff.
I'm not drawing upon anyone in particular – just trying to come up with "my own" thoughts (such as they are). Anyway, here's the essay:
I keep coming back to this line: “Structure is function once time has been excluded; function is structure once included in time.” It captures what so many models miss. Life isn’t something to dissect and explain in frozen parts. It’s something revealed through motion, through process, through presence.
It reframes everything. So much of how we’ve tried to understand life has depended on separating, freezing, and isolating what only exists in motion. The racehorse example is fascinating: subtle, invisible movements mathematically predicted long before photography could confirm them. The truth was always in motion, just beyond the reach of stillness. It’s poetic, and a perfect illustration of how easily our metaphors mislead us when we forget to include time.
Which is why your framing of living beings not as machines but as movements, as “becomings,” feels so essential. It challenges the very metaphors that have shaped modern science and offers something more alive in their place.
Reading this, you remind me that life isn’t a series of inputs and outcomes. It’s what is revealed in the flow, in context, in the dance of parts that only make sense as a whole.
Thank you for expanding the frame with such care. Your writing brings attention back to the wonder of living systems, not by simplifying them, but by honoring their complexity.
I don't know what "life" is, or means...I am looking forward to reading more (I am cheating, reading Chapter 12 here when only on Chapter 6 in the book).
What strikes me about "life"...it is continuous. Whenever it first arrived, the "spark" from then to me is continuous...in that, for humans at least, the "thing" that is life, that is, the continuum, the ever-changing, ever "metabolizing"...never ceases. Whatever in means (in light of Thesesus' Paradox) to "become the human organism"...it is a continuous chain that does not actually start at conception, but in the dim past of ancient history.
I am curious about plants/seeds: what allows the seed to be (seemingly?) dormant until something triggers germination.
Iain, by working together, we can prove that these three premises can be refuted, or that they can be revised.
.
Consciousness is primary, and humans are endowed at birth, with the capacity of self-reflective awareness, which gives us access to the unified field that Rumi speaks of, and which a 'rational' mature human would call the Unified Field of Consciousness.
.
Quantum physicists have reached an impasse in their efforts to explain the human organisms. . Yet that impasse is not real. . Any 'fully' integrated human being has access to magical and mythical awareness. . 'Animism' gives us access to different yet ontologically true aspects of that Unified Field, which provide the refinements that I am suggesting here.
How do we know that consciousness persists outside of the body?
I've been out of body and tested a couple of times, writing down what I saw in rooms that I haven't been into. It was not accurate at all. What says it wasn't a dream state with lucidity and memory of reality?
I've asked more experienced people if they could meet out of body and have a secret word to tell the other to check if it really happened later. Nope, but they kept saying it's real.
The reason why we cannot truly understand why we are conscious is because it's not just the brain. The brain is there to serve the body, to help survival and cooperation with nature/reality.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” - Arthur C Clarke
Magic indeed because we do not have the ability to really understand how the body and brain works. We can't even cure cancer...
And no, I don't subscribe to the intelligent design theory. It ends up with the next logical question: who created the creator?
It also ignores the fact that we change when conditions change, whether it be by consciousness learning new things and/or physical evolution.
Watching how nature solved problems of survival with amazing engineering makes me understand that creation is not done, it's a process.
Here's a great one about how vision is used in nature.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=prZfXAIel28
I teach a course called "We are not Machines" and I bring up your work often. This is also the main topic of my substack.
You're spot on about your views. It's shocking to see people dismiss this and believe the dreams of geniuses with the head in the clouds over intelligent people who are "on the ground" of reality.
https://posthumousstyle.substack.com/p/are-the-tech-bros-insane
https://posthumousstyle.substack.com/p/neuralink-does-not-read-minds-and
And here's my own take based on a sci fi show, ironically using AI characters who also have a split.
https://robc137.substack.com/p/left-brain-vs-whole-brain-in-battlestar
My earlier comment may be expanded on, but not in a public essay. . Peter Kingsley correctly states that all true ancient wisdom traditions acknowledged the divine imperative that some gnowledge must be made available to initiated persons only.
.
If we adopt a scientific and animist perspective, then we can understand that divine imperative, and honour its intent, while also always honouring the divine imperative that is Life.
Linear simplistic thinking that obsesses over details forgets the big picture. Geniuses with heads in the clouds know less of reality than those "on the ground" in reality.
https://robc137.substack.com/p/left-brain-vs-whole-brain-in-battlestar
And this is why genetics, neuralink, and other so called high tech solutions are fruitless at best, damaging at worst.
https://posthumousstyle.substack.com/p/are-the-tech-bros-insane
I appreciate your reaching beyond your book(s) audience to Substack!
Gratitude.
Rob, OOB experiences generally reveal only what you've previously experienced + your expectations which actually come from others.
.
Please don't expect me to subscribe to any of your work, unless you've read and understood both Peter Kingsley's 'Reality' and 'Catafalque'. . You'll have to say something useful about PK to change my mind. . I'm very busy working with Aboriginal people here - nothing else really matters now - at least in terms of a human future.
.
Iain may be the only exception, so I'm seeking dialogue with him here in Substack or wherever he suggests (I'm in Australia)
Thank you for this post! Life is truly a beautiful mystery and I am so fortunate to be alive and aware. I was pulling up a weed in my garden and there was literally an entire ecosystem living amongst the roots. It’s just wonderful.
Always remember that your inherent heart-disposition wants and needs infinite, absolute, true, Eternal Happiness.
Eternal and total freedom, wisdom, and happiness are the primary needs and ideas of Man (both male and female)
The fundamental human urge and need is not gross in its nature. Nor is it the need for food, sex, power, things, or even physical survival.
The fundamental human urge and need is happiness, but not in the mere satisfaction-of-self sense.
The fundamental human urge and need is ECSTASY, or the free exercise of the intrinsic ability to step outside, or to effectively transcend ones mortal physical self-identity.
Whenever the intrinsic human capability for ecstasy is retarded and suppressed, human beings become helplessly bound and psycho-physically dark, and thus bound to illusions, to manipulation by external powers, and to enslavement by fruitless self-destructive exercises of bodily self-indulgence.
The root meaning of science is to separate. Once the act of separation occurs the separative principle spontaneously multiplies itself in all directions. We thus become trapped in a never-ending checker board flatland
Are you by any chance familiar with Frederico Faggin? I'm currently reading his book Irreducible and there is quite a lot of overlap with with what you say here (and elsewhere)...
Iain,
I cannot thank you ENOUGH for sharing these extracts. I am totally absorbed. The reading is just magical to me and aligns with, and opens up so much that I have thought and think about. I watch you refer to your books in interviews with ease and am so inspired. I am saving up to buy the two books. Maybe by Christmas!
Hi Iain and anyone who may be reading, I've written a short essay playing devil's advocate against the first reason ("On-Off"). Hopefully this isn't taken as dismissing the idea, because that's the opposite of what I'm interested in doing (having said that, I confess to only having read fragments of TMWT). I'd like to get around to each of the reasons, because I'm trying to resolve certain philosophical confusions I have, and feel that this exercise might help.
The result here was that I ended up entertaining the possibility that machines are more alive than perhaps we might think. A little spooky but maybe someone will find it interesting? Would be great to hear any thoughts, corrections, disputations, etc, that anyone might have – I'm certainly no expert in philosophy, biology, or any of this stuff.
I'm not drawing upon anyone in particular – just trying to come up with "my own" thoughts (such as they are). Anyway, here's the essay:
https://muchadoings.substack.com/p/1-on-off
I keep coming back to this line: “Structure is function once time has been excluded; function is structure once included in time.” It captures what so many models miss. Life isn’t something to dissect and explain in frozen parts. It’s something revealed through motion, through process, through presence.
It reframes everything. So much of how we’ve tried to understand life has depended on separating, freezing, and isolating what only exists in motion. The racehorse example is fascinating: subtle, invisible movements mathematically predicted long before photography could confirm them. The truth was always in motion, just beyond the reach of stillness. It’s poetic, and a perfect illustration of how easily our metaphors mislead us when we forget to include time.
Which is why your framing of living beings not as machines but as movements, as “becomings,” feels so essential. It challenges the very metaphors that have shaped modern science and offers something more alive in their place.
Reading this, you remind me that life isn’t a series of inputs and outcomes. It’s what is revealed in the flow, in context, in the dance of parts that only make sense as a whole.
Thank you for expanding the frame with such care. Your writing brings attention back to the wonder of living systems, not by simplifying them, but by honoring their complexity.
I don't know what "life" is, or means...I am looking forward to reading more (I am cheating, reading Chapter 12 here when only on Chapter 6 in the book).
What strikes me about "life"...it is continuous. Whenever it first arrived, the "spark" from then to me is continuous...in that, for humans at least, the "thing" that is life, that is, the continuum, the ever-changing, ever "metabolizing"...never ceases. Whatever in means (in light of Thesesus' Paradox) to "become the human organism"...it is a continuous chain that does not actually start at conception, but in the dim past of ancient history.
I am curious about plants/seeds: what allows the seed to be (seemingly?) dormant until something triggers germination.