Alex Gomez-Marin: Science Has Died, Can We Resurrect it? |644|

Consciousness, precognition, near death experience, and the future of science

Podcast: Download| Transcript|YouTube

Dr. Alex Gomez-Marin is a world-class expert on consciousness who isn't afraid shatter dogma. This brilliant physicist-turned-neuroscientist is challenging the status quo, pushing the boundaries of our understanding of consciousness by working with a subject who can see even though blind from birth. In this dialogue with Alex Tsakiris, host of Skeptiko, we explore the frontiers of post-materialistic science and the nature of reality itself.

Key Points:

1. The War for Truth in Science

Dr. Gomez-Marin believes we're in a metaphorical war for the soul of science. He states:

"I feel we are at war... Science has died. It's like, you know, when Nietzche had and he's misinterpreted there, but I have a similar feeling Science is dying or has just died, and we need to resurrect it."

2. The Challenge of Near-Death Experiences

Alex Tsakiris highlights the importance of near-death experiences (NDEs) in challenging materialistic paradigms:

"Gregory Shushan... probably the leading authority on near-death experience, across culture, across time... concludes that religious groups form beliefs about the afterlife from their near-death experiences."

3. Groundbreaking Research on Extraocular Perception

Dr. Gomez-Marin's work with a subject who demonstrates extraocular perception is truly extraordinary. As Alex Tsakiris points out:

"You're studying a subject who can see, even though they're blind from birth and even though you've run very carefully controlled experiments this extraordinary vision has been demonstrated… and now you've even demonstrated precognition in this experiment. This shatters the conventional scientific model that demands causation"

4. The Dangers of Transhumanism and AI

Dr. Gomez-Marin offers a scathing critique of Ray Kurzweil's transhumanist vision:

"He doesn't understand at all what it means to be human. And that his agenda... it's like, we can do it. We will do it and we should do it. I see a very dark impulse there under the machine, which is kind of a extinction of humanity... the shortcut through technology and then playing all the pseudo religion tricks under the narrative of science and technology."

He concludes: "So it's super dangerous and super wrong."

5. The Need for a New Scientific Paradigm

The conversation points to the need for a new approach to science that integrates objective and subjective experiences. Dr. Gomez-Marin reflects:

"How can we transcend? but at the same time include what we've inherited... we need to integrate... what Galileo said. Galileo said, I don't care what a thousand birds meaning people, the opinion, the doxa, the orthodoxy, like what a hundred people think. If I do an experiment and that's the greatness, right?"

This dialogue between Alex Tsakiris and Dr. Alex Gomez-Marin challenges us to rethink our assumptions about consciousness, science, and technology. It's a call to action for a more integrative, truthful approach to understanding our world and ourselves, one that embraces both rigorous empirical research and the exploration of extraordinary human experiences.