The Rupert Sheldrake Course Explore the big questions in science
Dive into Rupert Sheldrake’s groundbreaking insights into consciousness, science, and reality, challenging the nature of human and ecological interconnection.
taught by Dr Rupert Sheldrake
Module 1Module 1: The Introduction
In many ways, the sciences have been immensely successful. From jet engines to the internet, smartphones to modern dentistry, the way the sciences have developed in our modern world has transformed our lives. Yet, this prestige is so enormous that most people don’t question the foundations on which it rest...
Module 2Module 2: Is Nature Mechanical?
Since the 17th century, the sciences have been based on the assumption that nature is machine-like; mechanical. It is made up of parts that work together mindlessly: the whole is not more than the sum of its parts. In this module, Rupert Sheldrake explores the machine model that science has been and contin...
Module 3Module 3: Are the Laws of Nature Fixed?
It’s assumed within science that the laws of nature are fixed and changeless: that they’ve been the same since the very beginning of the universe in the Big Bang, and that they’ll remain the same forever, as eternal mathematical laws. But context matters. What is the long intellectual history that lies beh...
Module 4Module 4: Is the Total Amount of Matter and Energy Always the Same?
The conventional assumption is that in the Big Bang, all the matter and energy in the universe suddenly appeared from nowhere and that the total amount has remained the same ever since. Modern cosmology supposes that dark matter and dark energy now make up 96% of reality, and dark matter actually emerged a...
Module 5Module 5: Is Matter Unconscious?
“All matter is unconscious: it has no inner life or subjectivity or point of view, and even human consciousness is an illusion produced by the material activities of brains.” The “hard problem” of this materialist philosophy, fortunately, can be dissolved with panpsychism, a concept that was new to philoso...
Module 6Module 6: Is Nature Purposeless?
One of the ten big questions in science, the answer from mechanistic materialism has been a no, since the 17th century. Accordingly, nature has no purpose: anything that happens within it, including evolution, involves no teleology. Processes are random. And yet evidence showing the opposite abound, from t...
Module 7Module 7: Is All Biological Inheritance Material?
In this module, Rupert Sheldrake opens up the question of the nature of inheritance, and the degree to which material inherited through genes and epigenetics can explain it. At the heart of contemporary biology is the unchanging principle that inheritance must be material, that there must be a material bas...
Module 8Module 8: Are Minds Confined to Brains?
The materialist dogma is that matter is the only reality and that matter is unconscious, the whole universe is made of unconscious matter, our brains are made of matter, and, therefore, they ought to be unconscious like everything else. Unfortunately for the materialist theory, we're conscious. In this mod...
Module 9Module 9: Are Memories Stored as Material Traces?
Nobody knows exactly how memory works. But within the materialist framework, there is no alternative conceivable aside from the fact that memories must be stored through modified nerve endings and phosphorylated proteins, and are wiped out at death. Philosophers have proposed that memory works by a direct ...
Module 10Module 10: Are Psychic Phenomena Illusory?
Whether or not telepathy is impossible or illusory is the best litmus test for dogmatic materialist worldviews. In this module, Rupert Sheldrake provides an overview of the scientific investigation of seemingly unexplained phenomena, and proposes his theory of what is the science behind telepathy within th...
Module 11Module 11: Is Mechanistic Medicine the Only Kind That Really Works?
According to the mechanistic materialist orthodoxy—the belief system or worldview we discuss in this series—the body is a machine, or a “lumbering robot” to use Richard Dawkins's phrase. Thus, the body can be treated by medicine, chemically or physically. This ideologically drives the funding of medical re...
Module 12Module 12: Scientific Futures - Where is All This Leading?
Despite the fact that more is spent on science than ever before, the actual rate of innovation in science of true breakthroughs has decreased dramatically. What we have now is largely incremental improvements, overall leading to a crisis of conscience and confidence within the scientific world. In this con...
Module 13Module 13: Questions and Answers
Rupert answers common questions related to the preceding modules.
Chapter 1
Q&A Part 1
Chapter 2
Q&A Part 2
Module 1414: Live Question and Answer with Rupert Sheldrake
Join Rupert Live on the 3rd of July 2024, 5:00-6:30pm uk time
Contemporary science is based on the claim that all reality is material or physical. There is no reality but material reality. Consciousness is a by-product of the physical activity of the brain. Matter is unconscious. Evolution is purposeless. This view is now undergoing a credibility crunch. The biggest problem of all for materialism is the existence of consciousness.
In this course, Dr Rupert Sheldrake shows the ways in which science is being constricted by assumptions that have, over the years, hardened into limiting dogmas.
According to these principles, all of reality is material or physical; the world is a machine, made up of inanimate matter; nature is purposeless; consciousness is nothing but the physical activity of the brain; free will is an illusion; God exists only as an idea in human minds, imprisoned within our skulls.
These beliefs are powerful not because most scientists think about them critically, but because they do not. The facts of science are real enough, and so are the techniques that scientists use, and so are the technologies based on them. But the belief system that governs conventional scientific thinking is an act of faith, grounded in a 19th-century ideology, or what Terence McKenna called ‘one free miracle’.
Together, these beliefs make up the philosophy or ideology of materialism, whose central assumption is that everything is essentially material or physical, even minds. Many scientists are unaware that materialism is an assumption.
But should science be a belief-system, or a method of enquiry?
In the skeptical spirit of true science, Sheldrake turns the ten fundamental dogmas of materialism into exciting questions, and shows how all of them open up startling new possibilities for discovery.
This course will radically change your view of what is real and what is possible.
- 13 Modules
- 14 Sessions
- 1 Speaker
- Curated readings and resources
- Community discussion area
- To understand how the natural world is alive, more like a living organism than a machine.
- To know how to put key questions to materialist friends or family members. They may refuse to answer them, but if they engage the discussions could be really helpful in expanding their understanding and your own.
- To recognise that the belief system that underlies modern scientific orthodoxy is just that, a belief system, sustained by ten dogmas, none of which hold up to sceptical scrutiny.
- To understand that memory is inherent in nature. The laws of nature may be more like habits than fixed eternal ordinances.
- To see that memories may not be stored inside brains. Instead brains may tune into them.
- To see that the total amount of matter and energy may not be fixed.
- To understand that genes explain only part of biological inheritance. Some inheritance depends on epigenetic modifications of the genes, giving an inheritance of acquired characteristics, and some may depend on collective memory.
- To recognise that your mind is more extensive than your brain and stretches out into the world in every act of perception.
- To see how phenomena like telepathy may be real and not illusory. Orthodox materialists preserve a taboo on this subject because the existence of psychic phenomena does not fit in with their worldview.
