Science & Perception

giovedì, 22 febbraio 2018

For me, it is amazing to realize that seven years have passed since I wrote my first book, Science & Perception. Even with all of its issues, I am still amazed by its existence and even more by the sheer number of ideas that it contains. Admittedly, I could (or should) have edited and cleaned out some of these ideas in the hopes of making this work more approachable. On the other side, however, is that this book is an accurate snapshot of how I saw things so many years ago, providing insight into just how much my perspective has shifted over the years.

Science & Perception at its very core, is designed as a dialogue that explores whether it might be possible to describe the world in terms of perception or consciousness. I chose the word "perception" instead of "consciousness" sinece, especially at the time and in the circles I was familiar with, most people assumed that consciousness arose from physical processes in the brain. With this book, however, I wanted to do something distinctly different.

I wrote this book hoping to decouple assumptions of consciousness or perception, or conscious perception, from the brain and just start with perception alone. This, of course, led naturally enough into ideas of Wholeness, which often shows up as one of the main jumping points for this thesis. To approach this incredibly broad topic I created a set of characters with different world views, which can be thought of as the lenses through which they see the world.

This is not to say that there isn't a sense of nuance or finesse, but rather a set of base assumptions that each character brings to bear — not only on the dialogue, but also on the way they interpret the world. The cast of characters includes: a preacher, a philosopher, a physicist, a materialist, a mystic, and of course a narrator to name a few.

All in all, I was grateful and relieved when I finally finished this book, one which has served as a stepping stone to other books, discussions, and many different endeavors.

Yours in inspiration,
Michael Weaver