Ed Lantz

I find this discussion about life being “simply mechanical” versus “something more” to be quite fascinating from a human point of view. What I see here are two very different world views, each claiming to be valid. On the one had, Jon, Ursula and others feel that we mostly understand the processes of life and are perhaps even now able to create…[Read more]

<p>Jon: “Looking over those, I don’t see anything that changes my earlier statement – that the closer these possible effects are looked at, the smaller and more elusive they become – a hallmark of something that isn’t real.”</p><p> </p><p>Ok, well your argument is based on you “looking over” the citations that I gave, however your claim that “that…[Read more]

Duane: “I recently discovered a wonderful dialogue underway that I highly recommend as it is so relevant to the conversation here:  Sheldrake-Shermer Dialogue on the Nature of Science, May thru Julyhttp://www.thebestschools.org/special/sheldrake-shermer-dialogue-nature-of-science/#TOC ” Great conversation!  I will read through it all.  &n…[Read more]

Jennifer:  “My brother in law is hooked on reading the posts . . . says we should charge admission.” Smiles.

<p>Hi Jon – thanks for addressing my comments.</p><p> </p><p>Ed: “Personally, I’ve moved past such arguments – there is a TON of evidence regarding anomalous information transfer.  Others can wait for “extraordinary proof” to emerge that will put down even the most extreme skeptic, however I’ve grown impatient as the data mounts in favor of a tru…[Read more]

I’ve also been traveling in Europe. We’re kicking off an immersive concert tour of “Ceremony” featuring James Hood (https://vimeo.com/112149923) with three performances in Germany, including an underwater Liquid Sound concert at TOSKANA THERME BAD SULZA (http://tinyurl.com/o729hap). Next performance at Planetarium Hamb…[Read more]

Hi Karen. Yes, interesting writeup on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe): “Physicist Paul Davies has asserted that “There is now broad agreement among physicists and cosmologists that the Universe is in several respects ‘fine-tuned’ for life”. However, he continues, “the conclusion is not so much that the Universe is fin…[Read more]

Karen:  “Like Ursula, I feel that life evolved all on its own…Evolution, for me, is a given, requires no mystical explanation, and I am somewhat shocked we are debating it.”Jon: “Karen, I have the same view as you and Ursula – I don’t see any evidence for, nor need for, some external guidance.” Who is resorting to mysticism or external guid…[Read more]

Duane: “I see the universe in a very different manner than human biological systems. My years of laboratory research as a subject in psi research persuaded me there is an ecology of consciousness infusing the universe that can operate in a non-local fashion–therefore my question about the universe: If something is conscious, can it be co…[Read more]

Duane: “I see the universe in a very different manner than human biological systems. My years of laboratory research as a subject in psi research persuaded me there is an ecology of consciousness infusing the universe that can operate in a non-local fashion–therefore my question about the universe: If something is conscious, can it be co…[Read more]

Duane: “I’d like to clear up what seems to be a misunderstanding. Earlier you wrote that I “believe that some special guidance is needed to form anything we see (life, trees, bugs, us) from the materials we have (carbon, other atoms, sunshine).” I do not believe that “special guidance” is required from some external (supernatural?) force. Ra…[Read more]

Thanks Jon. No offense taken. I will accept the challenge of carefully framing my hypothesis for review including testable predictions as Ursula suggests. I’m busy too – it may take a few days to turn this around. Jon: ‘“the scientific establishment is biased against my ideas” is not a valid argument, and instead is a sign of pseudosci…[Read more]

Hey Jon,   I appreciate you taking the time to express your reactions to some of my statements. From my perspective, I do feel a bit “attacked” here by you and Ursula too. There are a lot of acquisitions (inquisitions?) being made about me using methods of “pseudoscience,” as if I’m being branded as a witch or something. That sort of branding of o…[Read more]

Ursula: “Let’s try to keep things classy.” Agreed.  Guess I was feeling ganged up on by you guys. Scientific thinkers and rationalists often have an almost knee-jerk reaction against anything that even remotely sounds religious – especially creationism and intelligent design. I do feel it is important to keep religion out of science, however I al…[Read more]

Hi Davidson, Thank you for your thoughtful comments.   I suppose when referring to “intelligence” it’s not in the sense of acting wisely or compassionately. Neither people nor the universe seem to follow our common sense ideas about acting wisely or compassionately. How many mass extinctions have there been?  Senseless loss of life in natural d…[Read more]

Hi Davidson, Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I suppose when referring to “intelligence” it’s not in the sense of acting wisely or compassionately. Neither people nor the universe seem to follow our common sense ideas about acting wisely or compassionately. How many mass extinctions have there been?  Senseless loss of life in natural…[Read more]

Ursula: “As per several comments above, the operant feature of origin-of-life scenarios is selection, not chance, working over hundreds of millions of years and presumably generating early entities that were far less complex than modern organisms.” Nice theory, Ursula. It’s what they taught me in school. But to promote such a story as fact is…[Read more]

Hi All, Well perhaps I overstated my case by calling this a “raging debate” – maybe it is better classified as a “simmering debate.”  In any case, I’ve been seeing a lot more theorists stepping out on a limb and positing that the universe may not be as random as we think, or that consciousness might be a fundamental property of matter. I’ll pull…[Read more]

Ursula: “…it’s my understanding that the term “information” is used in computation theory, theoretical physics, and quantum computational contexts in a very different way than it is used the semiotic contexts. In the former it refers to the signal itself; in the latter it refers to what the signal is about, its meaning. Hence to say that becau…[Read more]

“…life cannot have had a random beginning…The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in 10 to the 40,000power, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup. If one is not prejudiced either by…[Read more]