Mainstream science estimate of the 7 biggest unanswered questions in physics

A consensus that interactive dualism is the case (that the human spirit is nonlocal in some ways and can separate from the body) would certainly be a paradigm-breaking revolution in science. Of course, for science to change this way is exceedingly unlikely if for no other reason due to the nature of science as a human institution. The answer to whether consciousness is fundamental or not might very well be one of those things that are fundamentally unknowable to humans. 
The appearance of life on earth is a mystery. We are nowhere near solving this problem. The chemical/abiogenic proposals offered so far to explain life’s origin just don't work. It is more a matter of materialist religious faith that someday the life-originated-spontaneously-from-natural-chemicals answer will be found.

You still haven't connected the dots how thoses listed questions lead to the paradigm shift of an immaterial kind.
You have a spiritual immaterial  faith of your own don't you, yet you think materialist religious faith is on shaky ground. Why in the world do you think you're on ground any firmer?

You still haven't connected the dots how thoses listed questions lead to the paradigm shift of an immaterial kind.
You have a spiritual immaterial  faith of your own don't you, yet you think materialist religious faith is on shaky ground. Why in the world do you think you're on ground any firmer?

Speaking just for myself, the paradigm shift to a scientific method-based discovery of an immaterial "kind" has been taking place for 100 years or more.  It started with Boltzmann and his formula for entropy.  Shannon's Mathematical Theory of Communication unleashed the practical side of command and control of formal information in transmission channels.  And the genius of John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener established the ideas of cybernetics and computer computation for the future.  The Age of Information is old news and today it shapes life and humanity's future.

It is the cultural shadow of materialistic fundamentalism that doesn't transform our knowledge of information into a science equal to physics!  "Information is neither matter nor energy............."  (N. Wiener)

 Wiener’s work with guided missile technology and ballistics both played a role in his interest in what we now refer to as cybernetics. His interest lay in the complex electronic systems that allowed the missile to change flight based on the current position and direction it was taking. He identified the feedback principle on the missiles and how it played an important role in every living thing in the world—from plants to animals to humans. The feedback principle is an electronics principle that refers to how a measure of an output signal from a system is fed back into the input of the very same system. This principle allows for various systems to be controlled in a way that deals with undesired states or signals, which helps improve system stability.

Wiener took the concept of the feedback principle as it pertains to electronics and used it to publish his book Cybernetics, which came out in 1948. Cybernetics is the study of many systems, such as mechanical, physical, social and cognitive systems. In simple terms, the idea behind cybernetics is to controlling any system through technology. Cybernetics applies to systems where the system in question has a closed signaling loop. In other words, the specific system’s actions cause a change in the environment where it is present, with the changes reflected back to the system as feedback. As the changes are fed back to the system, it changes according to its programming.

Speaking just for myself, the paradigm shift to a scientific method-based discovery of an immaterial "kind" has been taking place for 100 years or more.  It started with Boltzmann and his formula for entropy.  Shannon's Mathematical Theory of Communication unleashed the practical side of command and control of formal information in transmission channels.  And the genius of John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener established the ideas of cybernetics and computer computation for the future.  The Age of Information is old news and today it shapes life and humanity's future.

It is the cultural shadow of materialistic fundamentalism that doesn't transform our knowledge of information into a science equal to physics!  "Information is neither matter nor energy............."  (N. Wiener)

Information is neither matter or energy, but it is conveyed by both. 

My understanding is members of skeptiko et.al. believe an immaterial paradigm shift is on the verge and we will see reality is mind and the universe is spiritual.

Speaking just for myself, the paradigm shift to a scientific method-based discovery of an immaterial "kind" has been taking place for 100 years or more.  It started with Boltzmann and his formula for entropy.  Shannon's Mathematical Theory of Communication unleashed the practical side of command and control of formal information in transmission channels.  And the genius of John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener established the ideas of cybernetics and computer computation for the future.  The Age of Information is old news and today it shapes life and humanity's future.

It is the cultural shadow of materialistic fundamentalism that doesn't transform our knowledge of information into a science equal to physics!  "Information is neither matter nor energy............."  (N. Wiener)

From Wikipedia: 

A paradigm shift, a concept identified by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996), is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline.

Some of the "classical cases" of Kuhnian paradigm shifts in science are:

1543 – The transition in cosmology from a Ptolemaic cosmology to a Copernican one.[8]
1543 – The acceptance of the work of Andreas Vesalius, whose work De humani corporis fabrica corrected the numerous errors in the previously-held system created by Galen.[9]
1687 – The transition in mechanics from Aristotelian mechanics to classical mechanics.[10]
1783 – The acceptance of Lavoisier's theory of chemical reactions and combustion in place of phlogiston theory, known as the chemical revolution.[11][12]
The transition in optics from geometrical optics to physical optics with Augustin-Jean Fresnel's wave theory.[13]
1826 – The discovery of hyperbolic geometry.[14]
1859 – The revolution in evolution from goal-directed change to Charles Darwin's natural selection.[15]
1880 - The germ theory of disease began overtaking Galen's miasma theory.
1905 – The development of quantum mechanics, which replaced classical mechanics at microscopic scales.[16]
1905 – The transition from the luminiferous aether present in space to electromagnetic radiation in spacetime.[17]
1919 – The transition between the worldview of Newtonian gravity and the Einsteinian General Relativity.


I don't think the information and cybernetic revolution you describe is of the magnitude of these shifts, especially the change from Aristotleian to classical mechanics and the Darwinism revolution in biology. Shannon, Von Neumann and Wiener's insights and work were brilliant, but were well accepted within the materialistic paradigm, and accordingly embraced not only by science, but also by engineering disciplines in the development of computer and communications systems. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that information theory was firmly grounded in existing physics and did not even remotely challenge the materialist view of the nature of reality and of man as purely an intelligent animal.

Information is neither matter or energy, but it is conveyed by both. 

My understanding is members of skeptiko et.al. believe an immaterial paradigm shift is on the verge and we will see reality is mind and the universe is spiritual.

The universe being spiritual is not a question for science.  I took the context of the paradigm as scientific and not religious.

Matter and energy are measured by specific units of measure.  Conveyance is not one of them.  Signals are matter/energy objects which are measurable as to units of matter (physical properties) and units of energy, such as ampere and wattage.

The information objects in the signal are measured by units of information; such as logical structure, bytes of code and meaningful instructions.

Information objects are immaterial.  They are real - not as to their "mentality" - but as to their capability to change probable future events, to understand the current situation and to bring forward facts about the past.

One cannot send signals to the past and future, yet in reality we interact with the whole of the time-continuum, informationally, all the time.  The same with the informational structures and objects of math, --- science is based on them, yet they are not matter/energy.  Matter and energy do not convey math and logic, they evolve according to them, as if they are rules.  If information rules matter - where does causality really start?

Saying, "physics does it" is to miss half the picture of how things work.

I don't think the information and cybernetic revolution you describe is of the magnitude of these shifts, especially the change from Aristotleian to classical mechanics and the Darwinism revolution in biology. Shannon, Von Neumann and Wiener's insights and work were brilliant, but were well accepted within the materialistic paradigm, and accordingly embraced not only by science, but also by engineering disciplines in the development of computer and communications systems. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that information theory was firmly grounded in existing physics and did not even remotely challenge the materialist view of the nature of reality and of man as purely an intelligent animal.

Von Neumann and Weiner philosophical's outlooks and interpretation of their math were strongly rejected by the materialist worldview.  I have already posted the Wiener quote - where he emphatically rejects materialism's "owning" of info.  Von Neumann said that consciousness causes the wave collapse and that started the the whole QM/Consciousness debate.  Here is the state of the art today in the subject, in my humble opinion.

 We are not immobile, at the centre of the universe (Copernican revolution); we are not unnaturally distinct and different from the rest of the animal world (Darwinian revolution); and we are far from being entirely transparent to ourselves (Freudian revolution). ICTs are now making us realise that we are not disconnected agents, but informational organisms (inforgs), who share with other kinds of agents a global environment, ultimately made of information, the infosphere (Turing revolution). - Luciano Floridi

http://www.philosophyofinformation.net/b...n-reality/

I myself see no conflict between methodological materialism and methodological informationalism.  Shannon's math works perfectly - but at a separate level of abstraction - than electrical signals.  You need both sets of science tools to uncover reality.  Would you send a mechanical engineer to fix a software coding problem?

The universe being spiritual is not a question for science.  I took the context of the paradigm as scientific and not religious.

Matter and energy are measured by specific units of measure.  Conveyance is not one of them.  Signals are matter/energy objects which are measurable as to units of matter (physical properties) and units of energy, such as ampere and wattage.

The information objects in the signal are measured by units of information; such as logical structure, bytes of code and meaningful instructions.

Information objects are immaterial.  They are real - not as to their "mentality" - but as to their capability to change probable future events, to understand the current situation and to bring forward facts about the past.

One cannot send signals to the past and future, yet in reality we interact with the whole of the time-continuum, informationally, all the time.  The same with the informational structures and objects of math, --- science is based on them, yet they are not matter/energy.  Matter and energy do not convey math and logic, they evolve according to them, as if they are rules.  If information rules matter - where does causality really start?

Saying, "physics does it" is to miss half the picture of how things work.

I was saying without matter or energy there is not information. 

As for communication take some lessons from Sagan and Asimov both of them where great communicators.

I myself see no conflict between methodological materialism and methodological informationalism.  Shannon's math works perfectly - but at a separate level of abstraction - than electrical signals.  You need both sets of science tools to uncover reality.  Would you send a mechanical engineer to fix a software coding problem?

Yes - there seems to be no conflict. It's just that these views are philosophical belief systems, not necessarily what reality actually is, especially when it comes to the true nature of human beings. Many human beings believe they are more than and different than "informational organisms".

I was saying without matter or energy there is not information. 

As for communication take some lessons from Sagan and Asimov both of them where great communicators.

We cannot empirically measure matter or energy in the future.  Yet, we can manipulate the future by creating plans (information objects).

In quantum physics, science has discovered - empirically - that before a physical event occurs there are two or more possible information objects existing.   When matter exists, in the here and now, all these probable objects disappear, but one.  This is called the wave collapse.   Therefore objects of information exist before they happen as physical events.

Think about the big bang -- before it happened its information must have existed.  You are saying that information comes from matter and energy - when actual scientific observation - models physical events exactly the other way around.  Think of it like a "flat - earth" view before we understood it was a trick of perception, as to our senses.  We see matter first -- but science tells us, that information constructs the probability that resolves into one event.  After the advent of understanding what information is scientifically -- thinking that matter has an inner-magic that exudes information - is like believing that the world is flat because that is how everybody sees it.

Yes - there seems to be no conflict. It's just that these views are philosophical belief systems, not necessarily what reality actually is, especially when it comes to the true nature of human beings. Many human beings believe they are more than and different than "informational organisms".

We agree that humans and all living things are more than just mind.  We have bodies, which we experience in a physical environment.  This is a pragmatic fact, not philosophy.  And just as obvious but a new paradigm, is that we live in an informational environment as well.  The pragmatic discovery of the informational environment around us has not filtered down from science to the general public except via sci-fi.

The Star Trek teleporter on the Enterprise was inspired by a thought experiment, discussed by Norbert Wiener.  Could you physically move a person or object by communication of just its information?  Teleporters are not real and information doesn't magically turn into matter.  However, better and better communication of information is real and dramatic!!!! 

The more the science of information progresses - the more it will totally transform how we live and think.  The informational environment we detect around us becomes more and more familiar.  Fish may not know they are in water, humanity had to figure out air as physically real.  Today we are discovering this infospace around us and using its structural nature, (code) just like we use material things.  Again - unlike those who suggest a digital physics where information is the only primary - I am arguing for the pragmatic and practical use of the science and see physical events and informational events as linked but happening on separate generative levels of our realty.
 

I would like to tackle your first question about the nature of matter as substance.  Would you like to explore it further?