Consciousness, idealist philosophy, materialist philosophy, interdisciplinary, parapsychology, intelligent design of the universe

Book review

by Axel Randrup

e-mail aarandrup@myinternet.dk

of the book

A Genuine Theory of Everything

by Orogee Dolsenhe,

EBookstand Books Houston, USA, 2005.
xviii + 456 pages.

Author's e-mail odolse@juno.com

This book is an original and imaginative piece of work. The author is critical towards mainstream science and materialist philosophy. and specifically he criticizes the attempts of some physicists to make "a theory of everything" based on physics only. He thinks, that "everything" must include mind and consciousness, and in the book he tries to develop a genuine theory of everything based on an idealist philosophy.

In idealist philosophy consciousness is there from the beginning, but then "a material thing" requires explanation. Dolsenhe regards the physical world as a pile of mathematical equations and numbers, all considered as mental qualities.. He thinks, that our perceptual system adds perceptual qualia to the mathematical frame, like a sculptor attaches clay to a wire frame (pp. 134, 223,). Based on idealist philosophy I have described material objects as heuristic concepts useful for expressing observations within a certain domain with some of their mutual relations (1). Though not identical I think these two explanations are in quite good agreement.

The author proposes, that all there exists in nature are two fundamental entities of consciousness, the "primal consciousness" and the "nodink" and he undertakes to present an idealistic view of the universe based on these two entities (pp. 100, 133).

The word nodink is an abbreviation of node + link. The node may be a concept and the links may be between concepts. The basic property of nodink is its capacity to possess consciousness. A nodink can access the conscious content of another nodink, another person, the primal consciousness etc.

The supposed capacity of the fundamental entity nodink to access conscious content of another person of course readily places parapsychological phenomena such as telepathy within the authors paradigm. Indeed he regards telepathy as a fundamental entity of nature (p. 359).

Dolsenhe states, that parapsychology is one of the most stigmatized subjects in modern science, and he thinks, that in spite of rejection and ridicule investigators have provided convincing evidence for the reality of these phenomena. I concur with these views, but very lately more appreciative and balanced attitudes to parapsychology have appeared. Thus there is now a professor of parapsychology in the university of Lund, Sweden, and the Journal of Consciousness Studies has published two special issues on parapsychological subjects, edited in a balanced way ( Vol. 10, No. 6-7, 2003 and Vol.12, No. 6, 2005).

The author regards primal consciousness as the consciousness that supplies the property of awareness to individuals. No life can generate consciousness, organisms can only access the primal consciousness. He thinks the primal consciousness is a single, finite pool of resource of consciousness available to all beings.

He also thinks, there is an intelligent being, who determines and calculates every observed event in the universe and refers to this being as "metamind". He thinks. the metamind splits into five branches, each with specific roles, and that all the particles in the universe are not just created at one point and then left alone to interact by themselves - instead the universe is continuously created (pp. 136 - 139, 143). These views appear far-fetched to me. However, they can be seen as a contribution to the current discussion about a possible intelligent design of the universe.

The book presents a large material from psychology, physics, and biology and discusses it in an interdisciplinary way. I regard this as an important virtue of the book.

In the preface the author thanks Webb Harris for support in making a more readable text. This cooperation has not been without result. Difficult subjects are treated in an admirably understandable way, often by the use of comparisons and metaphors. An example of this is shown here in paragraph 2 above, the comparison with a sculptor.

For me the reading of this book has been an interestng and inspiring experience.

1. Randrup, A. 2005. Idealist Philosophy: What is Real? Conscious Experience Seen as Basic to All Ontology.
http://cogprints.org/4563/01/reality.html

August 17, 2006

Axel Randrup

aarandrup@myinternet.dk

Center for Interdisciplinary Psychiatic Research

http://cogprints.org/4565/01/ciripactivities.html