I clearly have too much time on my hands for this stuff. But it is fascinating, and as time passes, so to speak, I think I see physicists really struggling for their psychological existence, in a certain sense. What occurs to me, as I watch the plethora of theories emerge continually from this science, is the limitation of consciousness itself. The video linked below is part of four of five, with Paul Davies, perhaps the most well-respected physicist writing today on the ultimate questions, answering questions in the last segment from an audience that includes some of his scientist peers.

I was thinking how consciousness simply cannot grasp the nature of causality, since it isn't it's own cause. Dr. Churchland actually points this out to Davies, who says, yes, and if that's the case the whole enterprise of searching for a unified theory is hopeless. Of course, Churchland relegates, it seems, consciousness to the reductionist bin of physiology; whereas a theist would say consciousness arises with the creation of the universe, or is itself created and therefore not able to penetrate beyond its limitations. And it seems something like this is at work in such sophisticated theorizing.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXqqa1_0i7E

It's an interesting question.

Are there things that the mind (meaning the rational mind or intellect) cannot know?

If so, is it possible for the mind to know that it cannot know?

There's one to make your head spin!

Derek:

One thing that is clear from prayer life, for me, is this notion of infused knowledge, where God gives us a capacity to know Him as He touches us. It is strange indeed, and not a reflex of the mind even in the deepest, meditative sense. In that context the mind knows it isn't making such a Presence known, which is a kind of knowing, but more like knowing you're not a different species.

It's my impression the physicists will be chasing their tails, ad infinitum, which suits them just fine, as the search and the dream don't terminate each other.

Good point. Any kind of intuitive knowing is not reached by a process of analytical, discursive thought.

And yeah ... it seems likely that the quest for a deeper theoretical understanding of matter and energy will never end. It just goes on and on, ad infinitum. Which in itself is interesting.

One finds all over the place these days teachers who maintain that everything is made from consciousness. What I wonder about, however, is what the heck them mean by consciousness? We usually take it to mean awareness, or a being's manner of knowing -- both of which imply a subject of awareness/knowing. People like Deepak Chopra, who are supposedly drawing upon quantum physics, teach this sort of thing all the time. But what are they really saying, and what does it mean?

A touchpoint in Scripture would be that God created through the Word, and so the Word is the underlying connection between all created things -- the source of their being, as it were. As Col. 1: 16-17 puts it, "For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."

For Christians, this teaching is used to affirm the cosmic breadth of Christ's reach (consciousness as well, I suppose). So we've already accounted for the underlying fabric of creation and can even affirm that everything, in some manner, reveals Christ . . . is a word of the Word. This is metaphysical and theological teaching, of course, but it's nice to see physicists groping their way in this direction. I don't think the empirical data at their disposal can take them any further, however. In the end, there is a boundary between science and metaphysics, though the two ought not be in conflict.

Yes, Phil, that is a distinction which I've never seen addressed in the popular writing over the scientific findings. For me it isn't subtle, and you don't even have to appeal to Christian theology to make the point: enlightened human beings don't create out of nothing, along with other expressions of absolute creative power one would expect if consciousness and the Divine were essentially the same. No surprise, then, that it's the New Age folks most agreeable with selected aspects of Hindu philosophy, like Chopra, doing the writing. Even still, quantum dynamics only yields photons - not a single molecule, which the non-dualist Hindus tend to address by saying the physical universe is Maya - illusion - with consciousness the true reality. Nevertheless, consciousness doesn't behave, metaphysicially or ontologically, as its own cause either. And although you know I'm comfortable with Hinduism in some other respects, making this point to the Advaitists seems to be treated with a kind of spiritual reductionism, i.e., everything is consciousness, so applying reason is mostly an artifice.

Here's a link summarizing the Hindu traditional debate over this issue:

www.hinduwebsite.com/hinduism/.../brahman_duality.asp

No suprise you'll find so few books on Amazon addressing the Vedantic tradition which emphasizes the difference between creature and Creator, but many authors popularizing the non-dualist notions. The Vedantic tradition seems treated by the Advaitists as training wheels for the bicycle. And once a person's awareness is saturated with kundalini, it seems the mind can only see its source in/as itself (idolatry raised to the highest level in fallen, narcissistic consciousness). The lack of moral perfection in such a soul, and other creaturely limitations, are then "Maya," and we get "crazy wisdom" and other such rationalizations.