Is Consciousness Primary?
Buy the Book: AmazonTitle: Is Consciousness Primary?
Published by: Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterlist Sciences
Release Date: October 6, 2020
Pages: 562
ISBN13: 978-1735449104
OVERVIEW
This volume is part of the AAPS book series Advances in Postmaterialist Sciences, created with the intent to educate scientists, students, and science-minded readers about postmaterialist consciousness research and its applications. The inspiration for the theme of this first volume, “Is Consciousness Primary?,” came about at the end of the first meeting of the Founding Board of Directors of the Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Science in August of 2017 in Tucson, Arizona. During the last session of the meeting, each presenter shared the evolution of the thinking and research that led them to accept the idea that nonlocal consciousness, not physical or biological matter, is causal and fundamental. The group was intrigued by the overlapping themes they heard from their co-presenters, spread across the group’s varied research in neuroscience, psychology, physics, and clinical medicine. It was suggested that each presenter at the meeting share their research and conclusions in chapters to be published in this volume, in which they each respond to the question “Is Consciousness Primary?” through examples from their own life experience and research. We believe this volume is unique in sharing both the contributing authors’ first-person experiences that transformed their understanding of the primacy of consciousness, and the research that supports this perspective.
PRAISE
"The scientific world is to a very large extent in denial about consciousness. These essays on the primacy of consciousness go a significant way towards addressing such a limitation."
—Brian Josephson, Nobel laureate, Physics, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Cambridge
"Exploring the mystery of consciousness is the most important scientific frontier there is. All other research is child's play by comparison. Here are the best thinkers in that frontier."
—Wayne B. Jonas, MD, Executive Director, Samueli Integrative Health Programs and author of How Healing Works
"This radical and trail-blazing book is required reading for open- minded scientists and academics who are looking for a rigorous expansion of our understanding of consciousness and are dissatisfied with the limitations and restrictions imposed by a materialist mindset in academia. The primacy of consciousness rather than of matter provides a fresh philosophical point of departure that enables us to explain so-called anomalous experiences in a coherent manner rather than having to explain them away be- cause they are inconsistent with the assumption that the brain gives rise to consciousness. The authors draw on both personal and professional experience, building bridges between science, philosophy and spirituality, in first- and third-person perspectives."
—David Lorimer, Programme Director, The Scientific and Medical Network Editor, Paradigm Explorer
"A provocative discussion by many of the leading scholarly proponents of the view that consciousness extends in the universe in ways typically dismissed by most scientists. Although skeptics can reasonably disagree with the perspectives offered here, they should be cautious in doing so without first familiarizing them- selves with the range of evidence presented."
—Jonathan Schooler, Professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences University of California, Santa Barbara
"These essays, representing a range of disciplines and points of view, by authors whose academic bona fides confirm that they are "real scientists" not so easily dismissed by materialist skeptics, set out the cogent arguments offering a road map toward the re- markable possibilities inherent in non-materialist views, and sug- gest where they may take us in the coming decades."
—Neil Theise, MD Professor of Pathology, New York University Grossman School of Medicine
