a living and of course in our enlightened age, it's the rationalist for how we can manage and break free from the misconceptions and the superstitions of the ass illuminating to future with the help of the scientific method. but the one you've got q is a man and a perilous one. to discuss that i'm now joined by children also of the science delusion and science and spiritual practices. dr. shelldrick, it's a great on a great privilege for me to talk to you. thank you very much for your time. good to be with you. speaking about timely hanson and 70 years ago, in late september, i had a chance to interview my intellectual world the time professor richard dawkins also of the god delusion and one of the world's most renowned atheists who also happened to inspire a whole lot of books with the worries delusion in the titles in moving by the way yours. we have to give professor dawkins credit. he's done more for the soul

searching movement than the most happy. well, i think by pushing forward his uncompromising and aggression base, here's a new so to promote 2 arguments and provide responses. the title of my book wasn't actually chosen by me, but by publishers who sold it by playing off the title of his book to go through. this would be more clearly recognizable as an argument about the cherry lesson. but my measure for rushing to vote was not really dawkins which deep critique or see materialist view, which has come to dominate so much more than thinking. but if i understand before you came to that point, if your life of pondering the critique of materialism, you have your own. richard dawkins type phase for some 1015 years, i suppose somewhere until you and middle age. what happened,

or what made you leave that to me know by certainty? well, 1st of all, i always had doubts about the materialist approach scientifically. i'm a biologist, and i think simply to understand plants and animals, we need more than simply molecular biology and genes. we, there are organizing principles in life which i was working on. technically, in my research at cambridge. so 1st i had doubts about the science. then i traveled to india. i was doing con, tropical rain forest tons and i travelled through in here on the way. and i opened my mind amazingly. i mean, to see a whole civilization with a completely different world view where weston materialistic case years and seem rather shallow and threat that radio my eyes and it was really exposure to

eastern thought. and then i took up yoga and meditation. that was really what began to open me up so i don't understand you correctly that it for you. it was a more sort of gradual step. by step process of jackie, your old dog message could not find a satisfactory answer rather than by saying and brand matting experience that made the previous system unsustainable. yes, i would say it was a gradual process. and i'm in my son's to lucian. i extend processed by looking at the fundamental assumptions of material his sons. i'm not home to science. in fact, i'm totally chris, hans. i spent my whole career as a research scientist. but i think science is being restricted by on necessary. most not the reason i'm asking this is because i had the letter more experience that of coming face to face. if it's something that i could explain and at the same time

can explain away. and it was very similar to acquiring and different sounds like something in addition to i, side, valley, et cetera. and i think without this sort of rapture in my consciousness, i'm not sure i would be able to read your books today. the way i'm reading them now, i think i would be just a skeptical as most of your critics. so i wonder if one can even blame the rationalists for sticking to that guys, because i think they simply haven't had access to another haven't had access yet. hopefully to another way of experiencing reality. well actually i think most of them have, i think most people are any rationalists from 9 to 5 on monday to friday. you know, the official world view. so universities in business and government, people and education, people take out this ass, chewed into weekends and on holidays, you know, people,

at least in britain love getting back to nature and walking in the country side. and many have pet dogs and cats which have psychic abilities that go beyond their own class. there are no millions of people who taking psychedelic and true psychedelic of experience, also states of consciousness, also many and have a spiritual experiences through as continuous events like near death experiences and also millions and millions of people now meditate even if they're racist. they know meditate, and that gives access to different states of consciousness from the normal rather limited ones that were brought up with one of the most of the persuasive arguments that are reaching dockens any, at least for me, was that if there is a lacount knowledge, people are facing religious people should treated with respect to leave it open, leave it as it is, and not try to put everything on god. and i get it from your book that you believe

that many scientists are sort of doing a similar thing. they declaring everything or certain things to be fully understand, understood, and therefore closing the book completely on further investigation. is that how it looks to you is very much so i think to, you know, science has become incredibly dogmatic. i mean, richard dawkins himself is a good example of this. he's extremely dogmatic about certain things and i think that this is very bad for science. a lot of believers in scientism appears religions of being dogmatic, but in my experience, most religious people, i know not told magics and anger and myself, and they're usually quite monday. but many people who believe in scientists are incredibly dogmatic. so i think this situation is almost the reverse of the

standard caricature or how breaking matches your experiences in india. and my studies by history led me to believe that western world tends to be more detail oriented, more focused on the incremental ours as opposed to, let's say, some of the eastern approaches we see details as part of a bigger hole. do you think scientists, the way you see is primarily latin creature, or is it more universal? well, we have exposure to the rest of the world of trouble. china is, you know, officially, atheist and officially materialistic still has a marxist ideology. and so there's a huge country with an enormous resend world, which has been converted to western type, materialism, from mark central with weston. and, and so i would say that this through science,

technology and scientific education, this materialist fact attitude is not being taught in schools and universe just absolutely everywhere, not just in the west. now let's go over some of the documents that you mentioned in the book, the science. the 1st one you consider is the assumption that may change me a machine like going to call it our dear friend richard dawkins. we are all lumbering about. but apart from this, the complex before a robot one, so on. secondly, here about this assumption. well, 1st of all is any a metaphor? it's not approvable. ready testable scientific theory and it may be more appropriate to think of the whole universe, for example, as an organism rosin machine. in the 17th century, they used talk work models of the planet, says a model of the university kind of clock universe. but the big bang,

where the universe starts very small, expands and grows and forms new, more structures within it, that's much more like a developing embryo than any machine we know off. so i think that this machine metaphor is, can be helpful in some ways, but is very distorting. if we apply it to the hood of nature, it's also very anthropocentric and humans make machines and to protect this obsession of ours on the hood of nature, leads to a false view of nature. and i think as one reason we have that climate crisis, we're because we felt ourselves separate from nature and haven't seen the us as a living organism and our own life is thinking about this a sanctioning. i think the whole science is based on section of you know, standing the universe with an intention of understanding what it can do for us or

what it can do. she asked. so in a way, it's a very self centered approach. and then not that objective as some of the scientists with claim, because anything you take any object or self organizing system you take, it has sort of it leaves through reality, within its own continuum, a sense of a scale of time that for example, a tree has is very different from one of the mouse or one of the volcano and yet the all yeah, protein, all of them through our very human perception of time and need guess i think it is very and for the century, i mean some branches of science, a less to do with human utility, i mean our fro studying distant galaxies isn't particularly useful. and so there are still parts who sons, where the quest for truce is to a very important part of it is not whole just about utility. but the reason scientists get funding is usually because they pretend that their research is going

to be useful. they have to pretend issues. it hasn't not many of the dogs here dealing with that are concerned with the matter and nature of consciousness. and specifically whether human consciousness is the only one around, and it's kind of ironic, isn't it? that most of the pioneering ideas in these failed nowadays coming often the field of biology, all still the biology, all that say psychology, but from the field of physics. why do you think i miss assess who are supposed to be dealing with an inanimate universe? all of a sudden so interested in consciousness? well, they're not all interested in consciousness. i think that so it sounds them got interested because in quantum ferry, there's an emphasis on the importance of the observer and what you can observe and how you can nourish it's more sophisticated in physics, this discussion of epistemology how we know what we know as and he says in most

other fields of science, but i think that this debate about consciousness is actually leading both as says biologists and philosophers in new directions at the moment, which is quite exciting because the standard materialist assumption is that matter, throughout the entire universe is totally unconscious, except for matter inside our brains and maybe the branch of a few other animal species. however, the growth of pan sarcasm b, i go to some kind of consciousness within and throughout nature is not becoming a quite widely discussed you. it's not a new philosophy, after all, is very similar to traditional animism in many traditional cultures, but it's becoming intellectually respectable, at least in the english speaking world. and this is a new development within science and i think rather than exciting and rather welcome one. ok, well perhaps i shall take, we have to take a very short break right now,

but we will get back to be fascinating. discussion just him on ah, he's got to do is identify the threats that we have a treat, implementation, let it be an arms race is often very dramatic. development only i'm going to resist . i don't see how that strategy will be successful, very critical of time. time to sit down and talk we're allowing ourselves to be more efficient or quicker with our transactions. we can make mobile payments from our stands. the truth is that every device is a potential entry point for security attack. a,

eventually there's a thousands, maybe sometimes millions each day they use or they use the technology as an extension of traditional artificial intelligence. not many main threat. this is due to the 3 laws of robotics. one of the things that are in funds right now, i'd be where you're really worried about it. most people with a chip in my brain. so there has been a lot of progress from the hacker side using ai and using other advanced technologies. there has been on the defensive side oh well come back and forth with shelldrick on their own, the science delusion and science and spiritual practices. sheldrake,

before the break me on the subject of consciousness and knology and i put it in the beginning, and i'm going to indulge myself. what i'm that another decides that question for men to consider is whether he's connected to something he or she is connected to something according to young. the denial or the lack of that connection was behind me ailments. so we seem to be multiplying in our time despite all the developments more than that. and do you see any connection between the current rates of depression, neurosis and our belief in science? yes, i think there's a clear relationship. i mean, is so, so much belief in science is a message that's the problem. but belief in the ideology of materialist funds. where says that the universe is made up of unconscious matter. there's no purpose

in the universe or new condition, or indeed in human life. where isolated in the privacy of our skulls, separated from other people and from nature. this is a very separative, individualistic, few, i've asked a mystic individuals in of pointless universe. it's literally a depressing world view. and for those who take it seriously, it's not surprising that it needs to depression, and i'm not everyone who believes in it gets depressed, but for the whole culture to be based in this way of looking at the world, i think means that depression is likely to be endemic in 2nd modern societies and indeed there are millions and millions of people on anti depressant pills. i guess from your book that it's pretty well established, that religious and spiritual practices contribute in an immeasurable way of how not only in terms of them, blood pressure advocacy,

but even then brain architecture as well as on the opposite. you know, people who deny themselves the psychic damnation, they tend to have some more like a semantic. now, the question i wanted to ask you in connection to this is whether it is really all about the evidence, because the evidence is there for those who need them. and the thing that there's preaching in the channel scientists and i didn't really ask the evidence. well, no, usually not those here to preach in the template santos a true believers. highly committed to this well, few songs and i recall scientific fundamentalists then all that an incidence about psychic phenomena or about the value of spiritual practices because it goes against our world view. but the evidence is very strong. spiritual practices and religious practices make people happier,

healthier and live longer on average. and there's also a great deal of evidence for things like to let to see the dogs and catch picking up humans intentions. people anticipating who's going to ring on the telephone before the call comes and things like the sense of being said at knowing when someone is looking at you. well, these things, both cone experiences, most people have experienced and personally. and also this great did a scientific evidence of their radio. and yet people like richard dawkins actually deny that they happen and dismiss those who do research on the charlatans. i know this for a fact because i had a conversation with richard dawkins on these exact subjects, and he actually said to me, i'm not interested in discussing the evidence. it didn't fit his well view, which of course is a very on scientific attitude. i'm bringing back a small into because we know how history that most cultures understood the

deep psychological need to connecticut a little man b universe by the needs of meaning. and our super developmental function may make 5 that may dismiss and but the need to psychological need. i mean, i would say that it's an in thing is still there, even if it's not sure, even if there is no connection between bill hillman and the big universe when it makes sense to fit term as it show, simply out all humanistic reasons to make people you know, better, psychologically better. well, we don't need to pretend that we're connected to the whole universe. i mean, even according to regular sons, you know, we're major solid us. the whole universe is interrelated into connect to the gravitational and electro magnetic fields do actually, and to relate everything. the real question is whether there's

a consciousness beyond the human level and whether we can relate to that is the whole universe totally unconscious or underlying nature within nature is a consciousness will many forms of consciousness. that's the traditional view. and i think it's more reasonable view myself. i think that many people actually experience this connection with the gratian consciousness, not as a matter of pretence, but as a matter of experience through spontaneous mystical experiences through meditation, through spiritual practices. and my books on spiritual practices deals with 7 different bombs, including pilgrimage singing and chanting and sacred dancing. connecting with nature meditation. these are all practices that many people do, which often lead to a sense of our in conscience being part of something greater than ourselves. this

is a direct experience if you experience it, you know, it's true, you're not pretending it's true. and the experience, i think is more important science is supposed to be based on experience is supposed to be empirical and to deny our own experience in the name of dogma is not being very scientific in my opinion. well, in fact, i think people like that has a pretty open about using certain practices to alter that. i think it's better than medication i for mushrooms and i think would be after is newman offered you. the science of bron consciousness, which is a center for just experience, but trying to get us without you know, all the trappings of religious dog much isn't the guy ronnie, that the atheist would be chasing the very thing that religion was responsible for, for so many. so many years. well, i think that's

a very interesting point and i think good so unique mountain situation that we owe starvation. like dawkins simply dismissed religious and spiritual practices. nustar atheist, like sam harris. and i actually want these experiences of the transcendent, but then want to reinterpret them or explain them away. so i think they're in rather unstable position because i think if they persist with having these experiences through scientists, i've been in meditation. they may reach the point where they feel, do i really need to stick with this material is talk more. oh, can i just let go over some except that there's a greater consciousness of which my own consciousness is part. i suspect that if they persist with it long enough, they'll realize that the ideology they've committed to is no longer a necessary part of their lives. i heard you say something that we are on a,

on behalf of the major paradigm shift from a mechanistic material isn't here. and more than scientists, you know, the world and that i would love to believe that, but it's got to in me, sad material isn't, has very powerful beneficiaries within the konami in particular or assistance at dc powers that be on this planet with embrace such a shift given that business as usual, would not be sustainable after that will business as usual, is already changing for environmental reasons. even within the maturity as paradigm is quite clear that it's on sustainable. and so the people who are in favor of taking action to deal with the climate crisis and not simply religious people's spiritual people, a lot of perfectly normal scientific rationalistic people also agree with that. so

i don't think that's necessarily a problem because it's obvious for our own survival, we need to change the way we live. if people become more or have a greater sense of connection, for example, there's a revival of pilgrimage going on here in britain amendment. and indeed, all of europe fit so santiago to composter has, has led the way in the huge revival pilgrimage. even for people who are not more letters. no, that in itself doesn't subvert the materialist world, or least doesn't submit this economic system press program, spend money, they have to stay in places. they have drinks and pump, say each and restaurants. there's no particular reason why that should be opposed by the system and, and there's no particular reason why meditation should be opposed, in fact, there also to people who got meditation businesses. now we have only

a few minutes left and i do want to ask you about telepathy. i know that you see it as a normal rather than our normal means of communication between members of i one animal group or even different species. your book about the dogs and that owners is very, very interesting. i highly recommend anyone but good asking about my cat because i haven't very at times and he seems to know every time i, i'm approaching my house at least 20 minutes in advance. and this is how my kid understands that it's time for him to clean the room. i mean we, we make all sorts of jokes around or something, but it happens almost every day and, and different times of the day. and i get it from your blog that it's a pretty recon phenomenon. there's nothing particularly rare about it. no, well this, you know, millions of dogs and cats are doing this on a regular basis. about guns, surveys,

about 50 percent of dogs and about 50 percent of cats seem to anticipate the arrival of their owners. and in a few cases, it's just a minute or 2 before they could be hearing their footsteps approaching. but in many cases, like orange cat, this long before they could have heard or smelled the past in coming, especially if they're traveling by public transport or by unfamiliar vehicles. we've done film experiments showing this is a real phenomenon, and i just think it is a normal natural part of animal behavior. and my cat is very, very social and i think he's very attached, i would say, except for trust me at the discovery of your book, something that you gave to me is that it is this bond, this attachment, that actually can hear you. this sort of transference or whatever it is that i'm getting it right. yes. so smoothly to left the c occurs between closely bonded

people between animals and people that close to bonded band and the human realm. that happens. for example, between mothers and babies. i've done studies on telepathy between nursing mothers and babies between best friends, between lovers, between parents and children, between coast colleagues. it doesn't happen with random strangers. so i think it's very much to do with our bonds and i think in fact, any explanation of telepathy has to take into account the fact that it depends on bonds between closely connected people. i have to ask a question that i often ask myself when encountering such phenomena. where does one draw the line between experiencing something an ordinary and a frame? yes. can you personally tower it has it? is you mean all sorts of people laughing at those majority of people who have telepathic experiences. now, who's calling on the phone?

feel l. all people you feel they're being looked at? a perfectly normal and these are path in normal natural responses. i think some people just gets free. nick, who have voices think that the voices of telepathic when actually they may not be some people paranoid st. pete, looking at them all the time when they're not to say these are like past launch exaggerations of water, more normal and widespread phenomena bear. suddenly i don't think dog's name when people are coming home feeling that somebody you know is about to ring. you elisa, certainly not symptoms of psycho pathology in the vast majority of cases, but don't tell me how to leave it there. thank you very much for the fascinating discussion. thank you and thank you for watching hope to see you again next week. i well, the part ah ah

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ah, 2 weeks top stories are what are t international? food and medical supplies are running low for thousands of migrants come on the bellow, roofs, poland border trying to get into the view. with various aid groups, calling the situation of quote, desperate law correspondent is that the scene in brantley this girl at a branch. now she's bleeding and she needs help. but problem is that there are no medics around. there are no doctors around and i was really, nobody knows what, how to deal with this. well, meantime russia says the migrant chaos on poland border is down to western interventions in the middle east and denies. you claims that it's mos, the mining the crisis. also in the program the.