Science study supernatural? (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 18:23 (4044 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I keep an open mind about the authenticity and possible causes of "gods, ghosts, spirits, and extrasensory or psi phenomena", but would like to offer an 'out-of-the-box' hypothesis for discussion. If intelligence is energy within matter, and is not the product but the cause of cells interacting, it could survive the death of the cells whose actions it triggers. It could also, in people with heightened sensitivity, communicate with other intelligent energies, independently of its physical containers, which theoretically could even mean independently of time and space. It's a variant of what is known as "panpsychism". That should set a few teeth gnashing.-DAVID: I don't know that 'intelligence is energy within matter', is a good description by itself.-See "Cell response to electric field" for my detailed reply to this misreading and to the rest of your post below.
 
DAVID: When we look the development of consciousness, those who think out of the box look at quantum mechanics and put consciousness and mind at a quantum level, although that is just a general description and no one seems to know just how that concept works. Thre is a general connectivity of quantum particles throughout the universe. That would fit extrasensory and psi phenomena, and perhaps panpsychism, whatever that weird term means. To redefine terms, intelligence is not consciousness. The level of intelligence is the proper use of thought and learned knowledge. It is an aspect of consciousness. If cellular matter is not conscious, but acts as if it is, then it is not intelligent, but it is using information automatically from coding it has been given by intelligence existing before the formation of the cell.-In the meantime, since you believe in immaterial life after death and an immaterial God (first-cause self-aware ENERGY which you often call a Universal INTELLIGENCE), and since no one seems to know how the "quantum" concept works, "whatever that weird term means", why won't you consider the hypothesis you've quoted above: namely, that our intelligent minds are not the products of cells, but are a form of energy which controls the cells and which may be able to act independently of them, thereby causing so-called "supernatural" phenomena?