I've listened to Rupert Shelrake and Iain McGilchrist talk about a return to animism, now referred to panpsychism, if I have it right. McGilchrist spoke about matter as perceived through the lens of quantum mechanics as a process, or one aspect of consciousness, in the way ice, ice, steam are all aspects of water.

@johnprytz Sorry, but my body’s instinct, and learned behavior refuses to proceed with the experiment, and our shared consciously aware self is totally disinterested because the proposed experiment would be meaningless. Consciousness, in fact, creates pain specifically to train and discipline the body and prolong its survival.

The movement of matter in space and time is an artificial, symbolic human concept that helps us survive. There is Ultimate Reality, but it is of a wholly different category of existence.

What you are proposing is for thoughts to control the physical body in setting up a bowling ball ten feet up and releasing it to fall on the foot. Have you stopped to consider what you are proposing? You are proposing that mind exert primary control over matter. It’s called telekinesis.

Quite agree. When your hard drive croaks it you carry on with the back ups you’ve made. And those pesky apple trees keep giving apples every summer even after their comatose state in winter. I think I see a thread!

@johnprytz The idea that the mind is housed in the brain is unproven too. They have looked for so-called memory traces in the brain and haven't found any yet. If you think of the brain as a processor rather than a warehouse, then the mind breaks down if the processor is damaged, similar to a TV receiving poor or no signal from the content provider.

@johnprytz I get the impression you're not really reading my posts.

@johnprytz No, your post shows all the signs of reading just the bit that disagreed with your hypothesis and skimmed over the rest.

@johnprytz I'll keep it in mind!

I'm an atheist. Atheist means without god(s). If there is no proof of god's existence and god's existence cannot be proven; then even if it exists, god has no measurable impact on the physical world. It doesn't do anything if it does exist; so either way, we are without god.

Beyond the hypothetical though, you seem to be weighting the lack of evidence for either claim equally and forgetting where the burden of proof lies. If I tell you that there are invisible dragons flying overhead, the fact that you cannot prove there aren't doesn't mean our positions are of equal validity.

@JimG I understand your comment something along the lines of 'if a tree falls in a forest'. My take on it is that the tree exists despite being unknown by some and if a god existed, it wouldn't matter much as regards its existence whether people believed it did or not. I think if a god created a universe, that would necessarily imply an impact. As regards measuring, I guess the morality of the effect of an alleged god's influence was always in the realm of the religious and spiritual, and the physical in the realm of science.I'm not sure proving comes into it if all we want to do is understand what is going on.

@brentan I was speaking more in terms of a personal god than a deist-type creator. You make a good point if deist beliefs are correct.

@johnprytz just thought it would be useful to share the roots of the hypothesis. It is, after all a piece that explores quite a lot of detail and so worthy of some supporting documents.

@johnprytz just a couple of insights would be good. If it’s your own thinking that’s the best! Just a bit of grounding that the hypothesis is based on would be good then we could get into robust discussion. At the moment it’s only opinion.

@johnprytz this is true but if a statement is made a modicum of erudition helps the argument along otherwise it is merely opinion. To start with when did you first come to this conclusion?

@johnprytz it just seems that there are a string of conjectures here with nothing to refer to other than opinion. That is fine but at the commencement of these postings you were stating conclusions which must come from evidence if they are to be considered seriously. I understand where you are going with your Samuel Johnson/Bishop Berkeley reference but doesn’t work as a refutation in this context as I understand that pain in an acquired survival response. It’s intention is to keep ‘you’ alive whoever the ‘you’ or ‘l’ that we refer to is. We always seem to consider everything in terms of possession, ‘my head, my heart, my life’ so where is the possessor?