Monism, dualism and non-dualism - Lent 2022: Day Seven

An important part of this Lenten series of posts is to re-examine my spiritual beliefs in light of everything I have learnt since last year's Lent. In this post, I revisit to a theme I have explored in past Lents (here and here) - namely whether the Universe is exclusively physical, or whether there is also a non-physical, or metaphysical aspect to it. Or indeed, whether it is neither and both...

Cartesian or Mind-Body Dualism posits that alongside all that is material is the realm of the mind, the non-material soul; Christians, for example, hold that God resides outside the material world, as do our souls. After our deaths, our souls will find themselves in heaven, with God. The two realms are separate, intersecting in our minds.

Monism - physicalism - holds that everything is material, there is nothing above or beyond that. Our consciousness is merely an emergent property of our evolution - any thought of souls or God is wishful thinking and pseudoscientific bunk - "woo woo," to use the term coined by scientific sceptic James Randi.

Yet there is a growing number of spiritually inclined philosophers and scientists who talk instead of 'non-dualism' - ruling out an immaterial heavenly realm, while seeing consciousness as an intrinsic property of the Universe, alongside mass and charge. Non-dualism has its roots in Hinduism and Buddhism, stressing the unity of body and soul, rather than ruling out the latter as reductionist materialism does.

This is very much the way of my thinking. God (which I see as the guiding principle, the unfolding, the destination, the purpose of the Universe) is of this Universe, not of a separate realm. 

But what is material? What is matter? Physics is edging towards a view that matter is a property of specific vibrations within fields that make up space time. At the molecular level, we have an intuitive appreciation of what matter is - it's stuff. Atoms. But go into the atom and you enter a strange world of charged particles that also act as waves demonstrating wave-particle duality, the particles being made up of quarks and force-fields (gluons) - all of which is difficult to grasp from our human scale.

Science has not made much progress in unravelling the secrets within the atom since the predicted discovery of the Higgs Boson in 2012. Ten years without major breakthroughs in particle physics, after a century of triumph after triumph in scientific discovery, suggests that something is missing. I would posit that consciousness should be seen as an integral part of the cosmos, a property as inherent to matter as mass and charge.

The big question is whether consciousness is everywhere, or emerging only within intelligent nodes at those points inhabited by our minds - or in lesser forms of life - plants, amoeba, bacteria - or even in a basic, elemental form, in inanimate matter. 

I hold that God is of this Universe, within this Universe, the destination of this Universe - and the reason for this Universe.

This time last year:
Who are you - no, who are you really?

This time last year:
Find your own holy places

This time two years ago:
An introduction to quantum physics

This time three years ago:
Right and wrong in science and philosophy

This time five years ago:

Free thinking at the Second Vatican Council

This time seven years ago:
Getting ul. Karczunkowska ready for Biedronka opening

This time eight years ago: 

God's own risk

This time nine years ago:
A third of the way through Lent

This time ten years ago:
Balancing surfeit and shortage

This time 11 years ago:
Congruent consciousness

This time 13 years ago:
Intimations of spring