Science Set Free

Rupert Sheldrake is a Cambridge educated PhD biologist. His latest book, Science Set Free, looks at the ten core beliefs that are the foundation of modern science.   He makes the case that the assumptions these core beliefs are built on are questionable at the least, and simply wrong at worst.

Here are the core beliefs Sheldrake addresses...

1. Everything is essentially mechanical. All life is reducible to so many parts like a machine.
2. All matter is unconscious. Even human consciousness is an illusion.
3. The total amount of matter and energy is always the same.
4. The laws of nature are fixed.
5. Nature is purposeless, and evolution has no goal or direction.
6. All biological inheritance is material, carried in genetic material.
7. Minds are inside heads, and are nothing but the activities of brains.
8. Memories are stored as material traces in brains.
9. Unexplained phenomena such as telepath are illusory.
10.  Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works.

I have been a fan of Rupert Sheldrake for a couple of decades. In Science Set Free, he presents compelling evidence that undermines the dogma that has shaped our view of the world.

Consider belief number 7; our minds are inside our heads.  That means memories, emotion, and all we know, have learned, and have experienced. The trouble is, tens of thousands of researchers have looked over the past century or more, but no one has found any structures in the brain that do any of those things. The same goes for the concept we call consciousness. We humans are all conscious of ourselves and the world we occupy, but no one has figured what consciousness is and how we happen to be that way. 

Rupert Sheldrake

Sheldrake's analysis of science's core beliefs strongly suggests that the reality we know is  far more nuanced and peculiar than most scientists believe.

I am a huge Sheldrake fan. He is a man with an enormous and courageous intellect. Read this book. Find out for yourself why the brain confined in your skull is more like a transceiver connecting us with your own consciousness than a repository of ideas and experiences.

Here is a link to Rupert Sheldrake's webpage...   http://www.sheldrake.org/