Footnote dh97

dh97. In his introduction to Immortality (Prometheus 1997), Paul Edwards tells us that William James

speaks of the Absolute Mind as "the mother sea" and "the great reservoir of consciousness." He does not explicitly endorse this position, but he writes about it with sympathy and respect. Among Western writers who have endorsed it are the physicist Erwin Schroedinger (1887-1961), known for his momentous contributions to quantum theory, and the influential novelist and political commentator Arthur Koestler (1905-1983). Schroedinger argued that contemporary physical theory which has abandoned the notion that particles are "identifiable individuals" naturally leads to the view taught in the Upanishads that the separation of individual minds is mere appearance and that "in truth there is only one mind." He suggests that at death "the veil of Maya," the deception of which makes us believe in the multiplicity of minds, will be lifted and we will realize that we are part of Brahman, the omnipresent, all-comprehending eternal self of Hinduism. Koestler believed that not only modern physics but also, and especially, the evidence of parapsychology support the view that there is a "psychic substratum," and "all-pervading mind stuff," a "cosmic cosciousness" out of which the "individual consciousnesses are formed and into which they dissolve again after threescore years and ten."

Note that belief in a cosmic mind-matter stuff need not entail belief in God or cosmic consciousness, as we know from Buddhism -- depending on how cosmic consciousness is defined -- and Bertrand Russell in his neutral monism period.

---

For other footnoted information on Edwards, please see:

Footnote np54
https://thetaman.blogspot.com/2020/05/footnote-np54.html
Footnote ds45
https://thetaman.blogspot.com/2020/05/footnote-ds45.html
Footnote sf51
https://thetaman.blogspot.com/2020/05/footnote-sf51.html
Footnote gk63
https://thetaman.blogspot.com/2020/05/footnote-gk63.html

---