Q&A with Brother David Steindl-Rast and audience; re: History of Orthodox Scientific Thought

Navigating Consciousness with Rupert Sheldrake

This is an extract from Rupert's workshop with Brother David Steindl-Rast at Hollyhock, Cortes Island, BC in August, 2011.
00:00 Brother David Steindl-Rast: Making a thing out of the soul; AI Sentience
04:08 Rupert Sheldrake: Golem/Frankenstein myths and robot consciousness
07:07 Rupert: Analog computers as possible framework for machine consciousness
07:57 David: So it is possible?
08:23 Rupert: Promissory Materialism will "prove" that people are machines
09:04 Rupert: The genome wager with Lewis Wolpert
14:13 David: Science as limited faith, one without hope
15:00 Audience: if Science and Faith both seek truth, they must converge
15:41 Rupert: we all have implicit biases; materialists in particular have huge blindspots
17:31 Audience: Truth emerging like a flower
17:54 Rupert: Institutionalized science, grants, educational conformity
19:32 David: How can you do it?
19:36 Rupert: I was forced to work independently, not recommended
21:04 Rupert's excommunication by Nature Editor John Maddox
22:29 Rupert: Pluralism in politics, but not science "we know the truth"
24:13 David: Questioning establishment power
25:32 Audience: A rebirth of creative thinking?
25:43 Rupert: Trouble with the academic system; funding reform; medical system fatigue; alternative therapies
29:10 Audience: Morphic resonance, homeopathy, interpersonal neurobiology, setting science free
30:17 Rupert: Comparative effectiveness research, pragmatic medical systems, most scientists are from Eastern cultures (India, China)
32:35 Audience: What if you talked to a radical cosmologist?
32:48 Rupert: Mainstream cosmology IS radical, multi-verse theory, laws of nature must be fixed
34:58 Rupert: Martin Reese's simpler hypothesis "get's rid of God"
36:09 Rupert: Stars being conscious too much for Martin Reese
37:48 Rupert: Brian Swimme, Thomas Berry, creation story, popularized science, natural philosophy