Chad:
Have you written anything? What are you thinking of writing about?
Dan:
I have a real interest in the co-existence between the mind and brain, or, as a more religious person might say, the spirit and brain - the separation of the human consciousness and the actual mechanical organ that lives in between our ears.
There are deep implications to brain plasticity, the real ability to physically change the brain by, essentially, force of will. There's a guy named Amit Gaswami who has postulated some links to quantum mechanics that are interesting to think about.
Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to talk about the theory without sounding like a kook. So I normally stick to the brain plasticity stuff, which can be observed in a lab.
Chad:
You do sound like a bit of a kook.
Do you find that any of this stuff relates to faith, doubt, ect?
Dan:
Of course! If consciousness is "the agency that affects quantum objects to make their behavior sensible," then what does that mean for our perception of reality?
What is it that we doubt? That there is a God? That he "cares" about us? That he affects our lives in a meaningful fashion? Isn't it interesting to postulate a God who creates an endless quantum ocean of limitless possibilities, then gives us each the engine to perceive it in the same way. And not just perceive it, but manipulate it, to a fashion.
Then He has to watch us simply react to appetites and other stimuli like a chimpanzee trying to drive a Ferrari by hitting it with a claw hammer.
Is faith anything other than spiritual confidence? What better way to gain confidence than to see results? If you could pray and see immediate result, then you would have perfect faith - the confidence that a result was forthcoming.
But maybe we're going about it in the wrong way. Affecting a change on quantum possibilities, and we'll limit this to brain plasticity so we don't get too far out in la-la land, takes months or years. Using your consciousness to rewire the way your brain works, to change physical synaptic connections, is a miracle that we can enact ourselves using, essentially, a quantum engine.
Maybe we have the slot machine mentality. "I push the button here, candy comes out there."
Remember the garbage they used to repeat in Sunday school: "Sometimes God says yes, sometimes no, and sometimes...later." As though you should just wait around with your thumb up your posterior orifice waiting for God to give you your damn candy. Little wonder nobody uses that candy machine anymore.
Maybe it's not a candy machine. It is impossible to affect brain change or any other quantum change, without, essentially, a metric shit-ton of meditation. You have to completely withdraw yourself from your fleshy vehicle and get into what you and I would describe as a spiritual state of being. The deeper you get into that spiritual mindset, the longer the duration you spend there, the more real, physical results you see. The more physical results you see, the greater your confidence - your faith - and the greater your motivation to spend more time drawing closer to God.
Because if God is the perfect quantum engine (and the Engineer), all we're really trying to do is get as close to Him as we can.
Chad:
Interesting way to put it.
One question I might have, however, is that it seems very humanistic. Like I can just change myself. Why does someone need God if he can just change himself by force of will?
Dan:
Because you can't do it without God. "Force of will" was probably a poor choice of words. It makes it sound like I can sit with a constipated expression, sweat running down my face, until the universe bends to my will. I'm not Nietzsche. It doesn't work like that.
In order to get a result, you have to abandon the physical, and even most of what we call the mental, which is really just more physical function. You have to cozy up to God and live there. And not some bearded neo-Zeus cloud-dwelling patriarch God. The real thing. The good stuff.
Become one with the universe, man.
Feel free to contact us: chad@doubtingthomasanonymous.com -dan@doubtingthomasanonymous.com - toll-free at 1(855)55DOUBT - or in the comments below.