Journal Article

Beyond the Science Delusion

Sheldrake, Rupert

2014

Overview

[...]some cosmologists propose that the continued expansion of the universe is driven by the ongoing creation of \"dark energy\" from the universal gravitational field or from the \"quintessence field\".14 If the laws of nature are more like habits, and there is an inherent memory within the natural world,15 how does this relate to the principle of karma in Hinduism and Buddhism, a chain of cause and effect that implies a kind of memory in nature? In some schools of thought, as in the Lankavatra Sutra of Mahayana Buddhism, there is a cosmic or universal memory.16 If minds are not stored as material traces in brains, but depend on a process of resonance, then memories themselves may not be extinguished at death, although the body through which they are normally retrieved decays.17 Is there some other way in which these memories can continue to act? In an evolutionary, living universe, are humans merely part of an unfolding process on one isolated planet, or does human consciousness play a larger role in cosmic evolution, in some way connected to minds in other parts of the universe?

• Publisher: Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue
• Subject: Brain / Consciousness / Evolution / Nature / Philosophy / Science / Scientists