Psience Quest

Manifesting, for the Rest of Us

A new generation has turned to an eons-old practice of envisioning positive outcomes.

Quote:Manifesting sits alongside a smattering of belief systems — astrology, tarot, paganism and their metaphysical cousins — being resurrected by a youthful generation in the name of wellness. “For Gen Z in particular, it can be a form of self-soothing,” said Lucie Greene, a writer and trend forecaster in New York. “It’s a way to make sense of things in a moment where nothing makes sense.”

Quote:Marta Langston, 18, a high school student in Northern California, shares her credo on TikTok and Instagram. “You would be surprised how many people my age that I’ve met are actively using ‘the law of attraction,’” Ms. Langston said. “I really think our generation is here to push this idea into the mainstream — we see it as part of a new enlightenment.”

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Humanism And Ásatrú Paganism On The Rise In Iceland

Poppy Askham

Quote:Humanism is the fastest-growing religious or philosophical group in Iceland, closely followed by Ásatrú paganism, according to the latest National Registry figures. Meanwhile, membership to the National Church of Iceland continues to dwindle.

Between December 2019 and June 1st, the number of members of Siðmennt, the Icelandic humanist association increased by 225, bringing the organisation to a total of 3,695 followers. The second fastest-growing religion/philosophy was Iceland’s largest non-Christian faith, Ásatrú paganism which gained 179 members.

In the last six months the National Church of Iceland has lost 472 members, bringing its total congregation down to just 230,682 Icelanders. Although registered members have been declining in recent years it is still by far the biggest official religious or philosophical organisation in the country, the second largest being the Catholic Church with 14,665 members.

Zuism saw the biggest proportional drop, losing 140 followers – around 11.2% of its membership.

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A Kind Of Magic: Wardruna Teach Us To Laugh At Ourselves Again

Dan Franklin

Quote:Wadruna’s new album, Kvitravn, meaning “white raven”, uses that corvid as a symbol of a bridge between worlds. Albino spirit animals populate mythologies from many cultures. In the Norse tradition, the ravens Hugin and Munin belong to Odin, representing thought and memory. In a livestream press event for the album, Selvik performed a solo stripped-back version of new song ‘Munin’ in the “skaldic” tradition. “Performing to the faceless,” as he put it, looking into the camera. Skalds were Nordic bards and poets. They held great power. They could name things and, in doing so, control them. Skalds carried the living memory of their people. They acted as a medium between past and present. Odin himself is a god of poetry.

Quote:Selvik prefers not to see himself as a preacher but he has a core conviction: “I do believe strongly that it would benefit us all if we applied a more animistic view of nature. I think we got off track as a species as soon as we took the sacredness out of nature. That is not necessarily a spiritual thing. It’s an attitude. It applies whether you’re a spiritual person or a religious person, or not. It’s an attitude: viewing nature as something that’s sacred, something important, something we are a part of. Not something we are the rulers of.”

In basic terms, animism is the exploration of the lifeforce and inherent impetus of our surroundings. We can tune into the frequencies of the natural world and perhaps alter them. It has some parallels with panpsychism, which posits that everything has a mind of its own (of sorts).

The philosopher Dr Philip Goff, author of Galileo's Error – an authority on consciousness and defender of panpsychism – distinguishes the behaviour of the smallest bits of matter, such as an electron, and its intrinsic nature: “All we get from physics is this big black-and-white abstract structure, which we must somehow colour in with intrinsic nature. We know how to colour in one bit of it: the brains of organisms are coloured in with experience. How to colour in the rest? The most elegant, simple, sensible option is to colour in the rest of the world with the same pen.”

More Americans Than People in Other Advanced Economies Say COVID-19 Has Strengthened Religious Faith

Nearly three-in-ten U.S. adults say the outbreak has boosted their faith; about four-in-ten say it has tightened family bonds

Quote:The pandemic has led to the cancellation of religious activities and in-person services around the world, but few people say their religious faith has weakened as a result of the outbreak. Across the countries surveyed, a median of just 3% say their own religious faith has decreased, including 4% in the U.S. In South Korea, 9% say their personal faith has become weaker as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, making it the country where people are most likely to hold this view.

"You bore us. If science is a “commitment to truth” shall we cite all the historical non-truths perpetuated by scientists ? Of course not. It’s not science vs Philosophy ... It’s Science + Philosophy. Elevate your Thinking and Consciousness. When you measure include the measurer."

MC Hammer, https://twitter.com/MCHammer/status/1363908982289559553

The Guardian view on 'post-Christian' Britain: a spiritual enigma

Quote:The majority of us do not belong to any religion. But for most, atheism is not an option either

Quote:During her research, Prof Woodhead devised what she called a “Dawkins indicator”, named in honour of Britain’s most famous atheist, Richard Dawkins. Measuring factors such as hostility to faith schools, she found that though “no religionists” were more socially liberal, only a small minority were militantly secular and less than half considered themselves atheists. The largest bloc was made up of “maybes, doubters, and don’t knows”, plus a group who did believe in God, a higher power or in “something there”. The younger the cohort, the smaller the proportion of atheists.

Quote:A taste for the religious sublime has contributed to a startling 21st-century surge in popularity of early Christian composers such as William Byrd and Palestrina. Pre-Covid, pilgrimages were even back in vogue, to an extent that would have astonished Geoffrey Chaucer.

We asked Australians if they believe in God or the supernatural. Here's what they said

An Easter 2021 (4 April, AEST) article by Natasha Moore on the ABC News website.

Quote:Surprisingly, perhaps, it was the youngest age group — 18-26-year-olds — who expressed the most openness to the non-material : 49 per cent said they believe in the soul, and 48 per cent in life after death (in both cases, another 28 per cent were open to the possibility).

Quote:The percentage who said "I believe this does not exist" about any of the options never rose to double digits for this cohort (9 per cent for ghosts, only 4 per cent for life after death).

By contrast, the oldest age bracket (76+) were much more sceptical: a full 40 per cent said they do not believe in ghosts, and 28 per cent dismissed the possibility of life after death.

The gender disparities will be less surprising to some. Men were on average more than twice as likely as women to tick the "I believe this does not exist" box.

When it comes to the existence of God or a higher power, men and women said they believed or were open to it at almost the same rate. But for the rest, women were markedly more willing to profess belief: 50 per cent to 38 per cent for the soul, 38 per cent to 30 per cent for life after death, 34 per cent to 26 per cent for angels.

(2019-08-05, 12:52 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]This thread - largely because they are references to Orch-OR in some local papers. They better serve to see the spread of certain ideas/research in the public sphere than displaying actual accuracy on the work. That first article I posted is, as Max points out, wildly inaccurate.

I figure the dedicated thread is for actual research relating to Orch-OR or at the least quantum mind theories as they relate to microtubules.

Another article about Orch-OR following Penrose being awarded the Nobel in Physics, this one from the Irish Times ->

Can science explain the mystery of consciousness?

Sean Duke

Quote:Nobel physics prize winner Roger Penrose believes the answer lies in quantum mechanics

Quote:“This is a long-term project, which I don’t see resolving for many years,” says Penrose who, given his age, would like to see things moving faster. “I feel pretty sure that we haven’t really understood fully how biological systems are organised and how they may be taking advantage of the subtle effects of [quantum] physics.”

The big difficulty with trying to measure quantum processes in the brain, Penrose points out, is that such effects are destroyed when they are observed or brought into contact with the outside world. “It is going to be very hard to have direct access to consciousness, as to observe it, currently, would be to destroy it.”

(2021-04-11, 11:24 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]Another article about Orch-OR following Penrose being awarded the Nobel in Physics, this one from the Irish Times ->

Quote:The big difficulty with trying to measure quantum processes in the brain, Penrose points out, is that such effects are destroyed when they are observed or brought into contact with the outside world. “It is going to be very hard to have direct access to consciousness, as to observe it, currently, would be to destroy it.

There's something curious about saying it is "very hard to have direct access to consciousness" - when in fact it is the ONLY thing to which we have direct access.

Though perhaps mystical or spiritual traditions describe self-observation, somehow observing without changing anything.

(2021-04-12, 10:04 AM)Typoz Wrote: [ -> ]There's something curious about saying it is "very hard to have direct access to consciousness" - when in fact it is the ONLY thing to which we have direct access.

Though perhaps mystical or spiritual traditions describe self-observation, somehow observing without changing anything.

It's also a bit weird in that none of the corroborating evidence - especially the 2014 discovery by Bandyopadhyay - are referenced?

I know there are many who want Orch OR to be false, probably b/c it possibly ruins the delusion of uploading your brain and invites the possibility of a soul, and as such articles will conveniently forget to mention these things. But one where Penrose seems to be interviewed directly is doing the same?

Maybe it was a collection of other publications summarized by a bot, or the writer drew on quotes from these to get the quotes?

Quote:the irony of neil’s tweet is that by framing science itself as “true” he’s influencing people to be more skeptical of it in a time of unprecedented misinformation. science is an ever refining process to find truth, not a dogma. no matter his intent, this message isn’t helpful

Quote:just sick of neil's games

-Steam Um Twitter Account vs Neil Degrasse Tyson

News from the BBC:
Young more likely to pray than over-55s - survey

Quote:Young people in the UK are twice as likely as older people to pray regularly, a new survey has found.

Some 51% of 18 to 34-year-olds polled by Savanta ComRes said they pray at least once a month, compared with 24% of those aged 55 and over.

It also found 49% of the younger age group attend a place of worship every month, compared with 6% of over-55s.

Quote:Chris Hopkins added that there were "a few theories" as to why young people made up such a large proportion of the religious landscape.

"Firstly, as the demography of the UK changes, minority faiths do tend to have a larger proportion of practising young people, and therefore as the population of these groups increases within the UK, so will the prayer habits of the population at large," he said.

He explained it was important to "factor in the impact the pandemic has had on the ability to engage with one's faith" with virtual prayers and services being held online.