How Science and Occult Science work

By: Dr. Edi Bilimoria ....

The Inductive Method of Science

Science adopts the Aristotelian, inductive method to move from the particular to the general, rather like assembling individual pieces of a jigsaw puzzle: discrete observational data are collected and gradually fitted into a broad picture, the latter being a mental representational model of the physical effects observed. The mind process is predominantly intellectual, applied in a linear mode. The instruments of investigation are limited to and conditioned by the five physical senses and their extensions, such as telescopes and microscopes, etc. The result is a precise description of the Universe's appearances, behaviour and biological mechanisms—Nature in her manifold appearances. The prevailing scientific paradigm of materialism has many unsupported and unsubstantiated assumptions. Physical or mathematical modelling is a central feature of the scientific method of inquiry. This means that science is not about truth or knowledge, per se—rather an interpretation of the physical world.

The Deductive Approach of Occult Science

By contrast, Occult Science works in the Platonic tradition of moving from the general to the particular within the Ring Pass-Not (i.e. limiting boundaries of evolutionary growth) of every world system: the overall, grand picture is first realised in its essential nature, and the way this presents itself as particular effects then expounded. The mind process is essentially ‘lateral thinking’ and intuitive, applied in an all-inclusive mode. The instruments of investigation are not limited to the physical senses. This gives profound insights into the origin, essential nature and manifestation of Nature in her true self.

CONFLUENCE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND OCCULT SCIENCE

Why Many Scientists Are Also Embracing Mysticism

These days we find increasing numbers of scientists turning towards mysticism as a complement to the rational scientific method. A review of the world-wide Directory of Members of The Scientific and Medical Network will indicate this fact. Furthermore, teachers and students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have formed an alchemical society and regularly study The Secret Doctrine. During Millikan’s tenure at Cal Tech, a copy of The Secret Doctrine lodged in the library was so much in demand that one had to put one’s name on a long waiting list. This work is also discussed periodically at the Harvard Club in New York by several chemistry teachers, including MIT professors.

Why then, such an upsurge in interest in mysticism and occult science? We explained above that in investigating something by the scientific method, we can describe its appearance, behaviour and characteristics by standing apart from it (the discoveries from quantum physics notwithstanding). But by the occult approach in order to understand its inner nature, we have literally to become the very thing we wish to investigate—or at least to participate in it. This is why the occult system always operates from within to without, and prefers to investigate Nature by participating with her processes, rather than interrogating her outward behaviour. 

It is by virtue of such interior insights that Blavatsky was able to make prophetic remarks in The Secret Doctrine about future developments in natural science, for example:

The wave motion of living particles becomes comprehensible on the theory of a spiritual ONE LIFE, of a universal Vital principle, independent of our matter, and manifesting as atomic energy only on our plane of consciousness. 

The above statement displays foreknowledge about three facts that are now commonly accepted by science, namely: (a) the energy within the atom; (b) the wave-like nature of particles, and the particle-like nature of waves; and (c) the vitality and ‘consciousness’ of particles. Blavatsky was in all probability the first person to use the terms ‘atomic energy’ and the ‘wave motion of living particles’, which science has discovered for itself, using its own methods of investigation.

In the field of life sciences, we find similar portentous statements, such as:

It is not against zoological and anthropological discoveries, based on the fossils of man and animal, that every mystic and believer in a divine soul inwardly revolts, but only against the uncalled-for conclusions built on preconceived theories and made to fit in with certain prejudices.

Driven inexorably by the pressure of their own discoveries, and increasingly inconsistent theories to account for them, scientists are slowly awakening to the truth of Blavatsky’s assertion. This will soon become apparent.

Hence in view of the foregoing, it is not surprising that the greatest scientists, past and present, have realized the limits of the process of scientific inquiry and sensed the need for more intuitive approaches.

Article Source: http://www.abcarticledirectory.com

These days we find increasing numbers of scientists turning towards mysticism to complement the rational scientific method. To know more about how science and occult science work, keep reading……..

Edi is the Director of the Theoversity Project. Edi has published his written work extensively in science, theosophy and occultism. His work is on Religion and Spiritualities. He is the author of Mirages in Western Science Resolved by Occult Science and The Snake and the Rope, showing how current problems in Western science in the broad fields of cosmology life sciences.

Note: The content of this article solely conveys the opinion of its author, Dr. Edi Bilimoria

Watching neurons learn

What happens at the level of individual neurons while we learn? This question intrigued the neuroscientist Daniel Huber, who recently arrived at the Department of Basic Neuroscience at the University of Geneva. During his stay in the United States, he and his team tried to unravel the network mechanisms underlying learning and memory at the level of the cerebral cortex.

What's the role of individual neurons in behavior? Do they always participate in the same functions? How do their responses evolve during learning?" asks the professor. One way to address these questions is to follow the activity of a large set of neurons while the subject learns a novel task. The goal is to link the behavioral changes with the changes in neuronal representations.

It's currently impossible to follow the activity of a large number of individual neurons in humans, but the team of researchers quickly realized that mice are excellent subjects for such studies. "We were surprised by capacities of these small rodents. They learn novel associations quickly and are able to focus for hours on complex behavioral tasks. However, it is important to keep them motivated by rewarding them accordingly. They are very similar to us in that way."

The behavioral task of the mice consisted in sampling the area in front of their snout with their whiskers to search for a small object. The object was presented either within reach and out of reach of their whiskers. Each time the object was detected with the whiskers, the mouse had to respond by licking to a reward spout. The correct choices were rewarded with a drop of liquid. "In this task different sensory and motor circuits have to interact in order to establish a novel association, leading to better and better performance".

Remained the problem of how to follow the activity of the large number of neurons across many days of learning. The researchers replaced a small part of the bone overlying motor cortex with a tiny glass window. The neurons underneath the window were genetically modified to express a fluorescent marker which changes its intensity according to the activity of the neurons. This window into the brain allowed the researches around Daniel Huber to use two-photon microscopy to record the activity of the same set of 500 neurons during days of learning.

"We then correlated the activity of the individual neurons with the different actions of the mouse, such as moving the whiskers, touching the object or licking at the right moment. It's like synchronizing the soundtrack with the images in a movie" adds the neuroscientist. The researchers analyzed this data using a series of computational approaches to establish a link between the neuronal activity and the different sensory and motor features of the task. This allowed them to build algorithmic models that can predict different motor outputs by solely monitoring the neuronal activity. Decoding the neuronal activity allowed the researchers then to construct functional maps of the recorded neurons and quantify each neuron's link with the different aspects of the behavior.

These functional maps revealed several fundamental findings: "Although the movements of the whiskers became more and more precise and targeted to search for the object during the learning, their relative neuronal representation remained relatively stable. In contrast, the representation of licking to respond and collect the rewards became more and more pronounced". Taken together, only selected aspects of the learned behavior induced changes it the neuronal representation in the cortex. The scientists also found that different sensory and motor representations are spatially intermingled in the rodent brain.

Other analysis revealed that individual neurons remain stably linked to a given behavioral function, but they have a flexibility to remain silent on a given day. This functional stability despite a flexibility to join (or not) a given representation was actually suggested by different theoretical work on learning.

"If these characteristics are limited to the motor cortex or if these are more general rules that are apply across the cerebral cortex remains open" says Daniel Huber. That in fact this is one of the questions we are currently investigating in my lab in Geneva".

Provided by University of Geneva

"Watching neurons learn." April 26th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-neurons.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Analytic thinking can decrease religious belief, research shows

A new University of British Columbia study finds that analytic thinking can decrease religious belief, even in devout believers.

The study, published today in the journal Science, finds that thinking analytically increases disbelief among believers and skeptics alike, shedding important new light on the psychology of religious belief.

"Our goal was to explore the fundamental question of why people believe in a God to different degrees," says lead author Will Gervais, a PhD student in UBC's Dept. of Psychology. "A combination of complex factors influence matters of personal spirituality, and these new findings suggest that the cognitive system related to analytic thoughts is one factor that can influence disbelief."

Researchers used problem-solving tasks and subtle experimental priming – including showing participants Rodin's sculpture The Thinker or asking participants to complete questionnaires in hard-to-read fonts – to successfully produce "analytic" thinking. The researchers, who assessed participants' belief levels using a variety of self-reported measures, found that religious belief decreased when participants engaged in analytic tasks, compared to participants who engaged in tasks that did not involve analytic thinking.

The findings, Gervais says, are based on a longstanding human psychology model of two distinct, but related cognitive systems to process information: an "intuitive" system that relies on mental shortcuts to yield fast and efficient responses, and a more "analytic" system that yields more deliberate, reasoned responses.

"Our study builds on previous research that links religious beliefs to 'intuitive' thinking," says study co-author and Associate Prof. Ara Norenzayan, UBC Dept. of Psychology. "Our findings suggest that activating the 'analytic' cognitive system in the brain can undermine the 'intuitive' support for religious belief, at least temporarily."

The study involved more than 650 participants in the U.S. and Canada. Gervais says future studies will explore whether the increase in religious disbelief is temporary or long-lasting, and how the findings apply to non-Western cultures.

Recent figures suggest that the majority of the world's population believes in a God, however atheists and agnostics number in the hundreds of millions, says Norenzayan, a co-director of UBC's Centre for Human Evolution, Cognition and Culture. Religious convictions are shaped by psychological and cultural factors and fluctuate across time and situations, he says.

Provided by University of British Columbia

"Analytic thinking can decrease religious belief, research shows." April 26th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-analytic-decrease-religious-belief.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek