Spirituality for Deists

[Gnomon]

Excerpt from email to Siti :

I just added a blog post on the topic of spirituality. It was partly inspired by the recent book by Sam Harris. As usual, my slant on spirituality is colored by my special blend of Theism & Atheism, under the name of Deism. So it's not the same as Harris' half & half version of spirituality without god. I doubt that he would agree with my contention that Matter = Energy = Information = Mind. But, if true, it means that the power that flows through all physical processes is essentially mind-power *.

Spirituality without Spooks :
http://bothandblog.enformationism.info/page43.html

Spirituality for Scientists :
http://bothandblog.enformationism.info/page62.html

Materialism versus Spiritualism :

I have no problem with Science, except for the unwarranted assumption of Materialism. Skeptics argue that Science makes predictions that are verifiable, while pseudoscience only makes open-ended conjectures. But those reliable hypotheses are only for inanimate matter. Science is no better than Religion at predicting the future of living and thinking matter. Quantum Theory has thrown that primacy of Matter assumption in question, and pseudoscientists have exploited the gap with their own assumptions and guesses. Materialist physics make physical behavior predictable, but leaves mental activities mysterious.

Many scientists are annoyed by the notion of a conscious universe, because it provides fodder for supernatural and magical interpretations of metaphysical (mental) phenomena. But the Enformationism theory leaves no room in the universe for magical powers, other than the deceptions and illusions of one mind over another. The only true magic is creation of something from nothing, and that was done “outside” the physical universe, and prior to space-time. So my concept of God is as the great magician who creates worlds, not a king who moves pawns around in his Game of Thrones.


* Our worldviews seemed to be similar, except for my willingness to go beyond the boundaries of Nature to imagine an unreal deity of some sort, who created the universe from nothing but mental information. For all practical purposes, I try to base my beliefs on empirical evidence, where available. But for philosophical purposes, I feel free to speculate in areas where only theoretical reason can go. So I followed the lead of Information Theory to its logical conclusion, that the material world consists of immaterial energy/information. I'm aware that others, such as Deepak Chopra take that same conclusion, and interpret it to mean that the human mind can control the material world. But I haven't seen anybody actually doing anything more than bending spoons with stage magician tricks.