Great Throughts Treasury

"Each self is a divine creation."

"[Divine Creation]… no other explanation is tenable; neither the genetic uniqueness with its fantastically impossible lottery, nor the environmental differentiations which do not determine one’s uniqueness, but merely modify it. This conclusion is of inestimable theological significance. It strongly reinforces our belief in the miraculous origin … a Divine creation. There is recognition not only of the Transcendent God, the Creator of the Cosmos … also of the loving God to whom we owe our being."

"[Newton’s Gravitational Law]… was not the final truth. All our ideas are being remolded all the time in the light of further investigations. In our lifetime alone, there have been tremendous changes. Unfortunately, many scientists and interpreters of science don’t understand the limits of the discipline. They claim much more for it than they should. They argue that someday science will explain values, beauty, love, friendship, aesthetics and literary quality. They say: ‘All of these will eventually be explicable in terms of brain performance. We only have to know more about the brain.’ That view is nothing more than a superstition that confuses both the public and many scientists."

"[Science] also cannot explain the existence of each of us as a unique self, nor can it answer such fundamental questions as: Who am I? Why am I here? How did I come to be at a certain place and time? What happens after death? These are all mysteries that are beyond science … Science has gone too far in breaking down man’s belief in his spiritual greatness and has given him the belief that he is merely an insignificant animal who has arisen by chance and necessity on an insignificant planet lost in the great cosmic immensity."

"A better understanding of the brain is certain to lead man to a richer comprehension both of himself, of his fellow man, and of society, and in fact of the whole world with its problems."

"God the Creator of the cosmos with its fundamental laws, beginning with the exquisite quantitative design of the so-called Big Bang and its aftermath… The other is the Immanent God to whom we owe our existence. In some mysterious way, God is the Creator of all the living forms… and… human persons, each with the conscious selfhood of an immortal soul. On this transcendent vision we have to build our lives with self-conscious purpose. [the two most fundamental religious concepts]"

"I am constrained to attribute the uniqueness of Self or Soul to a supernatural spiritual creation. To give an explanation in theological terms: each Soul is a new Divine creation which is implanted into the growing fetus at some time between conception and birth."

"I believe that there is a fundamental mystery in my existence, transcending any biological account of the development of my body (including my brain) with its genetic inheritance and its evolutionary origin... I cannot believe that this wonderful gift of a conscious existence has no further future, no possibility of another existence under some other unimaginable conditions."

"I do believe that we are the product of the creativity of what we call God. I hope that this life will lead to some future existence where my self or soul will have another existence, with another brain, or computer if you like. I don’t know how I got this one, it’s a pretty good one, and I am grateful for it, but I do know as a realist that it will disappear."

"I repudiate philosophies and political systems which recognize human beings as mere things with a material existence of value only as cogs in the great bureaucratic machine of the state."

"I say that a tellurian poser is impossibly demeaned by reductionism [the speculation that formidable phenomena can be explained by examining a simplest many simple resource or organelles] with a explain in promissory materialism to comment eventually for all of a devout universe in terms of patterns and neural activity. This faith contingency be classed as superstition. … We have to commend that we are devout beings with souls existent in a devout universe as good as element beings with bodies and smarts existent in an element world."

"I think that promissory materialism is still a principal belief of the scientists. But it is promissory: that everything will be explained, even intimate forms of human experience in terms of nerve endings… This is simply a religious belief … a superstition based upon no evidence worth considering at all. The longer we go on understanding the performance of the human brain, the more remarkable does it become, the more unique are we from anything else in the material world."

"I believe that the prime reality of my experiencing self cannot with propriety be identified with some aspects of its experiences and its imaginings—such as brains and neurons and nerve impulses and even complex spatio-temporal patterns of impulses… these events in the material world are necessary but not sufficient causes for conscious experiences and for my consciously experiencing self."

"I have read a great deal now on the neurological side and much on the anthropological side and on the philosophical side and we have had all these discussions and all the time I have the feeling that something may break. I mean that some little light at the end of the tunnel may be sensed or some flash of insight may come. I of course know very well that there is no guarantee it will come, but I have already got myself into this state of expectancy that something will come to my imagination which has some germ of truth about it in this most difficult field."

"Induction was shown to be untenable as a scientific method by Popper in The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959). Instead, advances in scientific understanding come ideally from hypothetico-deductivism: firstly, development of a hypothesis in relation to a problem situation, and secondly, its’ testing in relation to all relevant knowledge and furthermore by its great explanatory power."

"I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as a superstition... We have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world… Promissory materialism is simply a religious belief held by dogmatic materialists…who often confuse their religion with their science."

"My task as a scientist is to try to eliminate superstitions and to have us experience science as the greatest human adventure. But to understand is not to completely explain. Understanding leaves unresolved the great features and values of existence."

"In order that a ‘self’ may exist there must be some continuity of mental experiences and, particularly, continuity bridging gaps of unconsciousness. For example, the continuity of our ‘self’ is resumed after sleep, anaesthesia, and the temporary amnesias of concussion and convulsions."

"I want you to know that there are no colors in the real world, there are no fragrances in the real world, that there’s no beauty and there’s no ugliness. Out there beyond the limits of our perceptual apparatus is the erratically ambiguous and ceaselessly flowing quantum soup. And we’re almost like magicians in that in the very act of perception, we take that quantum soup and we convert it into the experience of material reality in our ordinary everyday waking state of consciousness."

"One can choose to live life dedicated to the highest values, truth, love, and beauty, with gratitude for the divine gift of life with its wonderful opportunities of participating in human culture."

"One of its (evolutions) weak points is that it does not have any recognizable way in which conscious life could have emerged."

"Natural Selection could only have endowed the savage with a brain a little superior to that of an ape, whereas he actually possesses one but a little inferior to that of the average members of our learned societies."

"Our coming-to-be is as mysterious as our ceasing-to-be at death. Can we therefore not derive hope because our ignorance about our origin matches our ignorance about our destiny? Cannot life be lived as a challenging and wonderful adventure that has meaning yet to be discovered? (95)"

"Science and religion are very much alike. Both are imaginative and creative aspects of the human mind. The appearance of conflict is a result of ignorance. We come to exist through a divine act. That divine guidance is a theme throughout our life; at our death the brain goes, but that divine guidance and love continues. Each of us is a unique, conscious being, a divine creation. It is the religious view. It is the only view consistent with all the evidence. There has been a regrettable tendency of many scientists to claim that science is so powerful and all pervasive that in the not too distant future it will provide an explanation in principle for all phenomena in the world of nature, including man, even of human consciousness in all of its manifestations. [Karl] Popper has labeled this claim as promissory materialism, which is extravagant and unfulfillable. Yet on account of the high regard for science, it has great persuasive power with the intelligent laity because it is advocated by the great mass of scientists who have not critically evaluated the dangers of this false and arrogant claim. I regard this theory as being without foundation. The more we discover scientifically about the brain, the more clearly do we distinguish between the brain events and the mental phenomena, and the more wonderful do the mental phenomena become. Promissory materialism is simply a superstition held by dogmatic materialists. It has all the features of a Messianic prophecy, with the promise of a future freed of all problems—a kind of Nirvana for our unfortunate successors. We have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world.The amazing success of the theory of evolution has protected it from significant critical evaluation in recent times. However, it fails in a most important respect. It cannot account for the existence of each one of us as unique, self-conscious beings."

"The concept of substance leads to a materialist aspect of the mind. I speak instead of the spiritual existence of the self without mentioning any 'substance' properties. The great problem is 'how the self controls its brain'. This is dualistic, but not in terms of two substances. Instead it relates to the two worlds of Popper."

"Since materialist solutions destroy to comment for a gifted uniqueness, we am compelled to charge a aberration of a Self or Soul to an abnormal devout creation. To give a reason in theological terms: any Soul is a new Divine origination that is ingrained into a flourishing fetus during some time between source and birth. [Alternately: Since materialist solutions fail to account for our experienced uniqueness, I am constrained to attribute the uniqueness of the Self or Soul to a supernatural spiritual creation. To give the explanation in theological terms: each Soul is a new Divine creation which is implanted into the growing foetus at some time between conception and birth.]"

"The hypothesis has been proposed that all mental events and experiences, in fact the whole of the outer and inner sensory experiences, are a composite of elemental or unitary mental experiences at all levels of intensity. Each of these mental units is reciprocally linked in some unitary manner to a dendron ... Appropriately we name these proposed mental units 'psychons.' Psychons are not perceptual paths to experiences. They are the experiences in all their diversity and uniqueness. There could be millions of psychons each linked uniquely to the millions of dendrons. It is hypothesized that it is the very nature of psychons to link together in providing a unified experience."

"The last thing that man will understand in nature is the performance of his brain."

"The materialist critics argue that insuperable difficulties are encountered by the hypothesis that immaterial mental events can act in any way on material structures such as neurons. Such a presumed action is alleged to be incompatible with the conservation laws of physics, in particular of the first law of thermodynamics. This objection would certainly be sustained by nineteenth century physicists, and by neuroscientists and philosophers who are still ideologically in the physics of the nineteenth century, not recognizing the revolution wrought byquantum physicists in the twentieth century."

"Today, about two-thirds of men over sixty-five in Australia are no longer at work. Many of these have been retired when they were still very valuable with their skills, wisdom and knowledge... the aim of society should be to introduce more flexibility in the whole question."

"There is a fundamental mystery in my personal existence, transcending the biological account of the development of my body and my brain. That belief, of course, is in keeping with the religious concept of the soul and with its special creation by God."

"The more we discover scientifically about the brain the more clearly do we distinguish between the brain events and the mental phenomena and the more wonderful do the mental phenomena become. Promissory materialism is simply a superstition held by dogmatic materialists. It has all the features of a Messianic prophecy, with the promise of a future freed of all problems—a kind of Nirvana for our unfortunate successors."

"The other is the Immanent God to whom we owe our existence. In some mysterious way, God is the Creator of all the living forms in the evolutionary process, and particularly in hominid evolution of human person, each with the conscious selfhood of an immortal soul."

"We are a combination of two things or entities: our brains on the one hand; and our conscious selves on the other."

"We may conclude by saying that biological evolution transcends itself in providing the material basis, the human brain, for self-conscious beings whose very nature is to seek for hope and to enquire for meaning in the quest for love, truth, and beauty."

"We come to exist through a divine act. That divine guidance is a theme throughout our life; at our death the brain goes, but that divine guidance and love continues. Each of us is a unique, conscious being, a divine creation. It is the religious view. It is the only view consistent with all the evidence."

"We can regard the death of the body and brain as dissolution of our dualist existence. Hopefully, the liberated soul will find another future of even deeper meaning and more entrancing experiences, perhaps in some renewed embodied existence."

"With self-consciousness purpose a person has a great challenge in choosing what life to live."

"While admitting to the full extent the agency of the same great laws of organic development in the origin of the human race as in the origin of all organized beings, there yet seems to be evidence of a Power which has guided the action of those laws in definite directions and for special ends… Such, we believe, is the direction in which we shall find the true reconciliation of Science with Theology on this most momentous problem. Let us fearlessly admit that the mind of man (itself the living proof of a supreme mind) is able to trace, and to a considerable extent has traced, the laws by means of which the organic no less than the inorganic world has been developed. But let us not shut our eyes to the evidence that an Overruling Intelligence has watched over the action of those laws, so directing variations and so determining their accumulation, as finally to produce an organization sufficiently perfect to admit of, and even to aid in, the indefinite advancement of our mental and moral nature."

"You do not believe in purpose and design, then you can argue that this is just chance and necessity. But it is silly to be caught with chance and necessity for your existence. The naturalists want, on the other hand, to be leaders of thought, to be the great prophets of the age and, yet, at the same time they want to get themselves out of the process. They need a little more humility."