From: jwin...@cyllene.uwa.edu.au
Nigel Dyer wrote:
My suspicion is that many of Sheldrakes 'non-materialist' ideas, such as the
idea that memories are not just physical traces in the brain will turn out
to be true, but will also turn out to be materialist and grounded in the
science that we already understand.
It is hard to imagine how a glowing disembodied hand, which floats over and
taps you on the shoulder when you ask it to, could ever turn out to be
classed as "materialist"!
. what about wave-particle duality?
The glow is photonic, photons are waves but wave-particle duality implies
that there is physical aspect. that is, if you buy into "complementarity" .
.not to mention, as skeptics will surely do - if the hand is a hologram
there is probably a laser somewhere.
The major disagreement between Sheldrake and Dawkins often boils down to
what can be called "degrees of randomness" . the implication being that
nothing is truly random within a complex system - and like Maxwell's demon,
order can arise from disorder to the degree that information nudges natural
uncertainty in a goal-oriented way.
