April 18, 2010

The Search For Cosmic Consciousness

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Victor Stenger

Vic Stenger talks about the limits of science, and whether scientists should be critical of religion and the paranormal, or if such sorts of claims are out of the bounds of science, and therefore beyond criticism. He discusses the academic and spiritual career of Fritjof Capra, and his book The Tao of Physics and how it misused quantum physics to promote New Age mysticism. He explores the implications of Deepak Chopra’s work, which argues that quantum physics proves that “we make our own reality,” and discusses the movies The Secret and What the Bleep Do We Know? and how they get quantum physics wrong. He explains wave-particle duality, and the reductionistic Standard Model in particle physics, and why this contradicts the claims of the “quantum spiritualists.” And he talks about the future of New Age mysticism and quantum spirituality.

In this weeks Honest Liar commentary, Jamy Ian Swiss revisits what happened in last week’s episode to victims of the ancient con of the Three Card Monte.

Listener Reactions

  1. Hi DJ - could you try to find a guest to speak about the neo pagan movement? In recent years, there was an excellent podcast, Deo’s Shadow, by a brilliant guy from Canada who was a pagan as well as a PhD candidate in philosophy. The podcast was great, even for agnostics like me - culturally interesting, humorous, even iconoclastic. Then abruptly, Deo announced that he became an atheist and would not longer be podcasting. Deo would be a great guest on For Good Reason. His observations on the pagan community are empathetic yet critical. I think it would be a great meeting of the minds. Sorry I don’t have contact info. (Love the show, by the way.)

    Sparkly Pinecone 01:05am, 04/26/2010 #1

  2. I found your podcast a few months ago and have enjoyed the guests and discussion very much.  As you frequently walk the line between philosophy and reason, I wonder where objectivism fits into the skeptic’s world.  In a society of atheists what type of principles should determine morality? and what would those principles be based on.  A discussion on this would be quite interesting. 

    dlomni 04:18pm, 04/26/2010 #2

  3. Another brilliant show!

    pbdot20 05:31am, 04/30/2010 #3

  4. Wow! Here he is - the ‘5th horseman’!!

    Love that interview!!

    Thank you DJ - you’re always hosting so cool minds!

    Qayin 04:05am, 05/04/2010 #4

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