For centuries philosophers and mystics have been talking about 'all life being interconnected'. Most common folk also experience some sort of a interconnectivity between themselves and other people and even all other life forms.
Scientists probably dismiss this experience as just a romanticized idea of life and merely a human psychological need to stay connected to other people. No evidence at all, they would claim.
I see you've employed a straw-man to operate the Assertotron 2000
TM today...
That rather depends on what you mean by 'interconnected'. Scientists are quite prepared to accept that consciousness is an integral part of at least humans, and quite likely a range of other species as well, all of which interact with the environment in a complicated fashion and can be considered 'interconnected' as part of the biosphere. What they'd dispute, in the absence of any reliable evidence, is the idea that consciousness are directly interconnected at all, or that they are manifestations of some universal 'life-force' or somesuch.
In recent years we have seen how the ecological system is interconnected. Events happening in one part of the globe affect other parts. Events affecting one species affects many others. The Gaia hypothesis even looks at the entire earth as a living organism with all life forms as parts of it....like different cells and organs in our body.
Right.
In physics, Quantum Entanglement is about how particles once bonded stay connected on separation.... even across great distances.....influencing each other instantaneously.
Broadly - I'm not sure QE requires proximity in the first place, quanta can be entangled at a range.
Some interpretations of QM also talk of conscious observation affecting reality.
At the quantum level, and it's not necessarily a conscious observation - machinery determining certain pieces of information locks quantum fluctuations into a given state.
The Anthropic Principle (PAP) talks of consciousness being connected to the universe.
It can talk of it as much as it likes, but unless it can support the idea with some sort of evidence then it's just talk.
In spite of all this, scientists prefer to think of the universe as some sort of a material reality independent of life and consciousness
No, not 'indepenent' of life and consciousness, quite the opposite. All of the life and consciousness that we're aware of is manifested, expressed and emergent from elements of the universe - what we dispute is the idea that the universe, or the broader reality, is some singular integrated consciousness or 'lifeforce'. Life and consciousness appear to be emergent properties of particular arrangements of elements of the universe.
The Unconscious mind has been known to take decisions even before the conscious mind is aware of it. This means that some sort of a communication is taking place between the unconscious mind and the environment even before the conscious mind is aware of it.
The unconscious mind has access to the same sensory stimuli as the conscious mind does - exactly what access it has to memories isn't clear yet, but the idea that the subconscious 'communicates' with the external world isn't really much of a contentious issue, unless you're suggesting some sort of extra-sensory perception or direct mental influence on surroundings.
Mystics and spiritual people experience the positive effects of prayer, illnesses getting cured suddenly, telepathy and clairvoyance, premonitions, synchronicity....and so on.
No, mystics and spiritual people believe they experience these things, and put undue credit on unevidenced claims out of confirmation bias.
All these phenomena if seen together, it suggests some sort of a connection between all people, all life forms and perhaps even non life objects.
No, they suggest that Barnum was right.
The first reaction from sceptics would be one of dismissing such ideas as 'supernatural' and as related to the belief in God.
No, the first reaction is to ask 'what evidence do you have to support the claim'. Then, if you fail to produce anything reliable, then your claim can be dismissed.
The common connection between all life forms need not be supernatural or anything 'out there'. It can be a very natural connection that we cannot observe through our senses but could nevertheless exist. Like the magnetic field of the earth.
Yes it could. All you need to do now is to support the contention.
The second objection would be about evidence. Well...the evidence is all around us and the above observations are the evidence.
No, they aren't really. People's beliefs are an extremely poor guide to reality - we just have to look at the number of conflicting ideas about gods, from 'there aren't any' through to 'there are hundreds' and any number of specific combinations in between.
We must remember that only in directly observable phenomena that the observation comes first and the theory follows later.
Right.
In abstract matters and phenomena that we cannot observe directly...the theory or hypothesis comes first and then the observation and gathering of data follow to confirm the theory. The ideas of Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Parallel Universes....even the predictions of certain elementary articles...are in the second category.
No. Dark Energy, Dark Matter and Parallel Universes are all hypotheses derived from earlier findings - they aren't 'abstract' they are conclusions of observed phenomena.
No doubt, at this point of time the idea of a common connection or web like field of some kind is a conjecture (a hypothesis)......but it is important to recognise it as a possibility and to incorporate it in theories of the mind, social behaviour and in ecology studies.
No, you don't incorporate every conjecture into your understanding, or you have no viable way of determining anything. You can have as many hypotheses as you'd like, but they only get included in our theories when they have sufficient evidence to justify them.
It is possible that beginning with this assumption instead of the normal materialistic one.... could yield better and more realistic results for analysis and making predictions. At least some people should try it IMO.
On the practical level, materialism isn't a presumption, it's a conclusion. The conclusion is that we work on a material understanding because, as yet, nothing else has been put forward which is reliable. If and when that happens, when another viable methodology is put forward, then we'll integrate that understanding with the scientific one, but until then it's just conjecture.
O.
