In 2001, a cover story in U.S. News & World Report described how an underprivileged preteen in Massachusetts “caught the attention of Harvard Medical School researchers when he showed up on the university steps having successfully altered the genetics of chickens in his basement…His mentors described him as a ‘genius,’ a ‘renegade thinker,’ even likening him to Einstein.”
Jump a few years, and Robert Lanza would have a University of Pennsylvania M.D. and be a member of the team that cloned the world’s first early stage human embryos with an eye to generating embryonic stem cells. Where do you go from there?
Lanza: Death is merely what we think we see. In fact, everything is.
Today that whiz kid continues to astonish and stir controversy. Now with more achievements and a lengthy list of accolades, Lanza is Chief Scientific Officer at the biotech company Advanced Cell Technology, and Adjunct Professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He has hundreds of publications and inventions, including more than 30 scientific books, among them two which are considered definitive references in the field of cell biology.
Over at C/Net, contributing writer Chris Matyszczyk has just published an article titled “Scientist: Quantum physics can prove there’s an afterlife.” He begins by saying not only that Lanza is “… a proponent of biocentrism,” but that, “This turns our idea of the universe on its head. Instead of imagining that it’s the universe that creates life, the idea is that the universe is a product of our own consciousness of it.
In Lanza’s view, says Matyszczyk, “By treating space and time as physical things, science picks a completely wrong starting point for understanding the world.”
You’re likely to be curious.
Read the Matyszczyk article here: http://is.gd/KeaX9l
Lanza’s web site is here: http://www.robertlanza.com/
And then let us know what you think.
Thanks so much for doing this unique research. I was afraid of hell as a child and I can only imagine how many other children are afraid of it too. Hopefully your work will permeate the wider culture one day. Anyway, I just wanted to share a poem I wrote with you and your readers. It’s about the fading of academic atheism. It’s not very good but I hope you enjoy:
http://voices.yahoo.com/at-last-honest-scholar-12095790.html?cat=2
Thanks so much! I suspect most of us had at least a period of that kind of fear…and not only in childhood! Yes, I surely do hope that this work helps.
Let’s dance!
I guess I’d have to read his book to get a real handle on what his ideas are. However, re the general excitement on the observer effect in quantum mechanics – i must confess to a little confusion here. I’ve tried (as much as I can having only a layman’s grasp and school level algebra) to get to grips with the strangeness so often reported. Am I missing something re the observer effect, only not all physicists are so excited about this. Some say that any interaction will cause the collapse of the wave function – it doesn’t have to be a conscious observer only. Even that the wave function itself describes only our lack of knowledge as to the position/momentum etc of the particle in question. I’ve probably misunderstood the issues – otherwise why all the excitement? I’d appreciate any info re this. I’ve just started (another) book on quantum mechanics so may be able to answer my own questions. Obviously this whole question, if indeed the conscious observer has a part to play in manifesting reality, is of immense importance re our place in the universe.
For sure, there is no end to the questions, not limited to those of us who are non-scientists. For another look at this question, see my next post.
MDD and Nan, I did a physics degree 15 years ago and I’m often confused by the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics for things such as the effect of an observer at the everyday scale, so don’t be surprised you find this stuff hard, it is!
There is quote attributed to the Nobel prize winning physicist Richard Feynman:-
“If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.”
Basically meaning our everyday common-sense goes out the window and QM can pretty much only be described fully using maths. All we can do is use imperfect analogies to get a feel for its meaning.
I’m gonna mull over this for a few days, but I just had to throw this out there.
We are so steeped in our society’s reductionist/materialist values, it’s quite hard for most folks (at least me) to get over thinking of consciousness as something we “have”, and start experiencing it as something we “are”. Meditation helps.
As far as space and time not being fundamental, there’s always the stuff in this link that I stole from Nancy:
🙂
https://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20130917-a-jewel-at-the-heart-of-quantum-physics/
Everyone who reads your comment will just have to read the article again when it shows up as my next post. Now that Thanksgiving is over…
These ideas are very interesting to me and even though I have a science background I feel the materialistic view that we are just flesh cannot explain fully our consciousness and provides for me little or no deeper meaning to existence.
I do think though we have to be cautious not to twist current science to meet our gut feelings though its just as bad and unscientific to assume all quantum ideas mean we have scientific validation for non-local consciousness as it is to assume that all science/quantum shows only materialistic ideas are correct. We are still a long way from understanding our universe, ourselves and the deeper meaning of life and science as it stands is just our current view of reality. Like a map isn’t the country, science isn’t reality just a crude representation of it.
I always think its best to look fully at both sides of an argument so here is a critique of Lanza’s ideas
http://bit.ly/1eXsnF6
I have to agree with some of the criticism particularly the part about the lack of predictions. As science is unlikely to change in the way it works in the near future then to get science to start working in new more interesting directions that might effectively challenge the material view. Lanza’s article therefore both helps and harms. Helps by getting the idea out there and shows not all scientists limit their thinking to material view but hurts by not making the case as a thorough testable theory.
Before I finish I’d like to recommend tow books:-
“Conscious Universe” by Dean Radin
Very interesting book on research into more controversial topics related to consciousness and the difficulty of doing science in such an area. Really shows the barriers to effective research.
“Quantum and the Lotus” by M.Ricard &Trinh Xuan Thuan
Is a really enlightening book looking at the connections between eastern spiritual philosophy such as Buddhism and science. Sounds tough read but in fact its surprsingly light and entertaining and well written and deeply informative. There is a whole chapter on consciousness, and also discusses how meditation or other contemplative practice (prayer etc) maybe the best way of doing or nearest thing to scientific exploration on our own conscious experience.
Good comment! Stay tuned for something I’m about to post.
Seems I missed a bit out in my comment. Paragraph 4 sentence 2 should say:-
As science is unlikely to change in the way it works in the near future then to get science to start working in new more interesting directions that might effectively challenge the material view we have to at least initially work with the existing system and create a hypothesis that can be tested.
Yay for your comment/s! Now check out the new post.